Thai

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Abstract

Thai (ภาษาไทย phaasǎa thay) is the official language of the Kingdom of Thailand.It is the medium of instruction at all levels of state and most private schools and the main language used in the mass media throughout the kingdom.The native speaker population is given at 20 million in the Ethnologue, but Standard Thai, based on the Central Thai dialect spoken in Bangkok, is spoken to at least some degree by all 64 million inhabitants of Thailand.Thai is used in all aspects of daily life, including culture, religion, commerce and entertainment.Apart from a vast native literature, many pieces of world literature, classical as well as popular and scholarly, have been translated into Thai.Thai script is included in standard Windows and Macintosh applications, and most major mobile telephone companies produce localized mobile phones with Thai script and keypad, making Thai the only Southeast Asian language written in non-Roman script to have fully kept pace with the digital era.Thai has existed in written form since the late 13th or early 14th century, 1 and is the earliest member of the Tai-Kadai language family to be written.Thai is also the largest language of the family in terms of native speakers, followed by Lao or North-Eastern Thai, the only other member Tai-Kadai language family with official status at the national level (ca.15 million speakers in Laos and north-eastern Thailand), and Zhuang with some 14 million speakers in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China.Other important languages belonging to the same family are Shan, spoken in northern Myanmar, Black and White Tai in Vietnam and Lue, spoken in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan.All these languages belong to the Tai branch of the Tai-Kadai language family.The most westernmost branch of the family includes Aiton and Phake, as well as the now extinct Ahom, known from chronicles and ritual texts, in Assam.# The members of the Kadai or Kam-Sui branch are scattered throughout south-eastern _____ 1 There is some discussion among Thai and Western scholars concerning the authenticity of the first inscription in Thai, viz. the Ramkhamhaeng inscription, traditionally dated to 1292 CE (s.Chamberlain 1991).

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