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Lao, sometimes referred to as Laotian, is a Kra–Dai language of the Lao people. It is spoken in Laos, where it is the official language for around 7 million people, as well as in northeast Thailand, where it is used by around 23 million people, usually referred to as Isan. Lao serves as a lingua franca among the citizens of Laos, who also speak approximately 90 other languages, many of which are unrelated to Lao.
The Mon are an ethnic group who inhabit Lower Myanmar's Mon State, Kayin State, Kayah State, Tanintharyi Region, Bago Region, the Irrawaddy Delta, and several areas in Thailand. The native language is Mon, which belongs to the Monic branch of the Austroasiatic language family and shares a common origin with the Nyah Kur language, which is spoken by the people of the same name that live in Northeastern Thailand. A number of languages in Mainland Southeast Asia are influenced by the Mon language, which is also in turn influenced by those languages.
The Tai, Zhuang–Tai, or Daic languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spoken of the Tai–Kadai languages, including Standard Thai or Siamese, the national language of Thailand; Lao or Laotian, the national language of Laos; Myanmar's Shan language; and Zhuang, a major language in the Southwestern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, spoken by the Zhuang people (壯), the largest minority ethnic group in China, with a population of 15.55 million, living mainly in Guangxi, the rest scattered across Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou and Hunan provinces.
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Tai Yo, also known as Tai Mène and Nyaw, is a Tai language of Southeast Asia. It is closely related to Tai Pao of Vietnam, where it may have originated. It was once written in a unique script, the Tai Yo script, but that is no longer in use. The language is known regionally in Laos and Thailand as Tai Mène and Tai Nyaw and, in Vietnam as Tai Do and Tai Quy Chau. Superficially, Tai Yo appears to be a Southwestern Tai language but this is only because of centuries of language contact and it is properly classified with the Northern Tai languages. The Nyaw/Nyo spoken in central Thailand and western Cambodia is not the same as Tai Yo.
Michel Ferlus is a French linguist whose special study is in the historical phonology of languages of Southeast Asia. In addition to phonological systems, he also studies writing systems, in particular the evolution of Indic scripts in Southeast Asia.
The Kuy are an indigenous ethnic group of mainland Southeast Asia. The native lands of the Kuy range from the southern Khorat Plateau in northeast Thailand east to the banks of the Mekong River in southern Laos and south to north central Cambodia. The Kuy are an ethnic minority in all three countries, where they live as "hill tribes" or Montagnards. Their language is classified as a Katuic language of the Mon-Khmer language family. The Thais, Lao, and Khmer traditionally recognize the Kuy as the aboriginal inhabitants of the region. The word kuy in the Kuy language means "people" or "human being"; alternate English spellings include Kui, Kuoy and Kuay, while forms similar to "Suay" or "Suei" are derived from the Thai/Lao exonyms meaning "those who pay tribute". The Kuy are known as skilled mahouts, or elephant trainers, and many Kuy villages are employed in finding, taming, and selling elephants.
References
- ↑ Thai Song at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ↑ Somsonge, Burusphat (1 Jul 2012). "TONES OF THAI SONG VARIETIES" (PDF). Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. 5: 32–48.
- ↑ Somsonge, Burusphat (Feb 2013). "THE LANGUAGE SHIFT IN PROGRESS OF THAI SONG" (PDF). Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. 6: 18–34.
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