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About the Thai Language

Thai is the national and official language of Thailand and the first language of the Thai people and the vast majority of Thai Chinese. It is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family.

Thai is natively spoken by, according to Ethnologue, over 20 million people (2000). In reality, the number of native Thai speakers is likely to be much higher, since the Thai citizens throughout central Thailand learn it as their first language while the populations of western and eastern parts of Thailand, which has since ancient times formed the core territory of Siam, also speak central Thai as their first language. Moreover, most Thais in the northern and the northeastern (Isaan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects due to the fact that (Central) Thai is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media. A recent research found that the speakers of the Northern Thai language (or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak standard Thai, such that they are now using mostly central Thai words and seasoning their speech only with "kham mueang" accent.

Standard Thai is based on the Ayutthaya dialect, and the register in the educated classes. In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages. Although some linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these regional dialects/languages. Nonetheless, it is often claimed that the language policy of the Thai government[citation needed] has shaped the dominant view that these languages are only regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai".