The Politics on Languages in Thai Society

Abstract

Language is a part of culture and wisdom of all human being. It takes time to create and transfer from generation to generation. Language is not only tool of communication of people in society and ethnic marker but it is also a technology of power for construction the body of nation state by the construction of national language. While power of national language has increased, at the same time other languages in the nation state is excluded and oppressed. Thailand as a multilingual society, its history and culture have shown the prosperous diversity of linguistic and ethnicity community. It comprises of the Thai and non-Thai speaking communities such as the ethnic minorities languages in the highland communities in the north, the Lao and Khmer speakers in the northeast, Mon speakers in the west and the Thai-Malay speaking communities in the south. The state practices through the education system, politics, socio-economic development intend to construct the power of national language by a monolingual policy, since the modern nation-state had been built up to the present. However, there are several movements of minority language communities in responding to and negotiating with the monolingual policy and technology of power of the state. This is not only the linguistic revitalization and preservation but also the construction of their social space. This article attempts to understand and analyze the politics of languages in Thailand under the implementation of monolingual policy that causes the confrontation and negotiation of the ethno-linguistic communities for their social space construction.