東北タイにおける域内格差と民族・言語の関わり

抄録

The majority of all ethnic Lao live in northeastern Thailand and their mother tongue is the Lao language. But Thai government prohibited the usage of the name “Lao” and forced to call the Lao language as the Isan language and ethnic Lao as Isan.

This study discusses young Lao's linguistic recognition about the Thai language, the Isan language and the Lao language. In 1999, I conducted a survey of young Lao's linguistic recognition on 438 college students in the northeastern Thailand.

In this study, I propose the idea of “distance between two languages” to analize the difference of languages. I also apply this idea to three languages used in the northeastern Thailand, that is, the Thai language, the Isan language and the Lao language.

The conclusion is that young Lao regard the distance between the Thai language and the Isan language as the inbetween of the same language and different languages. They also regard the distance between the Isan language and the Lao language as the inbetween of the same language and different languages. And they regard the Thai language and the Lao language are different languages.

I also came to the conclusion that which language each ethnic group use depends on the difference of the status they are in the northeastern Thailand. Lao is bilingual of the Thai language and the Lao language, and under the state of diglossia. Khmer is trilingual of the Khmer language, the Thai language and the Lao language. Khorat is bilingual of the Khorat language and Thai language.