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Mon Jan 13 16:21:20 UTC 2014

Realising the spirit of the new Thai National Language Policy
 Dr Peerasit Kamnuansilpa,
Dr. Gerald W Fry January 13, 2014 1:00 am
     In line with the spirit of the draft Thai National Language Policy,
the Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme (ICMRP) has
attempted to preserve and support regional Thai culture. The draft policy
may ring a bell with many of you, as a recent article by Professor Gerald
Fry, which discusses the policy, was referred to in one of my earlier
columns.

Let me reiterate again that while the draft Thai National Language Policy
would make the Thai language Thailand's official language, Mahidol
University has found that there are about 70 indigenous languages spoken in
Thailand. Four of these are recognised regional languages, namely Central
Thai (Thai Klang), Southern Thai (Pak Tai), Northern Thai (Kam Meuang), and
Northeastern Thai (Isan, technically 'Thai Lao').

This article looks at the innovative ICMRP project and how it has attempted
to preserve and support regional Thai culture. The ICMRP is a four-year
project (2012-2016) involving a consortium of five partners, namely Ban
Phai, Chum Phae, Khon Kaen and Meuang Phon municipalities, together with
the College of Local Administration (COLA) at Khon Kaen University (KKU).

Also involved are staff from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
the Department of Culture, and the Faculty of Fine Arts at KKU; senior
local experts at Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University (Khon Kaen
campus); and the Ministry of Culture's Department of Culture Promotion,
which has licensed a special 16,000-word Thai-Isan dictionary for
publication. There are also strong academic links with Mahidol University's
Research Institute for Languages and Culture of Asia.

Of note, all the municipalities in the ICMRP are quasi-autonomous under the
1999 Decentralisation Act, and thus this is an important example of the way
that decentralised municipalities are successfully and creatively working
together.

The ICMRP began in 2012 and is designed to develop effective ways of
preserving local Isan culture by incorporating it in municipal education
departments, urban life, and the formal education system. Each municipality
works on a focus area in the first two years and then shares its
experiences and an implementation plan in the last two years.

The ICMRP sees language as an integral part of culture, and therefore it
supports a programme of municipal change which promotes Thai national,
local (Isan in this case), and international culture, with four major
components.

Firstly, it supports locally designed and made school uniforms, developed
by Ban Phai Municipality because of its relationship with the famous Isan
silk village of Chonnabot. Ban Phai is responsible for producing
locally-designed and manufactured Isan-style uniforms for municipal
officials, teachers, and students. This stimulus of the domestic economy
provides cash jobs for those in villages, particularly the elderly,
contributing to less migration to the cities. It also preserves and
promotes local Thai wisdom and the dying art of weaving local Isan silk.

Secondly, ICMRP Chum Phae supports multilingual Thai-Isan-English signs
that are both attractive and pay respect to Thai as the national language,
principally by making sure Thai language is in a higher position on the
sign or is in a larger font. The alphabet used is Tai Noi, which was
developed in the reign of the Sukhothai-period by King Lithai and was
widely used throughout the greater Mekong
<http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/?keyword=+Mekong+>subregion at one
time; it was one of many pre-cursor scripts to modern Thai and is still
occasionally used in Isan, especially in temples and on palm-leaf
manuscripts. Tai Noi has similarities to the Lao script, and, thus, its
promotion will facilitate language learning valuable in the Asean
<http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/?keyword=+Asean+>Economic Community
(AEC) era.

Thirdly, the programme supports an Isan curriculum, developed by Khon Kaen
Municipality, which won an award from the King Prajadhipok Institute for
its good management practices, particularly in the area of building good
ethnic identity relations. Khon Kaen Municipality has also strongly
promoted a local cultural hero, Sinsai, together with Thai heroes, in its
curriculum and throughout the city, as an alternative to international
cultural heroes. It has now introduced the Tai Noi alphabet and has started
teaching Isan language as a subject, as a pilot project, in the formal
curriculum.

Finally, ICMRP Meuang Phon has developed a multimedia database of Isan
cultural performances such as lullabies, styles of traditional Isan
fighting dance, shadow plays, and the regional speciality, "moh lam". These
performances are being recorded and also introduced into the Khon Kaen
Municipality curriculum. This helps preserve and promote local Thai
cultural performances and encourages cultural tourism within the Northeast
region.

The ICMRP welcomes a future where the formal Thai educational system
supports teaching local Thai languages together with standard Thai, where
doctors and nurses are trained to communicate with their patients in local
languages to ensure better patient care, and where municipalities and
districts use a local language together with Thai in order to communicate
more effectively and sensitively with their citizens.

This future could be one where primary school Thai students may choose the
language in which they take tests (though in schools with good resources
they should be able to take tests in Thai at secondary level) and so have
the opportunity to perform better academically and realise their
intellectual potential, as well as to ensure higher self-respect and
esteem. These traits in turn also lead to lower truancy, lower drop-out
rates, and better emotional intelligence. Thailand needs smarter and
happier students and citizens, and supporting the draft Thai National
Language Policy is one creative and inspiring way to achieve this.

The ICMRP can be found at www.icmrpthailand.org and
www.facebook.com/icmrpthailand.

Dr Peerasit Kamnuansilpa is associate professor and former dean and founder
of the College of Local Administration at Khon Kaen University.

peerasit07 at gmail.com

Dr. Gerald W Fry, Distinguished International Professor, the Department of
Organizational Leadership and Development, College of Education and Human
Development, University of Minnesota.

-- 
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Realising-the-spirit-of-the-new-Thai-National-Lang-30224089.html
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