Talk:Isan language

Evaluation
Overall, this article has some very important and interesting information. I appreciate all the examples of the Isan language, but there is also a little too much of this. This is evident by the fact that there are two sections that contain identical information under the title "Identical vocabulary in Lao and Isan but distinct from Thai". All the examples are making the article look cluttered. One major issue with this article is all the statistical information from Hattaway, P. I don't think a prayer guide in general is a good source, but the biggest problem with all this cited information is how old or misrepresented it is. The article claims that there are 21 million native Isan speakers, referencing the 1995 census, which is cited from Hattaway, P. Thai census does not acknowledge Isan as a language, therefore does not ask this, so I was confused about where Hattaway, P. received this information. After looking at the book, I see he just gave the 1995 census of all people living in the Isan region of Thailand, so if one was to claim every single person living in Isan region can speak the Isan language, I think it would be better to use updated census information at the very least. Jtwelsh (talk) 13:20, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Untitled
The link in the references section: "Basic Isaan phrases (Some basic Isaan phrases with sound files)" is dead and has moved to a new address at http://siamsmile.webs.com/isaan/isaan.html. I tried editing in the new address, but it was removed. Hope someone can correct it. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blutey (talk • contribs) 10:15, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Everyday usage in Isan considered vulgar or obscene in Thai
Consider for inclusion terms in Isan consider vulgar or obscene in Thai; of the many, these may be the best examples --Pawyilee (talk) 07:31, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) บัก n. mister, used as the title before the name of a man in the Northeast of Thailand; (Slang) a mans privy part, a cock. บักโกรก (บัก-โกฺรก) บักโกรกอานบักหนาน a. vi. adv. (to work) to exhaustion; exhausted, done for. บักหนสน (บักหฺนสน) n. (S) a man from the Northeast of Thailand or Laos; a boor. Synonym   บอบ
 * 2) หำ (Slang) the testicles or scrotum
 * 3) บักหำ young man
 * 4) บักหำน้อย little boy by adding น้อย a. tiny (tot)
 * 5) อีแล little girl, from อี prefix of contempt and แล v. to look, see, glance;  keep an eye on

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Lao Isan
I googled "Lao Isan language" and found less than 20 results. Is it "common" and "primary" alternative name as you claimed? --01:01, 5 March 2018 (UTC)Potapt (talk)

Tones
Why are you separate "ไม้เอก" & "ไม้โท" from short and long vowel? I think it have to analyze like these data.

• Short vowel -ไม้เอก -ไม้โท

• Long vowel -ไม้เอก -ไม้โท

But you separate to less the understanding. I'm a bit confused. Juidzi (talk) 06:20, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Mutual Intelligibility with Thai
There are no references for this claim, and while there are similarities between languages there are also differences and any mutual intelligibility is likely code-switching (from the Lao/Isan side). 171.4.218.110 (talk) 04:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Tai Lue is not northwestern
Tai Lue has higher cognates with Tai Yuan than Shan. It is not a northwestern Tai language — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberwikip (talk • contribs) 16:55, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Clean up
I have already cleaned much of this previously extremely overly detailed article by deleting or transfering 1/3rd of it to other articles. However, the "Overview of the relationship to Thai" section is still a problem to me. The concept of such a comparison itself is "strange". Thai and Isan do not belong to the same sub-group of SW Tai so such a comparison is like comparing Dutch and English and talking about consonant relationships like th>d and s>z, as if Dutch derived from English. Aside from that, most of this section is completely unsourced and most likely original research. The long list of lexical items is also a bit too much, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The "Overview of the relationship with standard Lao" has similar problems, very few sources, probably a lot of original research, but it is more relevant to the article in my opinion. --Glennznl (talk) 20:13, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I am going through another round of cleaning this (previously extremely) bloated article. The "Overview of the relationship to Thai" section is still a problem I want to discuss with somebody before deleting it all. Especially the "Phonological differences" subsection is very strange, as it compares sound changes from Proto-SW Tai to Lao and to Thai, with each other. This whole comparison does not make much sense (see example in my comment above), and perhaps a much more cut down version of these sound changes should be on Lao language instead. I also don't see the use in comparing tones between Isan/Lao and Thai, and this subsection seems to be original research. Lastly, the "Thai alphabet" subsection is also unsourced and cluttered with many examples that won't make sense to the average audience, it would also need work. What are your thoughts? --Glennznl (talk) 16:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree it's a bit of a mess, and thank you for cleaning it up. Whoever did all this OR work, I applaud the effort to provide encyclopedic coverage of minority languages, comparable to our coverage of national languages like Siamese. (I know that name is archaic, but "Thai" reflects the same ethnocentrism that makes this article a problem.)

Given the context that most people interested in Isan are going to be in or have been in Thailand, and likely familiar with Siamese, a direct comparison with Siamese makes sense. After all, if there were a Dutch enclave in the UK, we'd have at least one article dedicated to comparing Dutch to English. Same if Danish had survived in the Danelaw. I think that's entirely appropriate.

But we're not Thai WP, and from an external perspective Isan is not a language at all, just a geographic extension of the Lao language. (Or perhaps Lao is a geographic extension of the Isan language?) For the Thai-Isan comparison, I think that it should be made clear that it's actually a Thai-Lao comparison, with the comparison being specific to the Lao spoken in Thailand. The classification in the infobox reflects this bias, portraying Isan as a coherent variety of Lao when the dialects all cut across the border.

I agree with you that the Isan-Lao comparison should probably be merged to our coverage of Lao dialects. It'd be tricky to cover the dialects under a unified Isan-Lao article at the same time as we present the national standard of Lao. Maybe our articles on German could be used as a guide. Or keep 'Lao language' and 'Isan language' as the base articles, and move the coverage of dialects to a new article 'Lao-Isan dialects'? The problem with that would be finding sources that cover both, so we're comparing like with like. I don't know, but I suspect that most sources on dialects limit themselves to one side of the border. But if possible, I'd think that a unified article under a unified name would be an improvement.

I guess my objection is that the current setup reflects the nationalistic Siamese view that they are the Thai and that the Tai languages spoken in Thailand are dialects of their language, rather than the objective conclusion that the major languages of Thailand are Siamese and Lao, and that the Lao language is divided between Thailand and Laos just as Dambro is divided between Thailand and Malaysia. But given the social situation, it's entirely justified to have an article specific to Thailand Lao, just as we'd want an article on British Dutch if such a thing existed.

I don't know if that's any help at all. My main concern is that I think we should be clearer that "Isan" is the Lao language spoken in the Isan region, where it's under Siamese influence but is not a separate language from Lao in a mutual-intelligibility sense. If I were writing my own encyclopedia, I think I'd call this article something like "Lao language in Thailand". — kwami (talk) 17:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughts.
 * You are correct with pointing out that this article often treats Isan as a legitimate language, while a more accurate definition is "a collective term for Lao dialects as spoken in Thailand". The classification already explains this, but the article is not very consistent in it.
 * The Thai-Isan comparison is not irrelevant and it definitely would fit this article, but the current set-up is strange. I would expect information about the diglossic situation, the language shift to Thai, Thai lexical influence etc. These subjects are mentioned in other parts of the article, but the actual Thai-Isan comparison starts out with a proto-SW Tai sound change comparison.
 * Your idea for a Lao dialect article would work, if we find the right sources for it. The current dialect section on Lao language is one of the parts I transfered from this article elsewhere. Such an article could provide a non-biased, purely linguistic discription of these border-crossing dialects, and could also include the comparison between the "Isan dialect collective" and the dialects in Laos. However the Isan-Lao comparison on this page lacks sources and is most likely Original Research, so it would take serious work creating a new page like that.
 * Talking about steps to take next, shall I remove the "Phonological differences" under "Overview of the relationship to Thai" (probably transfering salvagable parts to Lao language), and then instead transfering subsections "5.4.2 Code-switching" and "5.4.3 Thai-influenced language shift" to "Overview of the relationship to Thai"? --Glennznl (talk) 08:37, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Sounds good.
 * I meant I applaud efforts by people to give their languages the coverage they deserve. But we can't trust them to get it right w/o sources (or even with sources sometimes), so unfortunately such efforts are often wasted. A shame that the people who know the language the best may be effectively excluded from writing about it.
 * I don't see that we need an Isan-Lao comparison at all, since the difference from Laotian Lao is the Thai influence, which you're already covering. I imagine just mentioning that the dialects in Thailand are influenced by Thai, and referring to this article should be enough. — kwami (talk) 18:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)