Talk:Northern Khmer people

Lack of neutrality of the article
The term "Northern Khmer people" is highly controversial within Thailand. The renaming of the article as "Thai-Khmer people", as was first proposed in WikiProject Thailand in order to avoid controversy, would give it a wider and more neutral scope. There are Thai ethnic Khmer in Trat and Chanthaburi provinces who are technically not Northern Khmer. Moreover, the term "Northern Khmer" is not used in all the pertinent literature, for scholarly works produced in Universities in Thailand about the ethnic Khmer in the country avoid that term for its political connotations. And one should be careful not to sideline these works for some are produced by ethnic Khmer in Thailand themselves.

Thereby the naming of the article as "Northern Khmer people" is not neutral. For example, the Swiss-German people are technically "Southern Germans", but using that term referring to them would have great, and highly controversial, political implications within Switzerland.(Xufanc (talk) 02:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC))


 * You raise a couple of points and I shall attempt to answer the last one first. Your example of the Swiss-German is not analogous as the the Swiss-German people typically refer to themselves as Swiss-German and not Southern German.  The Northern Khmer people tend to self-identify as Khmer or more specifically as "Khmer Surin" or "Northern Khmer".  Hence, the name chosen for this article.


 * Secondly, while the scholarly works produced in Thailand are invaluable sources of information for this article, they should not be relied upon to name this article. One reason being this is the English Wikipedia and articles should be named independent of the politics of another country.  Another reason being works produced in Thailand tend to be influenced by Thai government policy.  You say using "Northern Khmer....(has) political connotations"...I say not using it has political connotations.


 * Thirdly I quote from WikiProject Cambodia: "The main purpose of this Wikiproject is to promote Cambodian culture, its people and etc"  the wikiproject is not limited to people/events/histories/etc. only within the borders of present-day Cambodia...accordingly, this article does indeed fall within the purview of the Cambodia wikiproject as well as the Thailand wikiproject.
 * I had decided to write the article today, but we must be living in two different time zones, for when I got up it was already there. Forget about the Swiss-German/South German example if it has not helped to highlight the potential conflicts of dissolving the lines between the cultural/linguistic sphere and the political sphere. If there was a separate WikiProject Cambodian Culture, no problem. But the article is about people living within the borders of the Thai state. Therefore it should stick to the Thai state.


 * Regarding the Northern Khmer, they are only the most sizable Khmer group within Thailand. The other two groups of Khmer, even though smaller, should be neither disregarded nor lumped together under the name "Northern Khmer". The smaller second group are "Western Khmer" minorities in Sa Kaeo, Chanthaburi and Trat Provinces. Finally the third group are Khmers that either migrated to (or were resettled in) the ancient Kingdom of Siam in different periods of history and for different reasons. These sometimes formed small communities, some of which have kept their identity in different parts of Central Thailand, like in Suphanburi and Ratchaburi Provinces, as well as in Phichit further north, among others.Xufanc (talk) 06:53, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * "But the article is about people living within the borders of the Thai state. Therefore it should stick to the Thai state:" What a non-nonsense! Fortunately there are other states (of mind) apart from the Thai state. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vanhout (talk • contribs) 19:34, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

This isn't a neutrality or POV dispute, it is a naming issue, and one that has had no input for two years. I am therefore removing the pov tag and listing the page on Requested moves for a name to "Thai Khmer People." Whatever the Thai and Cambodian project arguments may be worth, this is the English wikipedia and the most commonly-used term within the English scientific literature should apply. Google Scholar and other large-sample scholarly databases have a paucity of references to any Northern Khmer people as an ethnic or linguistic group. By contrast, Thai Khmer has multiple usages.Eggishorn (talk) 22:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


 * That is because they are often not considered a separate ethnic group...their ethnic group is Khmer people and they are the Khmer people living north of the present Thai-Cambodia border, hence Northern Khmer is the proper name. "Thai Khmer people" is a description of a (current) nationality, not an ethnicity. Additionally, "Northern Khmer" is an exclusive and specific term that refers only to the Khmer native to the Isan area whose language is the Northern Khmer language. That is the subject of this article. "Thai Khmer people" would refers to all Khmer who are citizens/residents of Thailand, including those who are not Northern Khmer (i.e. those native to eastern Central Thailand and recent refugees and immigrants from Cambodia) who are outside the scope of this article.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 02:30, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no consensus. --BDD (talk) 17:36, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Northern Khmer people → Thai Khmer People – Per WP:ETHNICGROUP, Thai Khmer has more scholarly usage than Northern Khmer in English-language journal articles. Relisted. BDD (talk) 19:37, 9 October 2013 (UTC) Eggishorn (talk) 23:08, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Strong Oppose see my explanation above.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 02:30, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose My basis is strictly on the basis of a google books search that showed 8 hits for the current title and 3 hits for the proposed. The search term "Northern Khmer" thailand -vietnam produced 840 google book hits of a quality that seems to indicate it's a term with prominence in English literature. I couldn't produce results that showed Thai Khmer was more predominant. My search for "Thai Khmer" produced more results relating to the Thai and Khmer ethnic groups and their various relations not Khmer in Thailand. Either way, I didn't get results that convinced me the change is in fact in greater use.--Labattblueboy (talk) 03:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.