RE: Linguistic Diversity and National Unity: Language Ecology in Thailand

From: Peter Constable (petercon@microsoft.com)
Date: Tue Nov 18 2003 - 15:21:15 EST

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    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org]
    On Behalf
    > Of Eric Muller

    > I just finished reading "Linguistic Diversity and National Unity:
    > Language Ecology in Thailand" by William Smalley, University of
    Chicago
    > Press, ISBN 0-226-76288/9, and I found it very interesting. However, I
    > have no reference to judge it against. Can anybody comment on it? Any
    > significant change since it was published 10 years ago?

    As I recall from when I read it 9 or so years ago, it fit what I was
    seeing or heard of from my vantage point in Chiang Mai up to mid 1995.
    (We've just unpacked books, so I could dig it out to refresh my memory.)
    I'm no expert on Thai sociolinguistics, though.

    I don't know what might have changed since then, but wouldn't expect
    huge changes. There was renewed interest in Chiang Mai in the Lanna
    script, and from what I've heard that seems to be continuing, though
    this is still relatively small, and it's mainly a cultural-pride matter
    (e.g. nobody's suggesting Lanna script should be taught in the schools
    rather than Thai script).

    Peter
     
    Peter Constable
    Globalization Infrastructure and Font Technologies
    Microsoft Windows Division



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