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48 The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume III - 2011 48 Thai-ization (www.omniglot.com ) In the same way, a Thai-ized transcription maybe used to represent the sounds of Thai dialects or languages of ethnic groups in Thailand that do not have writing systems. Thai-ization of Chong Suwilai Premsrirat, of Mahidol University, has reported that there are about 70 social groups in Thailand speaking different languages or dialects, including Central Thai dialects (37%), Northeastern Thai dialects (28%), Northern Thai dialects (10%), Southern Thai dialects (9%), Thai-Khmer dialects (3%), and Thai-Malay dialects (2%), with the remaining 11% speaking other Thai dialects or ethnic languages (Suwilai Premsrirat, 2007; Suwilai Premsrirat et al. , 2004). A number of those dialects and ethnic languages lack a writing system; the Chong language is one such example. Chong, a language belonging to the Mon-Khmer Austro-Asiatic family, is spoken by about 5,500 people in Chong communities in Rayong, Chanthaburi and Trat, and about 5,500 people along the Thai-Cambodian border between Chanthaburi in Thailand and Phothisat in Cambodia. Many place names in those three provinces are derived from the Chong language; e.g. the name of the province, Rayong (pronounced with a long final vowel), comes from the Chong word, ùrayongû (pronounced with a short final vowel), the name of a local tree, 45-53_mac9 5/3/12, 10:08 PM 48