สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume III - 2011 57 Suwilai Premsrirat reach into homes of people even in remote areas. Such media uses global languages such as English or a national language. Nationalism too plays a role whereby national language and education policy determine or sculpture attitudes and values. For example, it heavily influences the speakerûs negative attitude about their ethnic language. The younger generation does not see the value of their ethnic language and increasingly choose to use the language of wider communication. The language situation in Thailand in the present time. Figure 2: Languages in crisis Ethnic minority languages in Thailand are declining. The younger generation is becoming monolingual in Thai which is the official/national language. At least 15 languages are seriously endangered. They are small, enclave languages that are surrounded by bigger languages. They are Chong, Kasong, Samre, Chung (Sa-oc), So (Thavung), Nyah Kur, Mlabri, Maniq (Sakai), Lavua, Mpi, Bisu, Gong, Moken, Urak Lawoc and Saek. All major non-dominant languages in Thailand are potentially endangered and show signs of contraction, especially in vocabulary and grammar such as Northern Khmer, Patani Malay, Mon, Lao Isan, Kammuang etc. Oral traditions such as folktales, poetry, songs etc., are severely endangered and are disappearing even faster than the spoken language itself. 54-75_mac9 5/3/12, 10:42 PM 57