Talk:Thai people

Untitled

Thailand is a country in the Asian Pacific. It is located in the cnetre of south-east Asia. Thailands population consists of 83, 585 thousand people. It's people per km is 125. Where does the figure of 51 million come from? I ask because Thailand has well over 60 million people. Of course, maybe we are excluding people in Thailand that are not Thai. But still, I am curious about the source. Anagnorisis 04:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It's from the CIA factbook, and it's the figure for ethnic Thais. It actually includes the Lao as well, so it should be much lower. For the population of Thailand see Thailand. Mark^{your words} 11:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The joshua project says that about 30 million THAI.

There are 20 million ethnic lao people in Thailand, so the population should be much smaller. Anyone care to change? CanCanDuo 16:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That figure of 62,000,000 Thai people in Thailand cannot be correct. The entire population of Thailand is estimated to be around 64,631,595, and only about 75% of those are ethnic Thais. The remainder are mostly Chinese. The total non-Chinese population of Thailand should be approximately 55,583,171, but that figure also includes a total of approximately 7,109,475 ethnic Malays, Khmers, Mons, and other non-Thai people. Ebizur 18:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, about 29.4% of Thailand's population (approx. 19,000,000 people) speak the Isan dialect of the Lao language (it is really part of a dialect continuum between "Thai" and "Lao", apparently), which means that this large fraction of the Daic population of Thailand is ethnolinguistically more closely related, or at least equally related, to the Lao people that predominate in neighboring Laos. Ultimately, slightly less than half (about 45.6%) of the population of Thailand is ethnically Thai, which would put the Thai population of Thailand at approximately 29,472,007 or close to 30 million persons. Ebizur 18:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

"related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 23:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Appearance

When I looked up this article I was looking for things about their genetics, ie tall or short, eye color etc since this is an ethnic group. 75.164.159.157 (talk) 22:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

How can you make the number of Thai ethnics population in Thailand at 64 million?

I have Thai nationality by birth, but I can't consider myself as a Thai or Tai ethnic. There are at least 8 million Han-Chinese origin in the country. And around 3-5% population of 64 million is Malay (which most them are Muslims)

125.25.84.157 (talk) 17:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

คุณลองอ่านบทความให้ดีครับ บทความนี้เขากล่าวถึงว่า เดิมทีใช้เรียกเพียงแค่ชาวสยามครับผม แต่นานๆเข้าอย่างที่ชาวไทยเรานั่นแหล่ะเข้าใจว่า ชาวสยามมันน้อยลง(ซึ่งที่จริงก็ไม่ได้หายไปไหนหรอกเพียงแค่ว่ามันถูกกลืนกับชนกลุ่มน้อย และด้วยนโยบายจอมพล ป ที่มีลูกมากซึ่งชาวจีนมีลูกมาก) เราทราบๆกันดีครับว่าคนไทยส่วนใหญ่สืบเชื้อสายสยามกันหมดถ้าเป็นพวกคนภาคกลางและภาคใต้ เพียงแต่ว่าถ้าเป็นชาวสยามแท้ หรือไม่ก็เป็นเชื้อชาติหลักเป็นไทยสยามจริงๆมันมีน้อยครับผม ตอนนี้ผมกำลังหารูปที่เป็นชาวสยามใว้เป็นตัวอย่างครับ เท่าที่เห็นว่ามีรูปในวิกิหน้าภาษาอังเกรียนแล้วก็เพียงเห็นแค่ลีซอ น้าเทิด และ สมเถา สุจริตกุลครับ เดี่ยวจะงมๆต่อให้ครับ

อย่างที่คุณสงสัยว่าบทความนี้กล่าวถึง ไทย(thai) หรือ ไท(tai)-กะได นั้น บทความนี้เขาเหมาแค่เฉพาะ ไทยที่เป็น thailand อะครับ นั่นแปลว่าเขาเหมาเอาชาวสยาม ชาวล้านนา ชาวลาวตะวันตก(อีสานบ้านเฮา) และชาวเขมรเหนือ(ไอ้ปากห้อย) ครับผม คงคลายใจแล้วนะครับ

--โจ : แฟนท่าเรือ : เกรียนที่หน้าตาไม่ดีแห่งไร้สาระนุกรม : พูดคุยกับควายตัวนี้ได้ที่นี่ 12:00, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

This is English Wikipedia. Please use English, so that every user will be able to read your post. --RJFF (talk) 12:43, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Most of Thai Chinese are not Han Chinese, they are Thai Chinese, since most of them had thai blood/genes. According to the latest study of chinese genetic in China, chinese are 75% southeast asian, of that 35% austronesian/malay, and 40% are tai kadai

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example people

it's hardly to find about majority Thai Siamese people ethnic, in modern days in thailand thai siamese it so few (in my opinion i go out from my house i found major thai-chinese, laotians, southern-thai, lanna people) also thai super star are so few pure siamese people and to hard to example thai people article, my ethnic father - Teochew, mother - gujarati, persian, malay, hainanese, siamese, portuguese and my mom also Colonel(army) --โจ : แฟนท่าเรือ : เกรียนที่หน้าตาไม่ดีแห่งไร้สาระนุกรม : พูดคุยกับควายตัวนี้ได้ที่นี่ 11:53, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, but you don't have to cluster half of the infobox with luk khreung, as if luk khreung were the only typical or notable Thais. The infobox of an ethnic group does not necessarily have to feature superstars. There are still enough people of mixed descent in the infobox. Samak Sundaravej has Thai-Chinese and Lao roots, Aed Carabao has Chinese roots, even King Rama I had partly Chinese roots. I agree that you will hardly find any modern Thai who is of 100% Thai heritage. --RJFF (talk) 12:42, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Answering your post on my user talk page: It is not me who claims that 75% of the population of Thailand are ethnic Thais. It is the CIA World Factbook. Obviously, they subsume central Thais, Lanna, Southern Thais and Thai-Lao in Isan under the category 'Thais', while 14% are ethnic Chinese and 11% other. Of course that is not entirely correct, as it mixes up the nationality 'Thai' (consisting of different ethnic groups) and the ethnicity, by summarizing all native, congeneric ethnic groups as Thais. But so does the article. The article covers central Thais (or Siamese), northern Thais (or Lanna), southern Thais, and Thai-Lao (or Isan people). If you think that this is incorrect and unbearable, you can propose to split the article, then the community will decide, and there will be either consensus to do so or not. But I, personally, think that the different ethnic groups of Thailand have blended and intermingled to an extent that it doesn't make sense (or is even impossible) to consistently differentiate between separate etnicities. Your diverse ancestry (as you recited above) is a good example for this phenomenon. --RJFF (talk) 14:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Considering the nicknames: I think that we should use the official names, unless the person is much more commonly (or exclusively) known under their nickname. "Aed" Carabao, for example, who is almost never referred to as Yuenyong Opakul, should be cited as Aed Carabao. I know that nicknames are used very often in Thailand, but you can compare e.g. to Oprah or Beyoncé who are usually known by their first names in the US and internationally, but Wikipedia lists them as Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé Knowles, because it is an encyclopedia and not a yellow press outlet. --RJFF (talk) 14:46, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Yep, I agree on the use of nicknames. Nearly all Thai people have them, but the proper way to refer to them in any polite context is by their real names - with the exceptions of those who are actually best known by their nicknames. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:54, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

compare the term between of siamese and thais

i am waiting --โจ : แฟนท่าเรือ : เกรียนที่หน้าตาไม่ดีแห่งไร้สาระนุกรม : พูดคุยกับควายตัวนี้ได้ที่นี่ 19:50, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Lede

Thai people ([คนไทย khon thai] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) define Thai as free, freedom-loving; Thai, pertaining to the Thai or Thailand; Thaiman, a Thailander. A Thailander regards Tai (ไท, ไท้) as having the poetical, literary, archaic or obsolete meaning of "lord" or "boss."

Propose changing lede as show, followed by difference between usage as political v. ethnic term; relation of the ethnic term to Tai people; and historical usage of the exonym Siamese. Chinese Sien is sometimes treated as synonymous, but need to clarify Chinese used it to refer to what in English is called the Shan States, and not for the historical Siamese. —Pawyilee (talk) 06:36, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia (unlike Wiktionary) is not a dictionary, but an encyclopedia. Articles are not intended to explain words, but to explain things, concepts or phenomena. Your proposed introduction focuses strongly on the meaning, etymology, and history of the word Thai, instead of describing the subject of the article. (By the way, only folk etymology claims that the name of the nation/people (Thai) comes from ไท ('free'). It has been unverified by linguists. So Sethabut (1903–1970) obviously still adhered to the obsolete (albeit still popular) theory which has since been found false by younger scholars.) Moreover, unlike in a dictionary, where one article explains all meanings of a word, in an encyclopedia, there is one article per concept. So, if one word has different meanings, there have to be several articles. Therefore, I cannot support your proposal to explain and differentiate the different meanings of 'Thai' in this article.

'Thai' means 1. the citizens of Thailand and 2. members of the ethnicity. (Of course it is difficult to differentiate because there are (practically) no Thais of 100% Thai descent, given that Thais have mixed with and assimilated members of other ethnic groups for centuries). Moreover, the nationalist Thaification policy of 20th century has led to many Thai nationals identifying as ethnic Thais, no matter what their real ethnic background is. This is what, in my opinion, the article should explain, in order to possibly clear the confusion about "real Thais", "Siamese" and the like.

I am not against having a section about the etymology of the word and related terms ("Siam" and "Shan" obviously have the same root, but in both cases they are exonyms: Shan call themselves "Tai"...), but it should not be the lead section. --RJFF (talk) 11:40, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

This is why I proposed it here, instead of boldly changing the article. BTW, is there an easy way to convert th:สอ เสถบุตร to English? —Pawyilee (talk) 06:41, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so. Because of the different structure of both languages, translating machines usually produce gibberish. Btw, the article says that he was affiliated with the government of Field Marshal P. Phibunsongkhram. In my view, this is one more reason to question his reliability, because he might have been influenced by their strongly nationalistic ideology and historiography. --RJFF (talk) 12:24, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Is that what you characterize as being affiliated with Phibun's regime? —Pawyilee (talk) 04:13, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

A group of 80 political prisoners, many of them former government officials and military officers highly placed within the government prior to the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932 were sent to Tarutao in 1941. Most had been involved in the failed Boworadet coup of October 1933. The government didn’t want them to mix with the general prison population, so they were housed at a special area close to the beach at Talo Udang Bay. One of the political prisoners was So Sethaputra who had begun creating a Thai-English/English-Thai dictionary whilst inside Bang Kwang prison in Bangkok. He had won a King's scholarship to study overseas and after returning to Thailand had worked for the civil service and contributed articles to newspapers. However, some of his pieces were deemed to be too critical of the government and he was charged with sedition in 1934. The thirty-year-old scholar managed to have reference books, stationery and dictionaries smuggled into the prison so that he could work on creating his dictionary. After So and his cellmates were caught with a radio they had smuggled into their cell they were sent to Tarutao. So continued to work on the dictionary and completed the 4,000-page work during the Second World War after being transferred to Surat Thani. His dictionary is still used today.

—A Slice of Thai History: Tarutao: island of prisoners and pirates by Duncan Stearn

Obviouusly I have misread this part. --RJFF (talk) 16:28, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Etymology

"Siam" and "Shan" are not all that obviously etymologically related. The former is thought to be of Pali origin; the latter, from Chinese Sien, but no one can be sure that they are from the same origin. It should be made clear that writers on the subject up through the reign of Mongkut wrote that the Siamese always called themselves Thai, and their country Mueang Thai. Chulalongkorn, however, established the office of Crown Prince of Siam in 1886, and Wright in Twentieth Century Impressions of Siam (1904) opined that Siam would continue to be the name of the country. Some references from the Journal of the Siam Society heritage site:

• "The relations of Thailand with other countries gave rise to the use of various foreign terms in connection with purely Thai names. One of the most glaring examples is the name of the country itself which foreigners continued to call Siam for at least five centuries, though to the Thai themselves it was known as Muang Thai."The Origin of the Tical. de Campos, J.J. (1941)
• "...[I]ts cradle was precisely in the country designated by foreigners as "Siam" (Khmer: Syam; Chinese : Sien, etc.)"The Origins of the Sukhodaya Dynasty. Coedes, G. (1921)

Coedes equates the terms, but as de Campos argues with respect to the origin of the term tical, that doesn't make them equal. Furthermore, some latter-day scholars limit Sien to what in English were called the Shan States to the north of the Siamese cradle.—Pawyilee (talk) 13:05, 23 June 2013 (UTC) Struck out. —Pawyilee (talk) 15:41, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

According to B.J. Terwiel and Chaichuen Khamdaengyodtai (Shan Manuscripts, 2003, p. 9), there are different theories about the etymology of Shan (and Siam). They mention (1.) from the Chinese word for "mountain", (2.) from the same root as Siam, and (3.) from Malay sayam ("brown"). Accoring to them, the most probable theory is the second one, with both words (and also Assam) being possibly derived from Mon rhmañña ("stranger"). --RJFF (talk) 16:28, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Diaspora

I find it funny that there is no significant Thai population in China. I also see in Austria there are quite some: http://www.thailovelines.com/Frontinfo/thai-women-austria.html

What is the cut off for "significant". Surely it should be as a percentage of the population? Or is it absolute numbers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.244.74.200 (talk) 09:59, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposal for the deletion of all the galleries of personalities from the articles about ethnic groups

Seemingly there is a significant number of commentators which support the general removal of infobox collages. I think there is a great opportunity to get a general agreement on this matter. It is clear that it has to be a broad consensus, which must involve as many editors as possible, otherwise there is a big risk for this decision to be challenged in the near future. I opened a Request for comment process, hoping that more people will adhere to this proposal. Please comment here. Hahun (talk) 14:02, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Thai people/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I would like to mention that Nanchao was NOT a Thai kingdom and wonder why this theory is still persisting in many popular references. It might be rather a Bai kingdom with some substantial Thai/Tai population. Guangxi/Guizhou, the Red River area is now commonly believed to be the place of origin for all the Tai ethnic groups. Unfortunately no reference at hand. Chopstixx Louis T. Wollweber 14:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 14:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 07:53, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Sujit Wongthet

Sujit Wongthet is a Chinese Thai. That's why he favors the idea that the present-day Thais are Chinese mixed with Lao. In reality, there are many people who do not mix with Chinese. Dirtolin1234 (talk) 06:48, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Infobox image

I have removed the image from the infobox. There has never been a discussion as to what is or isn't an appropriate image for the infobox (per WP:PERTINENCE). How, exactly, does an image of a modern day cremation ceremony illustrate a complex, broad subject article such as "Thai people"? The fact that an editor decided to use the image back in 2012 when adding an ethnic group infobox, and that it has become the 'default' version of the article is irrelevant. Per WP:CCC, I fail to see how a "not just decorative" argument can be applied. Whose concept is it that this image is informative and doesn't fall foul of WP:NOR? Compare this to articles on other ethnic groups where the use of an image cluttering the infobox has been thoroughly discussed and the consensus stands that no image should be used. If the image is illustrative of content within the body of the article, it can be used there. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 19:15, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

@Iryna Harpy: Both the discussion as well as MOS:LEADIMAGE only mention "photomontage or gallery of images of group members" as being problematic. This image is neither. It seems that it is only through your own interpretation of the discussion that you oppose this image. Can you please point to some policy that actually states that all images must be removed from the infobox in articles about ethnic groups? Until you do, please let the image stand. - Takeaway (talk) 19:41, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

@Takeaway: Try reading MOS:LEADIMAGE again with care: "Lead images should be natural and appropriate representations of the topic; they should not only illustrate the topic specifically, but also be the type of image used for similar purposes in high-quality reference works, and therefore what our readers will expect to see. Lead images are not required, and not having a lead image may be the best solution if there is no easy representation of the topic.".

My WP:BOLD removal of the image has been explained:
A) It does not address the concerns with some form of quintessential concept that encompasses what and who the people of Thailand are (an extremely complex history and subgroup of Tai people).
B) It does not correspond with Wikipedia's other articles on the majority of other ethnic groups in general (plus see South East Asian groups such as Vietnamese people, Lao people, Khmer people, Myanmar/Burmese people, etc.) go it is an 'unexpected' encounter for a reader.
C) Other tertiary sources (i.e., Encyclopaedia Britannica) don't use images to illustrate broad concept articles such as these (see Russians for starters.

I am asking you explain how the image fulfils MOS:PERTINENCE. How does it illustrate the subject of "Thai people" in a significant, salient manner for readers of the article? I have posed relevant questions which you have not answered. Nothing says that we 'must' remove the image, but you're simply responding with non-arguments for retaining it. Because it's been there for a while? Please explain how it is informative, and how it can be construed to be a good representation of the subject for the reader. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:55, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Number of Thai in Vietnam ?

There is virtually no Thai (from Thailand) living in Vietnam except for businessmen and diplomats. The "Thai" that number about 1,5 million people in Vietnam according to Vietnamese statistic institution are the Black Tai, White Tai and Red Tai. In Vietnam, these three Tai groups are lumped together as "ethnic Thai". They speak Southwestern Tai languages related to Lao and Siamese but there are differences between these three languages and Lao and Siamese. I'm going to remove the number of Thai population in Vietnam. 26378Kun (talk) 11:49, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@26378Kun: I was about to revert your removal, but you are correct. Any figures for actual Thai ethnics living in Vietnam would have to be supported by a reliable source WP:SYNTH not conflating the Thai with Tai. Thank you for picking up on that detail. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 20:14, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@26378Kun: I am the one who added the reference. Thank you for the clarification! For the CIA Factbook to just classify all those different peoples as simply Thais is truly misleading and irresponsible.

Thai peoples listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Thai peoples. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Paul_012 (talk) 09:23, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Ties between, among, or with?

The current article text contains:

"Modern Central Thai culture has become more dominant due to official government policy, which was designed to assimilate and unify the disparate Thai in spite of ethnolinguistic and cultural ties between the non-Standard-Thai-speaking people and their communities."

I wonder whether the word "between" is intended to refer:

• only to the non-Standard-Thai-speaking people and their communities;
• or to the Standard-Thai-speaking people and communities and the non-Standard-Thai-speaking people and their communities.

In the first case, I would have expected the word "among" instead of "between". From the context I actually guess the second option is meant. If that is so, not the word "between" is needed but the word "with", or else the sentence should probably be restructured to e.g.:

"Modern Central Thai culture has become more dominant due to official government policy, which was designed to assimilate and unify the disparate Thai in spite of ethnolinguistic and cultural ties between the Standard-Thai-speaking and the non-Standard-Thai-speaking people and their communities."

Could a knowledgeable person inform us about what is actually meant?Redav (talk) 14:16, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

The ambiguous wording was introduced in this edit. Prior to then, the passage was about "ethnolinguistic and cultural ties between the northeastern Thai people and the people from Laos." I guess that explains the problem. Maybe the whole sentence should be rewritten. --Paul_012 (talk) 12:39, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

I would certainly welcome a good edit! Inspired by your reply, I just realized that the phrase "between the non-Standard-Thai-speaking people and their communities" may be interpreted in (yet) another way than the ways that had already come to my mind (and that may have been based on a combination of a lack of information given, misunderstanding of the context, and my guess that the word "between" may have been used ungrammatically). In that other way, "between" is meant to indicate to the relation of "the non-Standard-Thai-speaking people" and "the non-Standard-Thai-speaking communities", which then has me wondering what exactly is meant by these communities: I have found no definition or explanation of what is meant by "their communities".Redav (talk) 02:11, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

The word "Jek"

I'm very surprised you allow the use of the word "Jek" ("เจ็ก" in Thai) here. The word "เจ็ก" is a very derogatory word used to describe Chinese people and is the same as using the "N Word" to describe African American people. You really should change this word. ""Kon Chin" ("คนจีน") means "Chinese people", and is the word you should be using. 2600:1004:B0C2:DFE4:0:1:9B4D:F301 (talk) 05:30, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Rename this article to "Central Thai people" and create a new article on Thai citizens and nationals

Please can you rename this article to "Central Thai people"? This article is talking about the ethnic group, not citizens and nationals of Thailand. You could create a new article with the title "Thais" to talk about citizens and nationals of Thailand, similar to the article about Americans are only a nationality and not an ethnicity. Thailand has multiple ethnic groups. 2A04:4A43:8A7F:FDA0:B199:B3F0:51B8:E331 (talk) 18:02, 15 April 2024 (UTC)