Isan Language - History

History

The Tai languages of Southeast Asia were introduced by migrations from southern China and northern Vietnam beginning three millennia ago. Evidence of the migrations are recorded in the legends of a possibly mythic king, Khun Borom, whose descendants settled as far away as Assam, central China, Hainan Island, and Southeast Asia, fleeing from population pressures, Han Chinese expansion, Mongol wars, as well as searching suitable riparian areas for wet-rice cultivation.

The forerunners of the modern Tai peoples of Thailand and Laos displaced the indigenous Austro-Asiatic and Negrito inhabitants and established their own kingdoms, with the Lao concentrated along the Mekong River Valley and the predecessors to the Siamese states settling along the Chao Phraya River Valley. The Lao kingdoms consolidated into the Kingdom of Lan Xang in 1354; its territory included most of today's Laos and the Isan region, as well as some part of Lannathai and territory now in China. The rival Siamese eventually forced Lan Xang into serving as a vassal state. Pressures from Vietnam, Siam, China, and Angkor after a political crisis had led to Lan Xang splitting into three kingdoms that were dominated by Siam. In the 18th and 19th century, the Siamese enslaved whole villages, conscripted others into corvée labour, or forced the population to relocate into Isan from the more prosperous eastern shores to settle and develop the region. Competing French and British interests led to Siam becoming a buffer zone, though Siam was forced to make huge territorial concessions to maintain its freedom; this included Isan, which the French did not recognise as fully Siamese territory until 1904. From that date on, the histories of the Lao in Thailand and the Lao in Laos were separate.

The region remained a neglected, rural area. In the 20th century, Thaification policies were undertaken to encourage the Isan Lao to think of themselves as Thai and not with their colonized and later Communist-ruled brethren across the Mekhong River. The Thai language alone was used in schools; the use of Thai was made mandatory in written communication, government, business, and education; and the region, its people and language was to be known as ‘Isan’; banning publications in the Lao alphabet. Because the Isan language was absent in most media outlets and formal spheres, plus the high rate of bilingualism with Thai, Isan and Lao have diverged significantly in recent years, with Thai pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar making inroads.