History
The term isan has been said to mean "northeast" in the Thai language. Isan has a number of important Bronze Age sites, with cliff paintings, artifacts and early evidence of rice cultivation. Iron and bronze tools, such as found at Ban Chiang, may predate similar tools from Mesopotamia. The region later came under the influence of the Dvaravati culture, followed by the Khmer empire. The latter built dozens of prasats (sanctuaries) throughout the Isan region; the most significant are at Phimai and Phanom Rung.
After the Khmer empire began to decline from the 13th century, Isan was dominated by the Lao Lan Xang kingdom, which had been established by Fa Ngum. Due to scarcity of information from the periods known as the Dark ages of Cambodia, the plateau seems to have been largely depopulated. There were few if any lines of demarcation, for prior to the 19th century introduction of modern mapping, the region fell under what 20th century scholars called the Mandala system. Accordingly, in 1718 the first Lao muang in the Chi valley — and indeed anywhere in the interior of the Khorat Plateau — was founded at Suwannaphum District (in present-day Roi Et Province) by an official in the service of King Nokasad of the Kingdom of Champasak. The region was increasingly settled by both Lao and Thai emigrants. Siam held sway from the 17th century, and carried out forced population transfers from the left (east) bank of the Mekong to the right bank in the 18th and 19th centuries — which became most severe following the Laotian Rebellion for independence of 1826–29. In the wake the Franco-Siamese War of 1893, the resulting treaty with France and the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 made the plateau no longer considered Lao, but the border region between Siam and the Laos of French Indochina.
In the 20th century, a policy of nationalist "Thaification" promoted the incorporation of Isan as an integral part of Thailand and de-emphasised the Lao and Khmer ethnicities of the residents. The national government claimed (incorrectly) that the name "Isan" was derived from that of Iśāna (Sanskrit: ईशान), a manifestation of Shiva as deity of the northeast, and the Sanskrit word for northeast. This interpretation was intended to reinforce the area's identity as the northeast of Thailand, rather than as a part of the Lao world.
Before the central government introduced the Thai alphabet and language in regional schools, the people of Isan wrote in the Lao alphabet, a similar script. Most Isan people still speak the Isan language, a dialect of the Lao language. A significant minority also speak Northern Khmer. The Kuy people, who are concentrated around the core of the Isanapura kingdom, and known as "Khmer Boran" or ancient Khmer, speak other Katuic languages, a link to the region's pre-Siamese history as part of the Mon–Khmer kingdom of Chenla.
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