Language
Nearly all ethnic Chinese in Thailand speak only Thai, but an extremely small number (mostly elders) are also conversant in Chinese with varying degrees of fluency. The Teochew dialect of Chinese is used as a commercial lingua franca among a very few elderly Chinese business circles, principally in Chinatown of Bangkok. The proficiency of the Thai language among the ethnic Chinese is attributed to the fact that Thai is a compulsory subject in all schools, while students from a handful of Chinese-medium schools (fewer than 0.1% of all schools) are more proficient in Chinese than those from other schools in general.
Read more about this topic: Thai Chinese
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?”
—Russell Hoban (b. 1925)
“For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our goal as a parent is to give life to our children’s learning—to instruct, to teach, to help them develop self-discipline—an ordering of the self from the inside, not imposition from the outside. Any technique that does not give life to a child’s learning and leave a child’s dignity intact cannot be called discipline—it is punishment, no matter what language it is clothed in.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)