Thai Chinese - Language

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:

    “Translate a book a dozen times from one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would be worn out and disappear in this ordeal. The pen which wrote it is soon destroyed, but the poem survives.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.”
    —William Hazlitt (1778–1830)

    “The writer’s language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language.”
    —Paul De Man (1919–1983)