Kasong, also previously known as "Chong of Trat", is an endangered
Pearic language of the
Austroasiatic
The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...
family spoken in
Bo Rai District
Bo Rai (, ) is a township and district (''amphoe'') in Trat province, eastern Thailand, near the Khao Banthat Mountain Range in Cambodia.
History
The area was known for gemstone mining (rubies and sapphires) and gem trade which made Bo Rai pros ...
,
Trat Province
Trat province (, ), also spelt Trad province, is one of Thailand's seventy-six provinces (''changwat''), and is located in the region of eastern Thailand. It borders Chanthaburi province to the northwest, and Cambodia's provinces of Pailin, B ...
of Thailand.
On the basis of lexical similarity determined with a relatively short word list, Kasong has been classified as a dialect of
Central Chong.
However, further study and longer word lists point to Kasong being a separate language closely related to Chong and Samre.
Kasong is nearly extinct; there are no monolinguals and all speakers use
Thai as their primary language.
Of the vocabulary tested, a study found 55.38 percent of the language to consist of Thai loanwords.
These loanwords are grouped into two subtypes: direct from Thai or a Thai word added to an existing Kasong word.
This high percentage is indicative of the language's route to potential extinction as Thai displaces it.
More than 50 years ago, all Kasong people were forbidden to use the Kasong language in their families and with others as a result of governors believing that speaking Kasong interfered with speaking Thai.
Thus, Kasong speakers taught their descendants Thai instead of Kasong.
Thai nationalism
Thai nationalism is a political ideology involving the application of nationalism
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to pr ...
led to the Kasong people becoming ashamed of their language and not being concerned with its preservation.
The Kasong language and its people is representative of Thailand's many ethnolinguistic minorities.
References
Pearic languages
Endangered Austroasiatic languages
Languages of Thailand
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