World Language Map

Where is Northeastern Thai spoken?

Northeastern Thai is a Tai-Kadai language, spoken in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Northeastern Thai is spoken

Northeastern Thai is spoken in 3 countries: Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Thailand24%16,781,040
CambodiaNot givenNot given
LaosNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Northeastern Thai has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Northeastern Thai?

Wikidata gives about 15 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Northeastern Thai sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Northeastern Thai as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Tai-Kadai
  2. Kam-Tai
  3. Daic-Beic
  4. Daic
  5. Central-Southwestern Tai
  6. Wenma-Southwestern Tai
  7. Sapa-Southwestern Tai
  8. Southwestern Tai
  9. Southwestern Thai PH
  10. Lao-Thai
  11. Sakon Nakhon
  12. Northeastern Thai

Related languages

Other languages in the Sakon Nakhon group:

More about Northeastern Thai

Codes: ISO 639-3 tts, Glottolog nort2741. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Questions about Northeastern Thai

Where is Northeastern Thai spoken?

Northeastern Thai is spoken in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Unicode CLDR puts it at 24% of the population of Thailand, which is about 16,781,040 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Northeastern Thai?

Wikidata gives about 15 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Northeastern Thai in?

Glottolog places Northeastern Thai in the Tai-Kadai family, in the branch Kam-Tai, Daic-Beic, Daic, Central-Southwestern Tai, Wenma-Southwestern Tai, Sapa-Southwestern Tai, Southwestern Tai, Southwestern Thai PH, Lao-Thai and Sakon Nakhon.

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