Why proposal for English to be second language of Thailand failed

By the way, the mainstream argument against the proposal was that Thailand did not want the world to think that it was once colonized by the British. I am not sure whether the mainstream argument holds any water, what are your thoughts?

KhunShay wrote:

In the past few months there was a proposal for English to become established as a second official language of Thailand in order to promote Thai citizens to learn English and modernise/globalize (whatever marketing term you want to use) the nation. However the proposal failed recently, and the main argument was that so foreign expats would not get Thai citizenship easily. In order for a foreigner to get Thai citizenship, s/he must be able to speak the national language, if English becomes the second official language, then almost all foreigners can become Thai citizens. Do you think that this was the main reason why the proposal failed?

English has been the unofficial second language of Thailand for a long time, that's why schools have English programmes and thousands of native English speakers work here teaching.

Earlier this month the Ministry of Education said that English would be adopted as the second language next month(November).  There has been a fair bit of debate on this subject.

As for citizenship, whatever makes you think that knowing English would qualify a person for citizenship?  Thai citizenship rules are quite clear and speaking English isn't one of them.

What evidence do you have that the proposal to have English as a second language has failed? Equally what makes you say that the proposal failed because of citizenship issues?

Think about it.

In order to apply for citizenship, the minimum you would at least need is to be able to speak the country's national official language. This is the bare minimum if you are not born here.
If English becomes an official language of Thailand, no longer would foreigners need to be able to speak Thai, they can easily claim that they are able to speak an official language of Thailand, therefore the language barrier to obtaining citizenship disappears instantly. You are not required to speak ALL the official languages, you are required to speak at least one official language of the nation. Obviously the Thai language would not be the option for foreigners.

Thai citizenship rules are quite clear and speaking English isn't one of them.

Yes, but for the present time, but do you really think that the rules would remain this way after the English language has become an official language for Thailand? Think about the long term repercussions of English becoming an official language of Thailand. (I am not talking about loss of identity issues etc.) I am talking about changes in requirements in applying for citizenship which has major repercussions on its own (property ownership etc.)
I am merely playing the devil's advocate, and I am glad to hear your response. Please keep them coming

I think you may be confusing a countries official language(s) and a second language. There is a difference.

In many cases the second language(English) is used as a Lingua Franca e.g. India and Malaysia(less so nowadays).

"Obviously the Thai language would not be the option for foreigners."

Sorry but I disagree with this since many of us living here speak Thai.

Right, but what of those who dont, and are using the new rules and regulations to twist and bend the original rules?

I agree with thetefldon, National language and second language does not apply for citizenship. Second language is mostly used to increase business & communication efficiency between two or more nationalities. In this case scenario, English.

Those who oppose learn Thai (or any other for that matter), automatically decrease considerably the opportunities to expand their business overseas. And also, as I stated above, communication failures will give if not problems, the closure of those ties with foreigner ( being Thai or otherwise) 

As individuals, even though we can happily pass without learning a single word of Thai, except those that relate to taxi directions. Can do get us in trouble if the case presents  itself, with either authorities or otherwise.

So from my point of view. I do think Thai people do want to keep their traditions, and do not embrace change, for a better and more powerful nation if they dont approve learning English as a second language.
Finally, i do not think citizenship, was or is, a reason to decline such thing. It would be more of an excuse rather than a fact.

So why do you suppose that English was not made into an official language of Thailand 20 years ago, surely according to you it should have been done a long long time ago? In fact why not every nation make English an official language of their country, surely this would help the country "modernise" and "develop". Other examples may also be helpful. .Why is it that Chinese for example is not made into an official language of Thailand as well, in fact there are millions of Chinese Thai people in Thailand, yet Chinese has never been proposed as an official language. The same applies to the US, there are millions of Chinese Americans in the US, how come mandarin was never proposed as an official language of the States? Surely it would be beneficial for the US if Chinese became an official language, it would definitely strengthen the ties and the large business (imports/exports)dealings between the two countries.
Please enlighten me.

Let's get enlightening then:

Yes mandarin has indeed over 1,000 million people speakers. However it is damn difficult to learn for non-asian people. Chinese kids typically take three years longer than English-speaking children to learn their language, but as a result, they are smarter than Western kids because Mandarin requires both hemispheres of the brain to process. Reading Chinese requires a lot more sophisticated visual recognition of characters than in reading English. Understanding Mandarin requires the right brain (music center) to process the tones that sound like music, and the left brain to understand the syntactical patterns. When people listen to English language, only the left brain is active (shown by CAT scans).

Also, the script languages on the Euro-Asian continent evolved from two main sources. It is possible to trace almost every European, Indian, and African language back to Egyptian hieroglyphics / Phoenician, but Chinese language had a different evolution. You can trace English, Greek, Sanskrit, even Korean are all derivative somehow from Phoenician -- but Mandarin is different from those. That's one thing that makes it so special.

English is by far the most easiest language to learn and yet the most widely used for business purposes.

However, some nations and their governments oppose to modernize and put into place an action plan of English as second language.
Put the case of Spain ( where I am from) We have English as a second language in schools by a very long time, however, we do not learn much in our schools because our government is busy imposing in every little county their own dialect. Take as an example: Barcelona with Catalan, Valencia with Valencian, Andalusia with Andalusian etc. So in the end we are too proud to be/speak some outsider language. And when we travel to Italy we do not need to learn since we do understand each other very well since both languages came from Latin directly. And Catalans find way easier to speak with French since the dialect is both from Spanish roots and French roots.
Spanish speaking rate: 417 million speakers comes in 3nd place as most spoken

Can be also the case of United States, yes they have lots of Chinese, and lots of Latino, and lots of afro american and rest. They haven't changed because they do not want apparently to give up their "nation" away, they are too proud to do so, call it patriotism.
English speaking rate: 1,052 million including second language speakers.

And here it comes the answer to your question, that just perhaps the ideology behind a nonsense patriotism deflected the idea 20 years ago to give up part of their nation to learn a foreign language.

The basic reasons for the growth of English: It's a language developed from the ground up; relatively easy to understand and to make oneself understood. Above all, it is adaptable and flexible. As George Bernard Shawsaid once said "English is the easiest language to speak badly," and their outcome is greatly rewarded. English has the ability to swallow huge amounts of other languages as well as perpetually inventing new words in itself. These built in qualities equip the language with polyglot capabilities that have led to its popularity in numerous aspects of world culture and its natural vault to acendancy.

But dont get me wrong, having your own language make you rich in words and communication, when you change your language you lose many expression that with your native language can use, you lose part of your own personality and it is not the same to express yourself, the beauty of you own language is unique, it has not comparison.

Anyway, to sum up: From my point of view, some people do not want to change their personality or give up a part of their culture or nation. That is why some countries haven't/hasn't put in act a second language law of any short.

Again that is my point of view.

great post, but once again, is English being an easy language a proven fact or just an opinion of linguists /language experts? If is a fact, how is it proven? How big is the research group, and more importantly how big should the research group be to represent each and every single person on this planet? You mentioned the sounds and symbols of the English language being "easier" to learn, but in my humble opinion, this is a biased statement. I noticed that many English speakers say that english is the easiest language in the world (including yours truly), but i also know many of my thai friends who for the life of them can never understand english no matter how hard they try. One of my friends even hated learning english so much that he chose to learn russian instead, which he says looks like english letters written upside down
You see, my point is that english is not necessarily the easiest language in the world, if you don't believe me, you can easily ask the non-english speakers (billions) living in this world whether english is an easy language. Again, thanks for your response, please keep them coming.

Language is a very serious issue.  Raising language puts a lot of stress on the unity of a nation and should not be something that is taken without noting this.

While I am not familiar with all of the indigenous languages of Thailand,setting out an official second language raises the question, what is the first official language.  The answer is not as clear or easy as it seems.  There are many factors that could make something first.  Historical, royalty, most representative, language of the foundation.  Thai came to be through a long historical process that elevated some languages and drowned some others. 

Even english is not settled as the language of the british isles, regional activism in Spain for example with seperatist notions in Basque country and valencia are constantly reminding us that language is important.  Look at Canada with its problems or even france with its corsican movement.    Takes a lot of reflection and thinking this does.

English is certainly an important language.  It is taught everywhere in schools.  I see nothing wrong with this. Even at this level though problems arise.  Take Switzerland where in the german part of the country, english is taught in school as the second language.  The french part of Switzerland get upset and demand that french become the second language.  Note that in the french part of switzterland english is taught as the second language and not german....

Also, Personally I think all of the arguments relating to economics are disproven by how most countries approach the issue.  If economics was the strongest factor, why does germany not have english as its second language, or france, or japan, or china