ABSTRACT
Thai-speaking Muslim communItIes are found in the northwestern Malaysian states of Kedah, Perlis, and Perak, and in the southern Thai provinces of Trang, Phang-nga, Songkhla, and Satun (Setul). In the lastmentioned they form 80 per cent of the inhabitants. They are known among scholars and local people as Sam Sam. Officially there has not been a minority ethnic group known as Sam Sam in Malaysia since the 1911 census. In the 1921 Population Census, the Sam Sam were categorized as Malays. In Thailand, this minority community has long been regarded as religiously wayward Thai who 'have been tainted by Islamic teachings' (Strobel 1908: 172). At the time of the last available statistics there were 15,377 Sam Sam in the States ofKedah and Perlis (Report on the Census, 1911: 5) and approximately 18,000-21,000 in Satun in Thailand (Strobel 1908: 174). Nonetheless, it is apparent from various studies, some as recent as the early 1990s, that this Thai-speaking Muslim community still exists in Kedah and Perlis, Malaysia, and in Satun and the southern part of Songkhla, Thailand. Thai-speaking Muslim communities are unique to the northwestern states of the Malay peninsula. On the eastern seaboard, Kelantan which has the second biggest population of Thai-speakers in Malaysia, and Trengganu have only Thai-speaking Buddhists among their population (Winzeler 1985; Mohamed Yusoff Ismail 1980).
