ABSTRACT
A consensus exists among the vast majority of people in Thailand today that the language used in contexts that are understood to have a national character is to be standard Thai rather than some other language. There is no "national language problem" in Thailand as there is in neighboring Malaysia, the Philippines, or Sri Lanka. Even the people who seek to champion regional or ethnic identities address themselves in Thai to Thai-reading or Thai-speaking audiences. Prior to World War II, the most stigmatized ethnic identity in Thailand was that of the Chinese. King Vajiravudh wrote disdainfully of them, calling them on at least one occasion "the Jews of the East." The monarchy as an element of Thai nationalism has also been variously interpreted since the advent of the modern nation-state at the end of the nineteenth century. The Chakri dynasty became fused in nationalist ideology with the concept of the Thai nation.
