Linguist Rikker Dockum on the Royal Society's Thai Language Oversight [S6.E53]

Greg interviews old friend of the podcast Rikker Dockum, Thai
language expert extraordinaire about the Thai Royal Society, an
organization dedicated to overseeing, promoting and regulating
the Thai language. Rikker begins by explaining that he actually
wrote his undergraduate thesis on the Society more than 20 years
ago, so he's a longstanding follower of their work. He notes that
it originally modeled itself after the French Academy, which,
among other things, develops French words for English
equivalents. 


For instance, Greg brings up the issue of the word 'computer,'
which is typically spoken in Thai as 'com-pu-TER,' even though
the Society has specified a true Thai word for the computer.
Rikker goes through the etymology of the word, but Greg asks
whether the work of the Society is even necessary if people don't
adopt the words they come up with. Rikker defends the use of
public funds for work codifying 'official' Thai, noting that were
it left to the private marketplace, the work would never get
done. 


The old friends continue their conversation about the Society,
emphasizing the need for such an organization for a language like
Thai, which is vital to the history and culture of Thailand, but
plays little role outside the country. Very few languages in the
world are so popularly dominant that their continued preservation
is assured, and unfortunately, Thai language is not one of
them. 


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