Moken (มอเกน, มอแกน)

Thai. Name of an ethnic minority group of about 7,000 people dwelling in the Mergui Archipelago, i.e. a group of approximately 800 islands claimed by both Myanmar and Thailand. In Thailand, these Austronesian people are distributed over the provinces of Phang Nga, Ranong, Satun, Trang, Phuket and Krabi, but there are also pockets living in southern Myanmar. In Thailand, they are known as Thai Mai (ไทยใหม่), i.e. ‘New Thais’, after they were given Thai citizenship, though they were previously they referred to as Chao Le, i.e. Sea Gypsies, as they in the past lived semi-nomadic, i.e. with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle heavily based on the sea. Besides Thai, the Moken have their own language, which is also called Moken and which belongs to the Western Malayo-Polynesian group of languages. Also transliterated Mawken. 回