About Lao

by Pisith Phlong

Number of speakers:
Lao (or Laotian) is an official language of Laos, spoken by about 70% of total Lao population of 5.4 million. It is also spoken by about 12 to 15 million people in Northeast Thailand. (Brown, Vol. 6, p. 697)

Language group:
The Lao language belongs to the Southwestern Tai subgroup of Tai language family. It is a tonal language with basic monosyllabic words. (Brown , Vol. 6, p. 697)

History of written language and script:
The Lao language dates back about 2,000 years. The Tai language group has its origins in the southwestern part of China, present-day Guizhou and Guangxi provinces, and began to move southward to the lowlands of the Mekong River basin after the expansion of Han Chinese control over southern China. The Tai speaking groups split into a number of subgroups and expanded south and southwest to the area occupied by the Mon-Khmer speaking community (based in the region about 4,000 years ago). Lao language speakers and other Tai subgroups adapted to the local communities, borrowing words from Sanskrit, Pali, Khmer, Chinese, as well as from each other. They also adopted Indian-based Khmer scripts for writing. (Brown, Vol. 6, p. 699; Enfield, p. 47-48)

Language:
The Tai speaking people moved into the area of present day Laos about 2,000 years ago, and the Lao formed their first kingdom, named Lan Xang, in the mid 14th century, covering the area previously occupied by Austro-Asiatic speaking peoples. (Cordell, p. xix) As a member of Tai language family, Lao is a tonal language consisting of six tones, low, mid, high, rising, high falling, and low-falling. The language also adopted a number of new words, such as from Khmer, Thai, Chinese, and French. (Brown, Vol. 6, p. 697-698) Laos is similar to other Southeast Asian languages, such as Khmer, Thai, Malay and Javanese; it is a hierarchical language where the selection of terms and personal pronouns is important and based on age and status of speakers in relation to persons they address. (Hebert, p. 67) Besides being spoken in Laos, Lao is also spoken by a large number of people in Northeast Thailand, and significant differences are noted among the two groups; Lao in the Lao P.D.R is more influenced by French, while the Lao spoken in Northeast Thailand is more influenced by Thai and English. Lao and Thai, sharing the same Tai language family, are very similar; Lao speakers can easily learn to speak Thai as they need only change some vocabulary and pronunciation. (Higbie, p. 9)

Scripts:
Lao writing system is based on combination of 33 consonants and 28 vowels, representing 21 and 27 sounds respectively. It is written from left to right without space between each word and its script is developed from the Indian-based Khmer script. (Higbie, p. 7) There are two kinds of Lao scripts, Tham and Lao; Tham is used for writing religious texts (much of which is actually in the Pali language) and Lao is used for writing lay texts. By the 1930s, Lao also began to be used in writing religious texts. There were two common formats used for writing the early Lao texts: inscriptions on palm leaf manuscripts and ink written onto folding books made from thick paper. Both formats included text written in verse or prose form. (Hebert, p. 69-70, p. 72)

Other Dialects: 
The majority of population of Laos speaks Lao and the language of Vientiane is considered to be the official language. Many of the Lao speakers live in the plain along the Mekong River.  There are between 70 to 120 different dialects and languages spoken throughout the country, due to the geographical diversity created by the mountains which constitute about 70% of the total land area  in Laos. These dialects are classified into 4 main language groups: 1) Tai, consisting of languages of the southwestern and northern Tai branches; 2) Mon-Khmer, consisting of Bahnaric, Katuic, Vietic, Khmuic, and Palaungic branches; 3) Hmong-Mien, consisting languages of Hmongic and Mienic branches; 4) Tibeto-Burman, consisting of languages of Lolo-Burmese branch. (Brown, Vol. 6, p. 698) Among these languages, Hmong of Hmong-Mien group and Khmu of the Mon-Khmer group are the most commonly spoken minority languages.  The Hmong-Mien group is also the newest language group in the area, having been introduced into Laos about 200 years ago. (Brown, Vol. 6, p. 699)

Comparison to Western languages:
Lao is a hierarchical language in which word choice is important to express the status of speakers and other persons in the dialogue. Its sentence structure is arranged in Subject-Verb-Object and adjectives are preceded by nouns in compound nouns. There is no inflection between noun and adjective, or pronoun and verb in terms of number and gender. (Brown, Vol. 6, p.698; Brown, Vol. 12, p. 481) 

References

• Brown, K. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Volume 6. (2nd ed.). Elsevier: Oxford, 2006.
• Brown, K. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Volume 12. (2nd ed.). Elsevier: Oxford, 2006.
• Cordell, H. Laos. Clio Press: Oxford, 1991.
• Enfield, N. J. Linguistics epidemiology : semantics and grammar of language contact in mainland Southeast Asia. RoutledgeCurzon: London and New York, 2003.
• Herbert, P. and Milner, A. Southeast Asia, Languages and Literatures. University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu, 1989.
• Higbie, J. Lao-English, English-Lao: Dictionary and Phrasebook. Hippocrene Book: New York, 2001.
• Hoshino, T. and Marcus, R. Lao for Beginners: An Introduction to the Spoken and Written Language of Laos. Charles E. Tuttle Company: Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, 1989.