Lao language
Lao, sometimes referred to as Laotian, is a Kra–Dai language of the Lao people. It is spoken in Laos, where it is the official language, as well as northeast Thailand, where it is usually referred to as Isan. Lao serves as a lingua franca among all citizens of Laos, who speak approximately 90 other languages, many of which are unrelated to Lao.
Like other Tai languages, Lao is a tonal language and has a complex system of relational markers. Spoken Lao is mutually intelligible with Thai and Isan, fellow Southwestern Tai languages, to such a degree that their speakers are able to effectively communicate with one another speaking their respective languages. These languages are written with slightly different scripts but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.
Although there is no official standard, the Vientiane dialect became the de facto standard language in the second-half of the 20th century.
History
The Lao language is descended from Tai languages spoken in what is now southern China and northern Vietnam in areas believed to be the homeland of the language family and where several related languages are still spoken by scattered minority groups.Due to Han Chinese expansion, Mongol invasion pressures, and a search for lands more suitable for wet rice cultivation, the Tai peoples moved south towards India, down the Mekong River valley, and as far south as the Malay Peninsula. The oral history of the migrations is preserved in the legends of Khun Borom. Tai speakers in what is now Laos pushed out or absorbed earlier groups of Austroasiatic and Austronesian languages.
Dialects
In addition to the dialects of Lao, numerous closely related languages are spoken throughout the Lao-speaking areas of Laos and Thailand, such as the Nyaw people, Phu Thai, Saek, Lao Wiang, Tai Dam, and Tai Daeng. These Tai peoples are classified by the Lao government as Lao Loum or lowland Lao. Lao and Thai are also very similar and share most of their basic vocabulary, but differences in many basic words limit mutual intelligibility.Vocabulary
The Lao language consists primarily of native Lao words. Because of Buddhism, however, Pali has contributed numerous terms, especially relating to religion and in conversation with members of the sangha. Due to their proximity, Lao has influenced the Khmer and Thai languages and vice versa.Formal writing has a larger number of loanwords, especially Pali and Sanskrit, much as Latin and Greek have influenced European languages. For politeness, pronouns are used, plus ending statements with ແດ່ or ເດີ້. Negative statements are made more polite by ending with ດອກ. The following are formal register examples.
- ຂອບໃຈຫຼາຍໆເດີ້ Thank you very much.
- ຂ້ານ້ອຍເຮັດບໍ່ໄດ້ດອກ I cannot.
- ໄຂປະຕູໃຫ້ແດ່ Open the door, please.
Phonology
Consonants
Many consonants in Lao make a phonemic contrast between labialized and plain versions. The complete inventory of Lao consonants is as shown in the table below:Initial consonants
Final consonants
All plosive sounds are unreleased in final position. Hence, final,, and sounds are pronounced as,, and respectively.| Bilabial | Labio- dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Nasal | ||||||
| Plosive | * | |||||
| Approximant |
Vowels
All vowels make a phonemic length distinction. Diphthongs are all centering diphthongs with falling sonority. The monophthongs and diphthongs are as shown in the following table:Tones
Lao has six lexical tones.Unchecked syllables
There are six phonemic tones in unchecked syllables, that is, in syllables ending in a vowel or other sonorant sound.| Name | Diacritic on | Tone letter | Example | Gloss |
| Rising | or | ຂາ | leg | |
| High level | ຄາ | stuck | ||
| High falling | ຄ້າ | trade | ||
| Mid level | ຂ່າ, ຄ່າ | galangal, value resp. | ||
| Low level | ກາ | crow | ||
| Low falling | ຂ້າ | kill, servant |
Checked syllables
The number of contrastive tones is reduced to four in checked syllables, that is, in syllables ending in an obstruent sound.| Tone | Example | Gloss |
| high | ຫັກ | break |
| mid | ຮັກ | love |
| low-falling | ຫາກ | if, inevitably |
| falling | ຮາກ | vomit, root |
Syllables
Lao syllables are of the form V, i.e., they consist of a vowel in the syllable nucleus, optionally preceded by a single consonant in the syllable onset and optionally followed by single consonant in the syllable coda. The only consonant clusters allowed are syllable initial clusters. Any consonant may appear in the onset, but the labialized consonants do not occur before rounded vowels.One difference between Thai and Lao is that in Lao initial clusters are simplified. For example, the official name of Laos is Romanized as Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, with the Thai analogue being Satharanarat Prachathipatai Prachachon Lao, indicating the simplification of Thai pr to Lao p.
Only may appear in the coda. If the vowel in the nucleus is short, it must be followed by a consonant in the coda; in the coda can be preceded only by a short vowel. Open syllables and syllables ending in one of the sonorants take one of the six tones, syllables ending in take one of four tones, and syllables ending in take one of only two tones.
Morphology
The majority of Lao words are monosyllabic, and are not inflected to reflect declension or verbal tense, making Lao an analytic language. Special particle words serve the purpose of prepositions and verb tenses in lieu of conjugations and declensions. Lao is a subject–verb–object language, although the subject is often dropped. In contrast to Thai, Lao uses pronouns more frequently.Writing system
The Lao script, derived from the Khmer alphabet of the Khmer Empire in the 14th century, is ultimately rooted in the Pallava script of South India, one of the Brahmi scripts. Although the Lao script bears resemblance to Thai, the former contains fewer letters than Thai because by 1960 it was simplified to be fairly phonemic, whereas Thai maintains many etymological spellings that are pronounced the same.The script is traditionally classified as an abugida, but Lao consonant letters are conceived of as simply representing the consonant sound, rather than a syllable with an inherent vowel. Vowels are written as diacritic marks and can be placed above, below, in front of, or behind consonants. The script also contains distinct symbols for numerals, although Arabic numerals are more commonly used.
The Lao liturgical script is written in the Tai Tham script and is still used in temples in Laos and Isan.
Punctuation
Lao is traditionally not written with spaces between words, although signs of change are multiplying. Spaces are reserved for ends of clauses or sentences. Periods are not used, and questions can be determined by question words in a sentence. Traditional punctuation marks include ໌, an obsolete mark indicating silenced consonants; ໆ, used to indicate repetition of the preceding word; ຯ, the Lao ellipsis that is also used to indicate omission of words; ฯ, a more or less obsolete symbol indicating shortened form of a phrase ; and ฯລฯ, used to indicate et cetera.In more contemporary writing, punctuation marks are borrowed from French, such as exclamation point !, question mark ?, parentheses, and «» for quotation marks, although "" is also common. Hyphens and the ellipsis are also commonly found in modern writing.
Indication of tones
Experts disagree on the number and nature of tones in the various dialects of Lao. According to some, most dialects of Lao and Isan have six tones, those of Luang Prabang have five. Tones are determined as follows:| Tones | Long vowel, or vowel plus voiced consonant | Long vowel plus unvoiced consonant | Short vowel, or short vowel plus unvoiced consonant | Mai ek | Mai tho |
| High consonants | rising | low falling | high | mid | low falling |
| Mid consonants | low rising | low falling | high | mid | high falling |
| Low consonants | high | high falling | mid | mid | high falling |
A silent ຫ placed before certain consonants will produce place the other proceeding consonant in the high class. This can occur before the letters ງ, ຍ, ຣ, and ວ and combined in special ligatures such as ຫຼ, ໜ, and ໝ. In addition to ອ່ and ອ້, there also exists the rare ອ໊ ອ໋ tone marks.