Lao

Where it’s spoken

Lao is the official language of Laos. The Isan dialects spoken in northeastern Thailand by about 20 million ethnic Lao people are closely related — many linguists treat Isan as a Lao variety despite political distinction. Lao communities exist in France, the United States (especially Minnesota, California), Australia, and Canada following the Indochina wars.

What it sounds like

Lao is tonal with six tones (slightly fewer than Thai’s five-to-six depending on dialect). It has a relatively simple syllable structure compared to Indo-European languages and lacks consonant clusters in modern pronunciation. Voiced/voiceless and aspirated/unaspirated stop contrasts are phonemic.

How it’s written

The Lao script is a Brahmic abugida closely related to the Thai script — the two share many letter shapes and orthographic principles, though Lao has fewer letters because earlier reforms streamlined it. Spelling is somewhat phonemic. The script reads left to right with no spaces between words.

History

Lao and Thai diverged from a common ancestor in the late first millennium. The Lan Xang Kingdom (14th–18th centuries) was the political center of Lao language and Buddhist culture. Modern Lao was shaped by 20th-century reform that simplified the script and standardized orthography.