Lao Language Guide

Official language in
Laos
Also spoken in
Thailand, Cambodia
Script
Lao

Where it's spoken

Under the Constitution of Laos, the Lao language and Lao script are the language and script officially used. Lao was declared the national language when the first government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic was established. Outside Laos, Lao is spoken by a minority in Northeast Cambodia and by a large minority in Northeast Thailand, in areas bordering lowland Laos; the dialects spoken in Thailand are undergoing rapid change under the influence of Central Thai.

Lao and Thai share extensive vocabulary and have very similar sound and grammatical systems. Central Thai is well understood by the Lao, while many speakers of Central Thai would have real difficulty understanding Lao, due essentially to lack of exposure to the language. Spoken Lao shows considerable regional variation, not only in accent but also in regular vocabulary. If a spoken standard can be identified at all, it would have to be the Vientiane variety, and national television and radio programming tends to follow the pronunciation of native Vientiane speakers.

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Script & pronunciation

Lao is written in the Lao script, which runs left to right in horizontal lines and is closely related to the Thai script. Lao has fewer letters than Thai because its spelling was simplified to be fairly phonemic, whereas Thai keeps many etymological spellings. Lao words are not separated by spaces; spaces separate phrases or sentences instead.

Lao is a tone language. Each consonant at the start of a syllable belongs to a high, mid or low class, and a syllable's tone is indicated by the consonant's class, the type of syllable and any tone mark. Sources differ on the number of tones: Enfield's grammar lists five lexical tones, while Ishida's orthography notes give six and report disagreement over whether Vientiane has five or six.

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Grammar essentials

Lao words do not change form for grammar: the language has no inflectional morphology. The basic word order is subject–verb–object, and adjectives follow the noun and possessors follow what is possessed. Noun phrases in almost any position may be left out if they are clear from the context.

A verb is negated by placing the negator directly before it, as in ຂ້ອຍບໍ່ເຂົ້າໃຈ (Khoy bo khao chai, "I don't understand"). A yes/no question is formed by adding a question particle to the end of a statement, the most general one being related to the negator, as in ເຜັດບໍ? (Phet bo?, "Is it spicy?"). This app's cards note that in writing the negator ບໍ່ and the question particle ບໍ differ only by a tone mark. One common way to answer "yes" is to repeat part of the question, typically the main verb alone; this app's card ເອົາຖົງບໍ? (Ao thong bo?, "Do you want a bag?") notes that ເອົາ (Ao, "to take / to want") doubles as the answer.

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Politeness & etiquette

Lao personal pronouns distinguish between bare, familiar, polite and formal forms in all three persons. A yes/no question can be answered "yes" with a particle such as a very polite, a standard polite or an informal one; the standard polite one has the same form as the pronoun "you." This app's card ເຈົ້າ (Chao, "You") notes that the same word also serves as a polite "yes".

Final particles may indicate something about the speaker's feelings or attitude, or about the relationship between the speakers, and they are acceptable on all but the most formal speech occasions. One of them is used in polite requests. This app's cards note that ຂໍ + noun + ແດ່ (dae, glossed as a softener) is the everyday way to ask for something, as in ຂໍຖົງແດ່ (Kho thong dae, "A bag, please"). This app's cards also note that adding ຂໍ at the start increases politeness, as in ຂໍຂອບໃຈ (Kho khob chai, "Thank you").

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