More Lao speakers may live in Thailand than in Laos, thanks to 1893
Lao speakers on either bank of the Mekong understand each other easily, yet one side lives in Laos and the other in northeastern Thailand, where the same speech is called Isan. That border dates from the Franco-Siamese crisis of 1893, which split a single language community along the river.
Lao is a tonal language belonging to the Southwestern branch of Tai, itself a major division of the Kra-Dai family. Its grammar is analytic, relying on word order rather than word endings, and the Vientiane dialect serves as the informal standard. It is written in its own abugida, a script where consonants carry built-in vowels, descended from early Tai writing. Thai is a close cousin, and speakers of the two can talk directly despite using different alphabets. Inside Laos, Lao is the sole official language and a common tongue among many ethnic groups, while emigrant communities keep it alive in the United States, France and Australia.
The ancestors of Lao speakers came from what is now Guangxi and northern Vietnam. Turmoil, including Han Chinese settlement and the collapse of the Tang dynasty, pushed small groups south between the 8th and 12th centuries, and the future Lao followed the Mekong. Along the way they met the Khmer, whose words for body parts, tools, towns and government soaked deep into both Lao and Thai, along with Sanskrit terms for kingship, astronomy and the arts. The Tai Dam of northern Vietnam escaped that influence, and their speech is now unintelligible to Lao and Thai listeners.
In 1354 Fa Ngoum, raised at the Khmer court, defeated the Khmer and forged the kingdom of Lan Xang. His court developed a now-extinct respectful register for addressing royalty and senior monks.
Many features of modern Lao settled in the 16th century. Scribes dropped Khmer writing for a simplified cursive script, Tai Noi, which survives with tweaks as today's Lao alphabet. Theravada Buddhism became dominant around then and brought Pali, producing paired words: Sanskrit maitri and Pali metta both mean loving kindness. Monks taught village boys to read, spreading literacy far beyond the court.
Source: Lao language
