Let's learn Lao!

[misterA]

Strange, I can see both Thai and Lao fonts with no problem and didn't have to download anything

Same here with Vista and no additional fonts installed.

[David_Loves_Ubonwan]

Me too, Vista seems to be able to be able to display all fonts without further download.

I've recently had documents that included Chinese, Indian, Hebrew and Arabic characters all display correctly.

David

[Nu]

Me three, I can see both Thai and Laos without any problem. I have Vista as well.

[guava]

I should have clarified, but I am running XP Pro not Vista

[Tim]

It's too bad that there are display problems for some people (glad you got Thai fonts back djaidee). With so many different operating system versions and individual setups, it's tricky. Hopefully some who want to get Lao fonts working will be able to do so, and explain what works.

On my Mac (OS 10.3), I downloaded the Saysettha font and Lao sites show up well. I also downloaded a keyboard file with which I was able to get the input mode to work. Only minor issue so far is that in some applications, after typing Lao and switching to Thai, the Thai doesn't input correctly until I change the font back manually. Actually, Firefox is the only program so far that hasn't had this difficulty.

[yeows]

I am running on Vista and I have no problems seeing both Thai and Lao scripts.

[misterA]

On my XP Pro I can display the Thai fonts but not the Lao fonts.

[Tim]

Here are some sites I have found useful so far for learning Lao.

http://sealang.net/lao/dictionary.htm
Excellent online dictionary, still in development and not as refined as its Thai counterpart, but immensely useful. The "predictive" function (click on the keyboard image next to the input boxes) is great, and a similar feature is available in the Thai dictionary.

Lao keyboard layout from laoscript.com.

Lao language wikipedia - Not a lot of articles here yet by wikipedia standards (~300).


Current events and news sites

http://www.kpl.net.la/
Lao News Agency, English and Lao

http://www.vientianemai.net
Lao newspaper online, slow site for me, prefer the one above.

http://www.rfa.org/lao
Radio free Asia in Lao - stories, audio, link to English stories about the region.

http://www.voanews.com/lao/webcasts.cfm
Voice of America daily half-hour news broadcasts in Lao, the rfa site above seems to have better all around programs and coverage.

http://www.mofa.gov.la/
Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs, English and Lao

[Tim]

Pronunciation, letters, and tones in Lao

[note: Some of this material is based on the book Lao for Beginners (not the Becker book, but an older book by Tatsuo Hoshino and Russell Marcus), and some is made up from my own observations. Others may have different perspectives. Any differences in opinion or corrections are welcome.]

Lao consonants have 20 sounds, counting the “silent” sound of the letter ອ. In Thai there are 21. The differences are that two sounds in Thai are not used in Lao, the “ch” sound of ª ªéÒ§ and © ©èÔ§ and the “r” sound of à àÃ×Í. Words with ch in Thai are pronounced as “s” in Lao, and “r” is either pronounced as “h” or as “l”. One Lao sound is not present in Thai, it is the sound of the letter ຍ which is described as the “ny” sound in the English word canyon or the “ni” in onion (and possibly also in the Knights of Ni of Monty Python ). The letter ຢ with a longer stroke on the right side is equivalent in sound to the Thai  ÂÑ¡Éì.

Mid-class consonants

They are eight of these: ກ ດ ຕ ບ ປ ຈ ອ ຢ
The first seven are analogous to the Thai mid-class consonant (leaving out ® and ¯) ¡ ´ µ º » ¨ Í.

The last one is analogous to the Thai  as mentioned above, so it is the only one that is “out of place” for people who know the Thai mid-class consonants.

Tone rules for mid-class consonants

Syllables starting with mid-class consonants and having a long vowel without a “stop” consonant (or a short vowel with the “nasal” endings “m” “n” “ng” (ມ ນ ງ) are pronounced with a low tone in Lao, different from Thai where they would be mid tone. Syllables starting with mid-class consonants having short vowels are pronounced with high tone, different from Thai where they would be low tone. And finally, syllables with long vowels and a stop final are pronounced with a falling tone ***.

*** - Lao has six tones compared to Thai with five. There is a low falling tone and a high falling tone in Lao. At this point in my learning I am not overly concerned with the differences. For mid-class consonants, this is a low falling tone. All classes of consonants with long vowel and stop final produce syllables with one of the falling tones.

Tone marks

Lao has the same tone marks as in Thai, but the mai drii and mai jattawa are very rare in Lao. The mai eek makes words mid-tone for all consonant classes, and the mai toh makes word falling for all consonant classes (low-falling tone for high-class consonants, and high-falling for the other two classes).

An interesting observation from that fact is that all words in Lao that are spoken in low tone must start with one of the eight mid-class consonants ***.

***- Technically, this is probably not true. Beginning books on Lao teach the Vientienne dialect, the so-called standard Lao. However, different dialects exist both within Laos and elsewhere (e.g. Isaan), where tone rules are different.

…more later…

[Tim]

Here are some Lao words starting with mid-class consonants which are virtually identical to their Thai counterparts, except for tone.

Low tones
ໄປ - to go
ປີ - year
ຕາ eye
ຢາ medicine
ໃຈ heart
ກາຍ - body
ປູ - crab
ດາວ - star
ເດືອນ - month
ຢາງ - rubber, tire
ບິນ - to fly

Mid tones
ຕ່າງ other
ແຕ່ - only, since
ຢູ່ - to be located, live (at)
ປ່າ - forest
ອ່ານ to read

Low-falling tones
ເອກ - single
ອີກ - again, another
ແບບ - kind, type
ກອດ - hug, embrace
ຈູບ - kiss
ຈາກ - from
ແຕກ - break, separate, scatter
ບອກ - say, state

High-falling tones
ຕັ້ງ - set up, start, establish
ໄດ້ - have, get, be able
ບ້ານ - home, village
ອ້ວນ - fat, stout