Vowels

The vowels in both sets of languages are very similar, with the exception being that the short /o/ vowel in Lao is always written and the /iə/ vowel is a single character after theconsonant in Lao and not three characters surrounding the consonant as in Thai.

Tones

The differences between the tones in Central Thai and Lao are more subtle and also vary somewhat based on the region you are in. The Lao government identifies their language as having five tones, but there are parts of the country where the words are spoken with asixth tone. For the purposes of this post, I have chosen to to use the standard five tonsversion of Lao.

The first chart shows the rules used to correctly pronounce Thai words based on the central dialect. Basically the class of the initial consonant, combined with a few other factors dictates how a word is spoken.

This second chart shows how the same words are pronounced according to Lao rules. As I said earlier, this is what the governments says is standard pronunciation but it does vary based on region. When I was in Luang Prabang, I noticed many words pronounced differently from what this chart dictates. TV is Lao is still somewhat new and Lao-language programming is limited, I wonder if an eventual increase in Lao-language programming willbring about more standardized pronunciation of words.

In the third chart, I show both the Central Thai and Lao tone rules on top of each other. In cases where the tone rule is the same, I have just shown one outcome, in cases where therules are different I show the Thai version first and then the Lao version.

Vocabulary

Once you get over minor differences in the writing and pronunciation system, you can dig into the vocabulary. At first, I had a lot of trouble understanding what people were saying tome, but once I figured out a few things, I realized how similar the vocabulary is to Thai.

The first thing you will notice is that there is no r sound at all. Words in Thai written with an r sound (ร) will generally become a h (ຮ) or l (ລ or ຫຼ (ຫ+ລ)) sound in Lao.

There are no consonant clusters in Lao (เสียงควบกล้ำ), Thai words generally lose their second consonant when changing to Lao.

There is also a case where the commonly used word in Lao has the same meaning inThai, but is used at a different level. The Thai words for husband and wife phua and mia (ผัว เมีย) are considered rather impolite for general speech, but in Lao the same words are

common speech (ຜົວ ເມີຍ). Conversely the word for a period of time, yaam (ยาม) is rather

formal in Thai. We are much more likely to use tɔn (ตอน), but in Lao ŋaam (ຍາມ) is common speech.

One final pronunciation change has to do with the ch sound in Thai (ช) becoming a sh (ซ or ຊ) sound in Lao.

The two languages are very similar, but there are also tons of words which are different between the two languages.

Resources:

The books listed below were my constant companion throughout Laos. I would read the dictionary before bed at night and spend as much time as possible with the other booksduring the day. The internet resources were mostly consulted during the writing of this to make sure that that everything was correct. You will likely need to download the fonts listedbelow for the Lao text to show up. My biggest resource across the country was people thatI met, I got the feeling the the number of foreigners interested in the Lao language is prettylow and people generally seemed very happy to help me learn.

Books

Lao-English English-Lao Dictionary for Non-Lao Speakers

Thai-Isan-Lao Phrasebook หนังสือวลีภาษา ไทย อีสาน ลาว

ภาษาลาวพื้นฐาน 1

Internet

Lao and IPA fonts (IMPORTANT)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_alphabet

http://www.laoconnection.com/language1.htm

http://www.seasite.niu.edu/lao/lang2.htm