Lao language
Spoken in
- Tai - Kadai languages Kam - Tai Languages Tai Languages South West Tai Languages Laotian
Lo
Lao
Lao
The Lao language ( ພາ ສາ ລາວ phasa lao, also: Lao ) is the official language of Laos, and closely related to the Thai.
Classification
Laotian part of the Kam -Tai branch of the Tai - Kadai language family.
Geographical distribution
Lao is spoken by the population north and south of the Mekong River in Laos and Thailand. There is a dialect continuum between Thai and Laotian, lies between the two languages of the Isan dialect of Northeast Thailand.
Dialects
The Lao language has many dialects, with the largest differences are found in northern Laos and the languages spoken in Central and Southern Laos between the dialects. The northern dialects have five tones, the southern point six tones.
Phonetics and phonology
Laotian is a tonal language. Another special feature compared to European languages is that there is in the closure sounds not only two rows ( voiceless - voiced), but three rows ( aspirated unvoiced - voiced).
Standard Laotian, ie the dialect of Vientiane, has six tones: low, medium, high, rising, high and rising, low and falling. In the dialect of Luang Prabang, there are five tones: mid falling and rising, low rising, medium, high falling, mid- rise.
Grammar
Lao is an isolating language that knows neither declension nor conjugation. Tense and number, etc. do not change the words. Laotian knows no items and no grammatical gender.
The basic word order of sentences is subject-object - verb.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary of the Lao contains many loan words from Pali and Sanskrit. Native words in the basic vocabulary are mostly monosyllabic.
Font
The Lao script is an abugida and belongs to the family of Brahmi or Indian scriptures. The script has 33 consonants (the letter R is not always included) and 28 vowels.
The signs for vowels are arranged differently depending on the vowel to consonant: the sign stands in front, behind, above, below, or ( in this case, as two or three characters) to the consonants around. Starts the spoken syllable with a vowel, a " dumb " ( non-spoken ) along with this consonant is written. Some vowels are written with different characters, depending on whether the syllable ends in this vowel or a consonant. The sound of a syllable is made clear by the combination of the vowel and the consonant, or and partly by diacritics.
Consonants
The following table shows the consonants of the Lao alphabet are given as well as their pronunciation at the beginning of a syllable in phonetics and transcription systems of the British Permanent Committee on Geographical Names, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN / PCGN ), the Library of Congress (ALA - LC), and - if present - the transcription that is used in the names of the Unicode character. ( After the slash in each case the transcription is at the end of a syllable. )
Vowels
The following table lists the vowel signs of the Lao alphabet are listed, each connected to the consonants ກ. Can vowel signs above, below, before, and after the consonants are, after they are spoken, combinations are also possible.
Lao Unicode
Unicode for Lao is U 0 E80 U 0 ... EFF.