Lao script

Lao script, also called Akson Lao, is the main way people write the Lao language and some other languages in Laos. It has special letters called consonants, vowels, and marks that show sounds. There are 27 consonants, 33 vowels, and 4 tone marks.

The Lao script came from an older script called Tai Noi and was changed from the Khmer script. The Khmer script itself came from scripts used in southern India a long time ago. Lao script looks a bit like the Thai script but has fewer letters and more rounded shapes.

When people write in Lao, they write from left to right like English. Vowels can be placed above, below, in front of, or behind the consonants. There are no big or small letters like in the English alphabet, and spaces are used to separate words instead of punctuation marks.

History

Further information: Tai Noi script

The Lao script began from a version of the Old Khmer script from Angkor, and passed through the Sukhothai script. By the late 1400s, this script reached the Mekong River area and changed, forming different shapes for Thai and Lao languages.

In the 1930s, a Buddhist scholar named Maha Sila Viravong added new Lao letters to help write Pali and Sanskrit words. These new letters were not used often and stopped being used by 1975. In the 1960s, the Lao People's Revolutionary Party made the spelling simpler and took away some extra letters. In 2019, the extra letters were added to Unicode 12.

Consonants

The Lao alphabet has twenty-seven consonants. These consonants are divided into three groups—high, middle, and low. These groups help decide how a word sounds.

Each consonant has a special name when learning the alphabet. One special consonant, ອ, helps vowels that cannot stand alone. The letter ຣ was once taken out of the alphabet because many people said it like "l". But it was added back to help write words from other languages, like those from Europe or America. It is now taught in schools and used mostly at the start of syllables.

The Lao script also uses some consonants together, sometimes making special joined forms. Some older ways to write pairs of consonants are no longer used today.

Vowels

Lao script once had a special way of hiding vowel sounds inside consonant letters. But in 1975, the Lao government changed this. Now, main vowels are written clearly, but some special marks are still used. Some people still use the old way.

Vowels in Lao come from a few basic symbols. They mix with other sounds to make many vowel sounds. Vowels cannot start a word alone, so a special silent consonant is used when a word starts with a vowel sound.

Some vowels have special names, like "rolled stem" or "unwound stem". In writing, a small symbol shows where the vowel goes, but it looks different in different fonts.

^* In some places, like Luang Prabang, certain vowel sounds are said a little differently. Just like in nearby Thai script, a special mark ◌ະ is used to show a break in the sound after a vowel.

Punctuation

Lao writing does not usually have spaces between words. Spaces are only used to show the end of a clause or sentence.

Old Lao writing had special marks like ◌໌ for quiet sounds, ໆ for repeating a word, and ຯ for leaving out words. Today, Lao writing often uses punctuation from French, such as exclamation points (!), question marks (?), and parentheses (). Quotation marks «» or "" are also used. Hyphens (-) and the ellipsis (...) are common in today’s writing.

Numerals

The Lao script has special symbols for numbers. These symbols are used to write numbers in a shorter way.

Other languages in Lao script

The Lao alphabet was made for the Lao language, but now it can also be used for some other languages.

Extra Lao letters for writing Pali/Sanskrit, a special language used in Theravāda Buddhism, are now available. You can get the Lao Pali (Alpha) font from Aksharamukha. There are also extra Lao letters for writing Khmu’. The script can be used for Katu, and some groups in Viet Nam, like the Tai Dam and White Tai, use a similar script called Tai Viet.

An older version of Lao, called Tai Noi, was used by people in Thailand’s Isan area. It was stopped by the Thai government in 1871 and replaced with the Thai alphabet. People there stayed separate until later rules tried to make them more like Thailand. Some people have tried to add Tai Noi to Unicode.

We still need to learn more about how useful the Lao script is for other languages.

Some other languages use different writing systems. For example, the Hmong use the Romanized Popular Alphabet for the Hmong languages.

Pali

The regular Lao alphabet cannot write Pali because of changes to spelling. In the 1900s, Maha Sila Viravong made extra letters to write Pali. These new letters were added to Unicode 12 in 2019.

The extra letters are listed below:

Lao compatible software

Linux has supported the Lao language since 2005.

Windows added Lao support with Windows Vista, but people could already find fonts online to help.

In 2011, the Lao government chose Phetsarath OT as the main font for the country. Before this, many phones and tablets could not show Lao words and used Thai or English instead. Local experts worked to make Phetsarath OT work better on devices.

By March 2011, a Lao company called XY Mobile made Phetsarath OT work on phones and tablets using Android.

iOS also supports Lao script on iPhones and iPads.

Unicode

Main article: Lao (Unicode block)

The Lao script has a special place in Unicode, from U+0E80 to U+0EFF, and was added early on. The first ten symbols in one part of this block are the Lao numbers from 0 to 9. Some spaces in this block are left empty so the Lao letters match up with similar Thai letters. This means one Lao letter, ສ, is not in the usual order of the alphabet because it shares its spot with a Thai letter.