A linguistic analysis of the Lao writing system and its suitability for minority language orthographies

Abstract

Standard Lao, the official language in the Lao PDR, is spoken in and around the capital Vientiane. Lexicon, vowels and especially tone inventories of the many Lao dialects in the nation differ tremendously. A new orthography to replace the traditional Pali-based orthography which was hard to teach and learn was established during the Lao language reform in 1975. This study investigates the grapheme-phoneme correspondences of Lao orthography and its applicability to other languages in the multilingual nation. After a short introduction to the Lao language and the linguistic situation in the country, the Lao phoneme inventory and a description of the nature and historical development of Lao script are presented, including some taxonomic considerations discussing the segmental, suprasegmental and syllabic features of this script. This is followed by a linguistic evaluation of the orthography and a summary in the light of how to apply Lao script to other languages spoken in the country. Three minority orthographies based on Lao script illustrate that the almost entirely direct phonemic correspondences, consistency in the formation of multigraphs, the rich grapheme inventory and the both segmental and syllabic characteristics of this semi-alphabetic script support a direct application to other, even unrelated languages with contrastive suprasegmental features like tone or voice quality. No orthography testing or studies on literacy acquisition have been done on these or any other Lao-script based minority scripts yet, so that firm recommendations regarding the creation of new Lao-script based orthographies cannot be given.

Keywords:

• Lao orthography
• Lao phonology
• Alphasyllabary
• Abugida
• Syllabet
• Taxonomy of writing systems

I wish to thank my colleague at the Payap University Linguistics Institute, literacy consultant Michelle Miller, and Dr Carolyn Dean, CAMA Services Inc. for their input on this paper.

I wish to thank my colleague at the Payap University Linguistics Institute, literacy consultant Michelle Miller, and Dr Carolyn Dean, CAMA Services Inc. for their input on this paper.

Notes

¹ Personal communication with Carolyn Dean, former director of the Lao language school in Vientiane

² Personal communication with Ari Vitikainen, World Renew, Laos: According to the Director of the Inclusive Education Center, these issues were discussed at the 5th Meeting of the Lao Revolutionary Party Central Committee about the Implementation of the Regulations Concerning Ethnic Minorities and Religion in Vientiane, 2007.

³ In the course of standardisation efforts since the 1930s, this is when the Lao language standardisation policy first was laid out clearly, cf. Enfield (2007).

⁴ personal communication November 2012