Lao · ລາວ

About Lao

Language family

Kra-Dai, Tai branch

Where it's spoken

Laos, and as the closely related Isan dialect in northeastern Thailand

Speakers

roughly 30 million speakers including Isan speakers

Lao is close enough to Thai that speakers of each can generally understand the other in conversation, and an especially close relative, Isan, is spoken by millions across northeastern Thailand as a result of shared Tai-branch ancestry and historical population movement. It has its own Brahmi-derived script, similar in structure to Thai's but simpler in its consonant and vowel inventory. Buddhist temple schools historically served as the primary centers of Lao literacy before modern state education systems took over.