Laos is an exciting country as far as language variety is concerned,
especially in the capital (Vientiane). In the 'ban' (neighborhood) in
which my wife and I live and work is a patchwork of various
languages. The common de facto interlanguage is English, but an
English borrowing heavily on Lao and Thai sources, not to mention many
other languages. The official language is Lao (Laotian), but Thai is
widely known and spoken, since we get Thai radio and television. The
old colonial language, French, is still omnipresent on public
buildings and in various publications. Within the capital is a very
large Vietnamese-speaking community. Many terms, especially culinary,
have come from Vietnamese. There is also a Vietnamese television
station.
In Vientiane, there is a sizeable Chinese community, using many
Chinese dialects, or one of the other languages. Many businesses use
Chinese, along with Lao and English. Many tribal groups have moved
into the capital area and they live in compact areas. There is still
a surviving Sindhi-speaking community. If this was not enough, there
is a Swedish-language community, with a school, a cultural
organization, two restaurants, etc. The Filipino ex-pat community is
quite large as well.
Within the vicinity of Vientiane there are several indigenous
languages, beside the Tai-Kadai (Lao and Thai), e.g. Hmong dialects
(languages).
The variety of English used by many young people, whether from multi-
national homes or from bilingual schools, shows interesting
innovations, e.g. sentence constructions without pronouns, Lao / Thai
words or loan words, a general collapse of inflections, etc. This is
evident in publications, but especially in advertisements. Within
this English-speaking population is a large pro****tion of returnees
from the US and Australia. In the hinterland it is not unknown to
have families with English as their main language, especially among
the Hmong.
The Lao language since 1975 has a standardized orthography, which
removed 'silent' letters, especially those of Pali origin. The Lao
alphabet is similar, but not intelligible, with the Thai. Since the
Revolution, the Lao language took a different direction (language
planning) than its sister language, Thai. French, English,
Vietnamese, Chinese, have influenced the Lao language, in the
capital. In Vientiane, a new rapid and colorful urban dialect is
changing the look of Lao.
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