Lao
Type	Abugida
Spoken languages	Lao and others
Time period	c. 1350–present
Parent systems	Proto-Canaanite alphabet  → Phoenician alphabet   → Aramaic alphabet    → Brāhmī     → Pallava      → Khmer       → Thai        → Lao
Unicode range	U+0E80–U+0EFF
ISO 15924	Laoo
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Brāhmī The Brahmic script and its descendants Northern Brahmic Kusan Tocharian Meitei Mayek Gupta Śāradā Landa Old Kashmiri Gurmukhī Khojki Takri Dogri Chameali Siddhaṃ Tibetan ’Phagspa Hangul Lepcha Limbu Nāgarī Devanāgarī Modi Nandināgarī Gujarati Proto-Bengali Kaithi Sylheti Nagari Eastern Nagari Bengali Assamese Mithilakshar Oriya Nepal Bhujimol Prachalit Nepal Ranjana Soyombo Southern Brahmic Tamil Brahmi Vatteluttu Tamil Sinhala Pallava Grantha Malayalam Tulu Dhives Akuru Saurashtra Khmer Thai Lao Cham Old Kawi Balinese Javanese Baybayin Batak Buhid Hanunó'o Tagbanwa Sundanese Lontara Rejang Mon Burmese Ojhopath Kalinga Bhattiprolu Script Kadamba Kannada Telugu Tai Le New Tai Lue Ahom  This box: view • talk •

The Lao script is used mainly to write the Lao language.

The minority languages of Laos are also written in the Lao script, and officially it is the only script to write them in Laos, but many speakers of Hmong prefer the Latin alphabet.

The Lao script is very similar to the Thai alphabet, but Lao's spelling system is simpler and more phonetic, partially due to a spelling reform carried out in the 1960s.

Consonants

The table below shows the Lao consonant letters with their phonetic value in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and transcriptions according to the US Board on Geographic Names and the British Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (BGN/PCGN), the US Library of Congress (ALA/LC) and the transcriptions used in the Unicode names of the letters.

Vowel nuclei

The table below shows the Lao vowel nuclei, combined with the consonant ກ. (provisional version)

* indicates variations no longer used in the reformed spelling

Lao in Unicode

The Unicode range for Lao is U+0E80–U+0EFF. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points.

External links

• Omniglot - Lao alphabet
• The Lao Alphabet at SEAsite
• Laos - language situation by N. J. Enfield
• The Unicode Standard 5.0 Code ChartsPDF (90.4 KB) Lao Range: 0E80 - 0EFF, from the Unicode Consortium

See also

• Romanization of Lao
• Brahmic family