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Language code: lo

Technical information about ISO 639 language code lo

Documentation

The table below provides technical details for the Lao language, designated by the lo code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

lo

Name

Official

Lao

Native

ພາສາລາວ

Family
Tai
Scripts
Lao
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
Central Lao (Vientiane)Northern LaoSouthern Lao (Champasak–Savannakhet)Eastern Lao (Khammouane)
Related languages
ThaiIsanNorthern Thai (Kam Mueang)ShanTai Lue
Key facts
Vientiane Lao has six phonemic tonesThe Lao script is an abugida ultimately derived from Brahmi via KhmerLao grammar lacks inflection for tense, number or gender, relying on particles and contextLarge parts of the vocabulary come from Pali, Sanskrit and French loan-wordsNoun counting requires the use of measure classifiers.
Sample phrase

ສະບາຍດີ, ເຈົ້າສະບາຍດີບໍ?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Lao belongs to the Kra-Dai language family, specifically to the Tai subgroup. It is the official language of Laos and is also used by the Lao-speaking population in parts of Thailand. It is written using the Lao script in Laos. It is estimated that there are more than 4 million speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

Laos

3.4M

Thailand

60K

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Lao speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

Related locale codes

lo-LA – Lao (Laos)

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