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29-468: The Lao Loum ( Lao : ລາວລຸ່ມ ; Thai : ลาวลุ่ม , RTGS :  Lao Lum , pronounced [lāːw lûm] ) is an official Lao People's Democratic Republic designation for lowland dwelling Tai peoples , including the majority Lao people . The Lao Loum, literally meaning 'lowland Lao', are the inhabitants of the river valleys and lowlands along the Mekong River and make up over 68% of

58-486: A family tree, and therefore no known Urheimat . An example is the Basque language of Northern Spain and southwest France. Nevertheless, it is a scientific fact that all languages evolve. An unknown Urheimat may still be hypothesized, such as that for a Proto-Basque , and may be supported by archaeological and historical evidence. Sometimes relatives are found for a language originally believed to be an isolate. An example

87-464: A given language family implies a purely genealogical view of the development of languages. This assumption is often reasonable and useful, but it is by no means a logical necessity, as languages are well known to be susceptible to areal change such as substrate or superstrate influence. Over a sufficient period of time, in the absence of evidence of intermediary steps in the process, it may be impossible to observe linkages between languages that have

116-486: A linguistic homeland (e.g. Isidore Dyen 's proposal for New Guinea as the center of dispersal of the Austronesian languages ). The linguistic migration theory has its limits because it only works when linguistic diversity evolves continuously without major disruptions. Its results can be distorted e.g. when this diversity is wiped out by more recent migrations. The concept of a (single, identifiable) "homeland" of

145-516: A shared Urheimat: given enough time, natural language change will obliterate any meaningful linguistic evidence of a common genetic source. This general concern is a manifestation of the larger issue of "time depth" in historical linguistics. For example, the languages of the New World are believed to be descended from a relatively "rapid" peopling of the Americas (relative to the duration of

174-570: A word can alter its meaning, and is analytic , forming sentences through the combination of individual words without inflection. These features, common in Kra-Dai languages , also bear similarities to Sino-Tibetan languages like Chinese or Austroasiatic languages like Vietnamese . Lao's mutual intelligibility with Thai and Isan , fellow Southwestern Tai languages, allows for effective intercommunication among their speakers, despite differences in script and regional variations. In Laos, Lao

203-455: Is almost completely detached from linguistic reconstruction, instead surrounding questions of phonology and the origin of speech . Time depths involved in the deep prehistory of all the world's extant languages are of the order of at least 100,000 years. The concept of an Urheimat only applies to populations speaking a proto-language defined by the tree model . This is not always the case. For example, in places where language families meet,

232-493: Is not only the official language but also a lingua franca , bridging the linguistic diversity of a population that speaks many other languages. Its cultural significance is reflected in Laotian literature, media, and traditional arts. The Vientiane dialect has emerged as the de facto standard, though no official standard has been established. Internationally, Lao is spoken among diaspora communities , especially in countries like

261-543: Is now southeastern China, specifically what is now Guangxi and northern Vietnam where the diversity of various Tai languages suggests an Urheimat . The Southwestern Tai languages began to diverge from the Northern and Central branches of the Tai languages, covered mainly by various Zhuang languages , sometime around 112 CE, but likely completed by the sixth century . Due to the influx of Han Chinese soldiers and settlers,

290-633: Is the Etruscan language , which, even though only partially understood, is believed to be related to the Rhaetic language and to the Lemnian language . A single family may be an isolate. In the case of the non-Austronesian indigenous languages of Papua New Guinea and the indigenous languages of Australia, there is no published linguistic hypothesis supported by any evidence that these languages have links to any other families. Nevertheless, an unknown Urheimat

319-566: The Southwestern branch of Tai languages. Lao (including Isan) and Thai, although they occupy separate groups, are mutually intelligible and were pushed closer through contact and Khmer influence, but all Southwestern Tai languages are mutually intelligible to some degree. The Tai languages also include the languages of the Zhuang , which are split into the Northern and Central branches of

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348-415: The homeland or Urheimat ( / ˈ ʊər h aɪ m ɑː t / OOR -hye-maht , from German ur - 'original' and Heimat 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages . A proto-language is the reconstructed or historically-attested parent language of a group of languages that are genetically related . Depending on

377-677: The Afroasiatic-speaking Daasanach have been observed to be closely related to each other but genetically distinct from neighboring Afroasiatic-speaking populations. This is a reflection of the fact that the Daasanach, like the Nyangatom, originally spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, with the ancestral Daasanach later adopting an Afroasiatic language around the 19th century. Creole languages are hybrids of languages that are sometimes unrelated. Similarities arise from

406-629: The Tai languages. The Tai languages form a major division within the Kra-Dai language family , distantly related to other languages of southern China, such as the Hlai and Be languages of Hainan and the Kra and Kam-Sui languages on the Chinese Mainland and in neighbouring regions of northern Vietnam. The ancestors of the Lao people were speakers of Southwestern Tai dialects that migrated from what

435-834: The Tai migrants that followed the Mekong River . As the Southwestern Tai-speaking peoples diverged, following paths down waterways, their dialects began to diverge into the various languages today, such as the Lao-Phuthai languages that developed along the Mekong River and includes Lao and its Isan sub-variety and the Chiang Saen languages which includes the Central Thai dialect that is the basis of Standard Thai. Despite their close relationship, there were several phonological divergences that drifted

464-513: The United States, France, and Australia, reflecting its global diasporic presence. The Lao language falls within the Lao-Phuthai group of languages, including its closest relatives, Phuthai (BGN/PCGN Phouthai , RTGS Phu Thai ) and Tai Yo . Together with Northwestern Tai—which includes Shan , Ahom and most Dai languages of China, the Chiang Saen languages—which include Standard Thai, Khorat Thai, and Tai Lanna —and Southern Tai form

493-614: The Upper Paleolithic) within a few millennia (roughly between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago), but their genetic relationship has become completely obscured over the more than ten millennia which have passed between their separation and their first written record in the early modern period. Similarly, the Australian Aboriginal languages are divided into some 28 families and isolates for which no genetic relationship can be shown. The Urheimaten reconstructed using

522-427: The age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near-certainty (in the case of historical or near-historical migrations) or it may be very uncertain (in the case of deep prehistory). Next to internal linguistic evidence, the reconstruction of a prehistoric homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, including archaeology and archaeogenetics . There are several methods to determine

551-459: The creole formation process, rather than from genetic descent. For example, a creole language may lack significant inflectional morphology, lack tone on monosyllabic words, or lack semantically opaque word formation, even if these features are found in all of the parent languages of the languages from which the creole was formed. Some languages are language isolates . That is to say, they have no well accepted language family connection, no nodes in

580-478: The distribution of flora and fauna. Another method is based on the linguistic migration theory (first proposed by Edward Sapir ), which states that the most likely candidate for the last homeland of a language family can be located in the area of its highest linguistic diversity. This presupposes an established view about the internal subgrouping of the language family. Different assumptions about high-order subgrouping can thus lead to very divergent proposals for

609-564: The early 20th century, the Nostratic theory still receives serious consideration, but it is by no means generally accepted. The more recent and more speculative "Borean" hypothesis attempts to unite Nostratic with Dené–Caucasian and Austric , in a "mega-phylum" that would unite most languages of Eurasia, with a time depth going back to the Last Glacial Maximum. The argument surrounding the " Proto-Human language ", finally,

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638-518: The end of the Chinese occupation of Vietnam, the fall of Jiaozhi and turbulence associated with the decline and fall of the Tang dynasty led some of the Tai peoples speaking Southwestern Tai to flee into Southeast Asia, with the small-scale migration mainly taking place between the eighth and twelfth centuries. The Tais split and followed the major river courses, with the ancestral Lao originating in

667-418: The homeland of a given language family. One method is based on the vocabulary that can be reconstructed for the proto-language. This vocabulary – especially terms for flora and fauna – can provide clues for the geographical and ecological environment in which the proto-language was spoken. An estimate for the time-depth of the proto-language is necessary in order to account for prehistorical changes in climate and

696-976: The languages apart with time such as the following examples:     *mlɯn 'slippery'     → {\displaystyle \rightarrow }   ມື່ນ muen /mɯ̄ːn/       → {\displaystyle \rightarrow }   ลื่น luen /lɯ̂ːn/   {} {} ມື່ນ {} ลื่น {} {} muen {} luen *mlɯn → {\displaystyle \rightarrow } /mɯ̄ːn/ → {\displaystyle \rightarrow } /lɯ̂ːn/ 'slippery' {} {} {} {}     *raːk 'to vomit'     → {\displaystyle \rightarrow }   ຮາກ hak /hâːk/       → {\displaystyle \rightarrow }   ราก rak /râːk/ Linguistic homeland In historical linguistics ,

725-526: The methods of comparative linguistics typically estimate separation times dating to the Neolithic or later. It is undisputed that fully developed languages were present throughout the Upper Paleolithic , and possibly into the deep Middle Paleolithic (see origin of language , behavioral modernity ). These languages would have spread with the early human migrations of the first "peopling of

754-513: The population of Laos, of whom half are of the Lao ethnic group. Other members categorised as Lao Loum are the other large Tai groups, such as the Phuan and Phu Thai and other closely related members of Tai ethnic groups. This article about an ethnic group in Asia is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lao language Lao is a tonal language , where the pitch or tone of

783-597: The prehistoric spread of the world's major linguistic families seem to reflect the expansion of population cores during the Mesolithic followed by the Neolithic Revolution . The Nostratic theory is the best-known attempt to expand the deep prehistory of the main language families of Eurasia (excepting Sino-Tibetan and the languages of Southeast Asia) to the beginning of the Holocene . First proposed in

812-637: The relationship between a group that speaks a language and the Urheimat for that language is complicated by "processes of migration, language shift and group absorption are documented by linguists and ethnographers" in groups that are themselves "transient and plastic." Thus, in the contact area in western Ethiopia between languages belonging to the Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic families, the Nilo-Saharan-speaking Nyangatom and

841-508: The world", but they are no longer amenable to linguistic reconstruction. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has imposed linguistic separation lasting several millennia on many Upper Paleolithic populations in Eurasia, as they were forced to retreat into " refugia " before the advancing ice sheets. After the end of the LGM, Mesolithic populations of the Holocene again became more mobile, and most of

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