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I deleted the material about reasons for the Isan and Laos being poor. That Laos is resource poor is absurd. Laos is rich in natural resources including gold, copper, timber, hydropower. It goes on and on. It's agriculture potential is huge, both on the bolovens plateau for coffee and tea, and on the plain of jars, which in the past has been used or livestock grazing, and temperate fruits. Historians from the 17th century onwards always insisted that the West bank of the Mekong was very fertile and the East bank very infertile. It was only after Siam burned Vientiane that the population was forced to inhabit the unfertile isan region.

As for isan's poverty, agriculture alone is not a sufficient explanation for the region's poverty. Many areas of the world have no agricultural capability to speak of and manage to be rich. Simplistic explanations can always be arbitrarily judged and dismissed.


Shoudn't this page be redirected to Laos and the content moved there? Wikipedia is not a dictionary so as a rule we do not have articles about words. --mav

Done. -- prat


What I disagree with some of you here is, how can you be so sure how many Laotian are actually living in Thailand. NOBODY knows. NOBODY knows the exact number. NOBODY knows who's Laos who's not. So I think we should stop claiming ISARN as LAOTIAN. I mean, they are not our people. They are Thai people who love His Majesty The King. I believe, the country your family lives - is the place you call homecountry and a place you belong to. Therefore, please stop it. Stop trying to claim them as one of us when you don't know who they really are. It is not important at all. For the Hmong who live in Laos, surely they are Laotian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.8.80.252 (talk) 07:09, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We need (somewhere) an article about the Lao ethnic group- something like Mon (ethnic group). Are there any objections to putting it here, or would it be less confusing to have it at Lao (ethnic group)? Markalexander100 08:41, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Done. Markalexander100 08:01, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Do we have a source for the 500,000 emigrant Lao figure? I found one source saying 400,000 from Laos in the US, but that was including Hmong and various others. Mark1 09:25, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This article claims that 15 million Lao live in Thailand. The CIA World Factbook reports that 11% of Thailand's population of ~65 million is 'other', which is ~7.5 million. I don't know what the correct number is, but it's something i noticed.

The CIA counts Lao people as "ethnic Thai". HenryFlower 08:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Insults on Lao people

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I detect many offensive and what many Lao people would be considered insults. The article seems to be very biased and makes it look like the Laotians are inferior to the Thais, not to mention many things revolving around the Thais when this article is about the Lao people not Thai.

The article I would consider is non-reliable and full of useless many things that are not facts, one is about how Isan mor lum having a major influence in Laos, that is totally not true. Today there are many Isan people that are copying and using Laotian artist's songs to use in the Isan mor lum.

As a good gesture and a peaceful way of trying to make things better, please and I mean please revise the entire article before further action will be taken by me or other Laotians that view this page and find it very offensive to the Lao people and the country of Laos.

The history of the Lao people since the 18th century is essentially a history of what the Thai people have done to them; I'd say that reflects worse on the Thais than on the Lao. On your specific mor lam point, you are completely wrong. The Laotian influence on lam in Thailand since the 1980s has been tiny, limited to a few cover version of Laotian songs- in that period lam in Thailand has been influenced far more by central Thai and western influences than by Laotian ones. Laotian lam, meanwhile, has been utterly transformed by the importation of western instrumentation and luk tung song styles via lam from Isan. (Laotian music, as you will know, is almost impossible to find in Thailand, while Laotian shops are full of lam from Isan). HenryFlower 11:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, the anonymous editor is wrong on pretty much all points, however, I do think that, for an article supposedly about "Lao People" it does tend to focus (too much, IMHO) on history instead of the culture of the Lao people. I realize the historical relationship with the Thai is very important to understand the situation of the modern Lao, but that should be a small portion in relation to the rest of the article (which should actually describe Lao culture, demographics, distribution, language, origin, music, etc and not merely relate them to the Thai). Also, the "Language" section is wrong. It appears to be trying to minimize the differences between the group of Lao dialects and the group of Isan dialects. There is a reason the two are classified seperately (and it's not just a national border). In addition to the differences listed, there are also differences in phonology (especially tone rules and distribution/number of tones). In short, this article needs a lot of work, but it is not, in any way, biased or "insulting" to Lao people.--WilliamThweatt 15:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Today there are many Isan people that are copying and using Laotian artist's songs to use in the Isan mor lum. ---> could you give me an example? MTha2557 (talk) 15:09, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please cite sources

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There are so many claims on this page. Please verify there are 85,000 lao people living in Cambodia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilinguist (talk • contribs) 00:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

census data

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the mien page says 50,000 mien resettled on the west coast. if so, that's a significant portion of the total under the laotian census category. the thai dam also have signficant communities, so i think it's best to leave out the claim that these other groups are very small in number. they could be anywhere from 10-30%, which is not insignificant. furthermore, large numbers of chinese and vietnamese laotians also immigrated, further reducing the share of ethnic lao in the US census's Laotian category. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.156.177 (talk) 00:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Lao of Thailand

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There are 4 to 5 times more Tai Isan people (ethnic Lao) than there are ethnic Lao people of Laos, descended from (sometimes forced) migrations from the more populated eastern banks of the Mekong river, but nationalistic policies beginning since the beginning of WWII (Winichakul, Thongchai. (1994) Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of a Nation. Hawaii: Univerity of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1974-3) has caused a name shift, switch to the Thai alphabet, and forced Isan people to accept Thai identity. However, the historical nature, shared customs, and mutually intelligible languages make it all to readily apparent that Isan people are still Lao at heart. Isan variety is affected by Thai code-switching and creeping influences and neologisms, but differences between Lao dialects and STandard Lao can also be just as great. If my grandparents before WWII were Lao and spoke Lao, and I speak to them in an old-fashioned way, and can understand Lao songs, does that mean I stopped speaking Lao because of some foolish nationalistic name change? I also eat padaek, khao niew, gin lao, dten lam, and call myself a bao morlum. I'm sure dressed up at a village fair, you might think I was Lao too William. Nintala (talk) 07:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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None of the links in this section appear to be appropriate for this article. I propose removing them all. Kwamfun (talk) 18:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Including Isan

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Someone edited the population and removed Isan spelling (in Thai alphabet). This article covers ALL Lao people, which Isan people are ethnically, so they should be included in population and the orthography should be considered. NOt to metnion there are more Lao people in Thailand anyway. Nintala (talk) 00:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Immigrant Lao in Thailand

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What about Lao who were born in Laos, or descended from people who recently immigrated from Laos, living in Thailand? Didn't this article once say there were 2 million of such people living in Thailand? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.210.16.30 (talk) 23:38, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thai Isan and Laos

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I think you should not include Thai "Isan" and total population of Laos. Then you should write about population of Laos only. Thai articles had be confused by Laos articles because It's include everything to yours. It's chaos. I know Thai should write that Isan people is Laos, but today they are Thai---Thailand people. They wasn't Laos. Hope you will understand. However, you can protest me by the real number of Laos people. Sincerely.Anuwater (talk) 05:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Laos Etymology

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Is it perhaps possible that the name for Laos comes from the Sanskrit name for the region, लव (lav)? I believe this is consistent with the names of other countries in the region. Siam probably comes from its Indian name श्याम (shyaam) which differs from their autonym. Bhutan also probably comes from भोटन्त (bhoTant) signifying the edges of "bhoT," the Sanskrit name of Tibet. DerekWinters (talk) 04:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It could come from the Lao word for "us". —Pawyilee (talk) 15:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lao vs. Laotian in English

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The article should make clearer focus on the differences between Laotian people (all people from Laos) and Lao people. Since there is an Isan people article, we shall De-Siamify the Lao people article.

If the relevant demonym is Laotian then the name of the people would be Laotians. It would be of use if this can be sorted out. GregKaye 00:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Lao" refers to a specific ethnic group, the Lao people, and anything pertaining to them as a group, e.g. Lao language (the language of the Lao people), Lao culture (the culture of the Lao people). "Laotian" relates to the country of Laos, e.g. Laotian economy, Laotian borders, Laotian citizens, etc. So, Lao people from Laos are both "Lao" and "Laotian". Hmong people from Laos are "Laotian" but not "Lao". Lao people native to Thailand are "Lao" but not "Laotian". In short, "Lao" is an ethnicity and "Laotian" is a nationality. I haven't looked over this particular article in a long while, but I will look through it and, since the OP didn't point out anything specific, if I find any problems I'll try to correct them.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 02:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@WilliamThweatt: assuming the Lao-Laotian distinction you mention is documented and correct, can you or someone else fix the obvious contradiction in the Name section? It talks of "The English word Laotian, used interchangeably with Lao in most contexts".Rollo (talk) 08:33, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No objections so corrected. Rollo (talk) 21:41, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On the pre-history and origin of the Lao

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The pre-history and origin of the Lao and Tai-Kadai speaking people are two interesting topics. I'm going to expand the history section when I get time. Dirtolin1234 (talk) 11:55, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Population of the Lao in Vietnam is not correct

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The population of the Lao in Vietnam numbers around 14,928 according to General Statistics Office of Vietnam 2009. But this Lao group is different from the Lao ethnic living along the Mekong River. The Lao in Vietnam is called Lao Noi (small Lao), speaking a Southwestern Tai language that's closely related to the Black Tai, White Tai, Tai Lue, Lao (in Laos), but there are linguistic differences leading to grouping them into a separate ethnic group. This is Vietnamese Wikipedia page for the Lao in Vietnam (Lao Noi) [1]. They clearly dress in a different way comparing to the Lao living along the Mekong River. Therefore, I'm going to remove this Lao group from the population of Lao. Gustmeister (talk) 19:38, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Lao in Jiaozhi (Giao Chi) and the southwestward migration of Tai-speaking tribes

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On his blog, Liam C. Kelley, a Professor of history (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) mentions a group called “Lạo Tử” (獠子) written in a 14-century Vietnamese historical text (Brief Treatise on An Nam [An Nam chí lược]).

Kelley writes about the name “Lạo Tử” (獠子) as follows:

"While it would be tempting to call these people “Lao,” in actuality this term probably referred to various peoples, from Lao to Black Tai to even some speakers of languages that were not part of the Tai language family."

And then quotes a passage mentioning about this "Lạo" group in the Vietnamese historical text written in the 14th century:

"Lạo Tử is another name for savages. There are many in Huguang and Yunnan. Some serve Giao Chỉ.* There are also some who tattoo their foreheads and bore their teeth. There are quite a few different types of them. It was recorded in the past that there are Head-Shaped Lạo Tử, Red-Pants Lạo Tử and Nose-Drinking Lạo Tử.** They all live in cliff caverns or nest huts. They drink wine through reeds. They are fond of warring with enemies and they beat bronze drums. They value big ones. When a drum is first completed, they place it in a courtyard with wine and invite their fellow kind. Those who come fill [the courtyard] to the gates. The daughter of the notable takes a gold or silver hairpin and strikes the drum, after which she leaves it with the owner. Some say that the bronze drums were the gongs used by Zhuge Liang when he campaigned against the savages [in 225 A.D.]."

There is another passage writes about the "Li" and "Liao" as follows:

"According to the History of the Later Han [Hou Hanshu 後漢書], Ma Yuan obtained Lạc Việt bronze drums in Giao Chỉ/Jiaozhi. The Record of Guang Region [Guangzhou ji 廣州記] [records that] the Li and the Liao cast drums out of bronze. Only those that are tall are valued, and over a meter wide. When a drum is first completed, it is hung in a courtyard. Wine is placed there and they invite their fellow kind. The daughter of a notable takes a gold or silver hairpin and strikes the drum, after which she leaves it with the owner. Also, the History of the Sui [Suishu 隋書] the various savages all cast large bronze drums. When there was some incident they would sound it and people would arrive like clouds."

In general, from what Kelley writes, the Lao/Liao did live in the Red River delta and served in the Court of Jiaozhi (Giao Chi). They also cast bronze frums and valued them. The Lao/Liao's and Li's presence in the Red River delta is mentioned as early as the 1st century BCE.

Related articles on Liam C. Kelley's blog that mention about the Lạo/Liao group and Tai people:

Gustmeister (talk) 12:41, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Annamite Map of Laos and Vientiane during the 15th century

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There is a map posted on Liam C. Kelley's blog called "The Map of the Great Savage Kingdom", describing Laos and Vientiane made in the 15th century. Gustmeister (talk) 13:21, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A map illustrating geographic distribution of the Lao and other Tai speaking groups in Laos is needed

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A map illustrating geographic distribution of the Lao and other Tai speaking groups in Laos is needed. I've tried looking for such a map on Wikimedia Commons, but did not find any. I wonder why nobody even bothers making such a map? and why no overseas Lao bothers making such a map either ? Maybe most of the overseas Lao are not interested in the early history of the Lao, and that most of them may have already been assimilated into their host countries' culture. Gustmeister (talk) 14:07, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is an ethno-linguistic distribution map of Laos by Ethnologue [2]. If nobody draws an ethnic map of Laos, I might make it using this map. Gustmeister (talk) 14:13, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

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The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:24, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thailand's national channels have also broadcast Lao media throughout Thailand - WRONG

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Lao star channel in Thailand is optional and broadcast in case of people who has cable TV and has never gained nationwide popularity. It's Laotians have been keeping up with Thai media over decades (TV, songs, books and dictionary) and adopted Central Thai to be used in academics. You can randomly ask any Thais if they have Lao books in the house. While in Laos, there are the same proportion of Thai and Lao books in Lao bookstores. It's you make Thai be part of your everyday life by yourself. While Thai people live our everyday lives without having anything revolving around Laotians in Laos. MTha2557 (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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