– So ähnlich wie Spanisch und Portugiesisch [Brazilian] oder als Bergen-Norwegisch und Stockholm-Schwedisch.
– Gegenseitige Verständlichkeit von ca. 60 % bei informeller Sprache und bis zu ca. 99 % bei korrekter Sprache.
– Thailändische Sprecher (insgesamt): ~71 Millionen (ungefähr [Thailand had a population of 65,975,198 as of 2024]).
– Laotische Sprecher (einschließlich der They-Dialekte): ~30 Millionen (ungefähr [Laos had a population estimate of 7,953,557 as of 2024, «yes there are more Lao speakers in Thailand than in Laos proper»]).
– Der Thailänder "Alphabet" ist eigentlich eine Abugida, die laotische Schrift ist ebenfalls eine Abugida; Dieses Bild bezieht sich auf "Skript" mit dem Wort "Alphabet".
– Laotische Sprecher haben es leichter, Zentralthailändisch zu verstehen als umgekehrt; Thailändische Sprecher sind normalerweise nicht in der Lage, mehr als etwa 90 % des offiziellen Laotisch zu verstehen.
Von Top-Sir-6995
4 Kommentare
> – As similar to each other as Spanish and Portuguese [Brazilian] or as Bergen Norwegian and Stockholm Swedish.
> – Mutual intelligibility of around ~60% in infomal speech and up to ~99% in proper speech.
Spanish and Portuguese are not 99% mutually intelligible in formal or any speech, they are pretty close but not **that** close.
iikr Northern Thai is also pretty close to Shan spoken in Myanmar and Tai Lue spoken in Yunnan, China !
So Thai and Lao are in reality dialects of the same language.
In the Philippines, this will be similar to Standard Tagalog vs Batangas Tagalog. If you are not familiar with Batangas Tagalog, you will only understand 50% of it. But Batangas Tagalog speakers understand Standard Tagalog 100% of the time.
One of the biggest differences is the accent. However, Thai and Lao are becoming similar to each other because Laotians adopted tons of academic words from Central Thai, including terms that distinguish Lao from Thai.
If people were to translate these academic terms on their own, there’s no way they would end up being 100% identical – just like Thai and Burmese, which both adopted many Pali/ Sanskrit words (similar to how Latin was the dominant international language of European academia, science, and law), yet our academic vocabularies are completely different.
Laotians grew up on Thai media, while Thai people have little exposure to Lao media and still rely heavily on Thai media, making consumption of neighboring media the norm.
When Isan and Lao singers sing with their own accent, it gave rise to Morlam and Luk Thung style songs. Meanwhile, modern Lao pop songs use about 95% Thai accent, mixing four Thai words with one Lao word. Do any other countries rely on a neighboring language to this extent?