Becker's Lao Dictionary

[Richard W]

I was planning to use Becker's Lao-English dictionary (2003, Paiboon Publishing) to check my understanding of at least one Lao alphabetical order. (Lao has several different ways of sorting words alphabetically - it's not as orderly as Thai.) However, there are numerous inconsistencies, though most misplaced entries are within a page of where they should be. What credible explanations have been offered for the mess? ('TiT' is not a helpful explanation.)

Some of the disorder might be due to different parts being sorted according to different rules - but how many people worked on it? Only two authors are listed.

The foreword implies that the dictionary is intended to cover Isaan speech in addition to the Lao of the Lao PDR, it was published and printed in Thailand, so I believe this topic is Thailand-related.

[technocracy]

I was planning to use Becker's Lao-English dictionary (2003, Paiboon Publishing) to check my understanding of at least one Lao alphabetical order. (Lao has several different ways of sorting words alphabetically - it's not as orderly as Thai.) However, there are numerous inconsistencies, though most misplaced entries are within a page of where they should be. What credible explanations have been offered for the mess? ('TiT' is not a helpful explanation.)

Some of the disorder might be due to different parts being sorted according to different rules - but how many people worked on it? Only two authors are listed.

The foreword implies that the dictionary is intended to cover Isaan speech in addition to the Lao of the Lao PDR, it was published and printed in Thailand, so I believe this topic is Thailand-related.

I wouldn't bother in terms of being a truly 'Lao' dictionary it's very poor. Regularly there isn't commonly used words in it and also alot of the wording is Thai rather than truly Lao. A very simple one is Glass they list it as 'Kuat' which is Thai not Lao they say 'Geeo'. Then Bulldozer listed as Lot-Bpap-diin again Thai - Lao it should be Lot dtut (which caused me no end of confusion the other week!)

I've regularly picked up a new phrase/word out of the book and got a strange look from my wife and told that's Thai NOT Lao.

Also the Alphabet listed in the Becker dictionary doesn't included the Laa/Lot sound - the best thing to do is go in the morning market in Vientiane and buy one of the childrens wall chart of the Alphabet. Far simpler.

As for being different orders - I've never notice any difference.

[meadish_sweetball]

My guess is the consonant order is established but the problem arises when vowels are involved as well, under an individual consonant?

A very simple one is Glass they list it as 'Kuat' which is Thai not Lao they say 'Geeo'.

That is confusing, I cannot answer for Lao, but in Central Thai, 'khuad' does not mean 'glass' - the basic meaning is 'bottle'. It is also used for glass jars, but never for drinking glasses, which are called 'kaew[FL]'. Window glass is กระจก krajog[LS, LS], and a greenhouse is เรือนกระจก ruean[M] krajog[LS, LS]

ขวด khuad[L] = bottle

แก้ว kaew[FL] = glass

[Rikker]

Technocracy worded that a bit ambiguously, so I'm not sure what (s)he intended, either.

But when I have been to Laos, they call a bottle แก้ว, where Thai calls it ขวด.

So ขอโค้กสองแก้ว in Thai means "Two glasses of Coke, please" and in Lao "Two bottles of Coke, please."

That's all I know, really. I've heard it and used it in ช่องเม็ก Chong Mek (near Ubon) and สวรรณเขต Savannakhet (near Mukdaharn). Never been anywhere else in Laos.

[phibunmike]

I was planning to use Becker's Lao-English dictionary (2003, Paiboon Publishing) to check my understanding of at least one Lao alphabetical order. (Lao has several different ways of sorting words alphabetically - it's not as orderly as Thai.) However, there are numerous inconsistencies, though most misplaced entries are within a page of where they should be. What credible explanations have been offered for the mess? ('TiT' is not a helpful explanation.)

Some of the disorder might be due to different parts being sorted according to different rules - but how many people worked on it? Only two authors are listed.

The foreword implies that the dictionary is intended to cover Isaan speech in addition to the Lao of the Lao PDR, it was published and printed in Thailand, so I believe this topic is Thailand-related.

If I can humbly offer a probably silly guess amongst you language wizards, could it possibly be something like the Spansih dictionary order 'C', 'Ch', 'D'; that is, 'Ch' is regarded a single letter, and does not appear under 'C' between 'Cg' ( ???) and 'Ci'.

[Thaddeus]

My guess is the consonant order is established but the problem arises when vowels are involved as well, under an individual consonant?

A very simple one is Glass they list it as 'Kuat' which is Thai not Lao they say 'Geeo'.

That is confusing, I cannot answer for Lao, but in Central Thai, 'khuad' does not mean 'glass' - the basic meaning is 'bottle'. It is also used for glass jars, but never for drinking glasses, which are called 'kaew[FL]'. Window glass is ????? krajog[LS, LS], and a greenhouse is ?????????? ruean[M] krajog[LS, LS]

??? khuad[L] = bottle

???? kaew[FL] = glass

Apologies Meadish.... I can't type Thai, but out here in the sticks the closest phonetic I can up with for bottle is 'crew aht' (which is quite confusing when you live in Ban Kruat ) ..... glass (a glass container) is 'gaew'

I ask On all the time to tell me the words in Thai and in Lao.... most times the answer is 'same'..... pa sah Lao and pa sah Isaan are worlds apart sometimes.

[Richard W]

I ask On all the time to tell me the words in Thai and in Lao.... most times the answer is 'same'..... pa sah Lao and pa sah Isaan are worlds apart sometimes.

Well, in terms of native speakers, Lao + Isaan is (was?) the Tai language with the most speakers, and as the speakers have long not had a common metropolis speaking their language, considerable variation is hardly surprising.

Also the Alphabet listed in the Becker dictionary doesn't included the Laa/Lot sound - the best thing to do is go in the morning market in Vientiane and buy one of the childrens wall chart of the Alphabet.

It does mention that the letter is officially not used. However, I noticed that it did sneak in in one word, กราม (transliterating, as many of you won't have Lao fonts) 'gram', where it is actually silent. A wall chart of the alphabet doesn't help much. The Word add-on Laoword supports two basic orders for considering characters or sounds:

• [*]The phonologic order (priority order: C V D FC A) , proposed and used by Marc Reinhorn in his Lao-French dictionary,

[*]The order used for example by Maha Sila in his Lao dictionary (priority order: C FC V D A).

C = initial consonant

FC = final consonant

V = vowel (irrespective of length)

D = duration (long vowel v. short vowel)

A = accent i.e. tone mark

You don't easily capture that in a wall chart.

The order Becker's dictionary says it follows is the same as Marc Reinhorn's.

If I can humbly offer a probably silly guess amongst you language wizards, could it possibly be something like the Spansih dictionary order 'C', 'Ch', 'D'; that is, 'Ch' is regarded a single letter, and does not appear under 'C' between 'Cg' ( ???) and 'Ci'.

The dictionary gets that part right - ห nam plus sonorant is consistently treated as a single letter. Becker's dictionary orders these digraphs after ห, so the special treatment is only apparent after preposed vowels. (As with Welsh 'ng', they are treated as two letters in the rare cases where they represent two sounds. As in Thai, this can happen when the vowel sounded between them is preposed.) The treatment of the clusters กว, ขว and คว is inconsistent. ขว is treated as a single letter, but the other two are not. I presume this inconsistency is an error.

My guess is the consonant order is established but the problem arises when vowels are involved as well, under an individual consonant?

That's a good guess! Words beginning กา came before words beginning กั, but thereafter words begining ขั came before ขา and similarly for all the other letters I checked. According to the introduction (and other texts) short vowels come before the corresponding long vowel, and indeed กะ came before กา.

The disorder was most noticeable with /i/ and /i:/. The order open syllable in /i/ (typically in words of 2 or more syllables), closed syllable in /i/, open syllable in /i:/ is observed. The problem came with the relatively rare closed syllables in closed /i:/. Words with closed syllables starting จี generally come immediately after the word differing only by having a short vowel (possibly with a difference of tone mark). จีน was a rare exception, coming after the words starting (or consisting of) the open syllable จี. On the other hand, words with closed syllables starting สี came after the word สี่, as one would expect from the dictionary's introduction.

I also noticed vowel length being considered after final consonant with the the short and long vowels of เงิน and เกีด (sic), but I'm not sure how consistent this is. The long vowel is commoner than the short vowel, though the short vowel is not as rare as it is in Thai.

There are two plausible causes here. One collation order uses the length mark as a tie break and I did wonder if the words in จ were taken from a list sorted by Maha Sila's order. The other is that the difference between the two vowel marks is very small, and whoever sorted the list by hand simply did not notice the difference.

One correct thing I did find bizarre was tone marks on the first syllable determining the relative order of words with the same first syllable. This results in a monosyllable with a tone mark coming after a Pali/Sanskrit word whose first syllable differs from the monsyllable only by not having a tone mark.

[technocracy]

Technocracy worded that a bit ambiguously, so I'm not sure what (s)he intended, either.

But when I have been to Laos, they call a bottle แก้ว, where Thai calls it ขวด.

So ขอโค้กสองแก้ว in Thai means "Two glasses of Coke, please" and in Lao "Two bottles of Coke, please."

That's all I know, really. I've heard it and used it in ช่องเม็ก Chong Mek (near Ubon) and สวรรณเขต Savannakhet (near Mukdaharn). Never been anywhere else in Laos.

Very true it was ambiguous - I actually meant bottle not glass! However I can't read Thai only Lao so i'm not 100% certain on what the Thai reads (some symbols are the same but not that many!).

Bottle/glass container - Geeo i.e. bottle of beer

Glass - Jok i.e. glass of coke

On the comparison between Lao and Thai - I understand and speak Lao relatively well not fluent by any means, however if some speaks to me in Thai all they get is a blank look! I don't have a clue - mainly because of all the breathy and soft talking people do which to me just makes it unintelligible! People in Lao speak very flat and in some way sounds quite harsh in comparison but to myself far easier to understand!

Example - tea - thai it's naam chaa (which all ways seems more breathed than pronounced) where as in Lao it's naam saa (with a definate S sound and pronounded) - hard to explain in writing!!!

[Richard W]

ขอโค้กสองแก้ว

Very true it was ambiguous - I actually meant bottle not glass! However I can't read Thai only Lao so i'm not 100% certain on what the Thai reads (some symbols are the same but not that many!).

A simple (lossy) transliteration is ຂໍໂຄ້ກສອງແກ້ວ. (All these characters occur in Thai, though Thai has rotated the first.)

Example - tea - thai it's naam chaa (which all ways seems more breathed than pronounced) where as in Lao it's naam saa (with a definate S sound and pronounded) - hard to explain in writing!!!

That's one of the simpler sound shifts - Thai (aspirated) /ch/ is regularly represented by /s/ in Lao (and some Northern Thai dialects).

I actually found one block of missortings that can be attributed to spelling reform. Words that used to be spelt ຄຣ (now spelt ຄ, e.g. ຄູ for ຄຣູ 'teacher') are sorted as though still spelt with ຄຣ.

Edited November 12, 2006 by Richard W