Lahu Language resources

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I am currently trying to learn both Thai and Lahu. These languages are not similar at all so it is proving to be quite a challenge. I am by no means an expert in Lahu so if you find any mistakes or have suggestions then please let me know.

Ngaˬ Lahu laˇ henˇ nyi chehˇ ve yoˬ. Haˬ jaˆ.

The Lahu language (ISO 639-3 code ‘lah’) is the language spoken by the Lahu people in Burma, Thailand, Laos and China. See also the Wikipedia entry for Lahu.

There are not many resources around to help with this language. James Mattisof, a linguistics professor at Berkley university, has produced a dictionary and grammar for the language but is not for the average reader and is pretty much useless for the Lahu themselves. Paul Lewis, a Baptist missionary, produced an English-Lahu-Thai dictionary that is comprehensive but is a little more biased towards the Burmese Lahu it seems.

Lahu characters and fonts

Unicode version 5 has the necessary characters to represent the tone marks in the Lahu written language. There are not many fonts around that actually include them. One good resource is SIL which produces at least two nice fonts that are capable of representing these characters. Both CharisSIL and DoulosSIL are at Unicode version 5.

Dictionary

This is a work in progress. It is mainly just collection of Lahu words often used. A dictd server should be up soon. The current word list can be found in the git repository.

Lahu-English Bible

With a little bit of script ‘hackery’ a version of the Lahu New Testament along side an English version has been made. Using LaTeX the verses are synchronised to make comparisons easier. Here is a sample of the Lahu-English New Testament.

Keyboard Layout

The Lahu language uses various tone marks that are difficult to use with a standard keyboard layout. A Lahu keyboard layout for Windows is available and there are also some brief instructions and patches for Linux.

Both the above methods will make the following mappings:

Hopefully the pattern should be clear. Note, to see the correct characters you will need to have the CharisSIL font installed.

Other Resources