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Writing Systems Technical Resources

Unicode Status for Lao

In The Unicode Standard, Lao script implementation is discussed in Chapter 16: Southeast Asia-I — Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam.

Blocks

Section titled “Blocks”

The Lao script was encoded in The Unicode Standard version 1.0. The script is encoded in the following block:

BlocksCharacter RangeAdded in Unicode VersionUnicode Chart
Lao0E80..0EFF1.0U0E80.pdf

Characters

Section titled “Characters”

Subsequent to version 1.1, the following characters have been added to the Lao script:

CharactersUnicode VersionDocumentation
0E8612.0See proposals and documents below
0E8912.0See proposals and documents below
0E8C12.0See proposals and documents below
0E8E..0E9312.0See proposals and documents below
0E9812.0See proposals and documents below
0EA012.0See proposals and documents below
0EA8..0EA912.0See proposals and documents below
0EAC12.0See proposals and documents below
0EBA12.0See proposals and documents below
0ECE15.0See proposals and documents below
0EDE..0EDF6.1n3893R.pdf/L2/10-335

Documentation refers to ISO Working Group and Unicode proposals

Proposals and documents

Section titled “Proposals and documents”

A number of proposals for its inclusion were submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee and WG2:

  • 1998-02-27 KIP SIGN - Laotian Currency Sign — V.S. Umamaheswaran (WG2 N1720.doc, L2/98-061)
  • 2000-01-06 Row 0E – LAO (collection 26) — Sato, WG2 (WG2 N2162.doc, L2/00-054)
  • 2001-03-23 Lao Script - inquiry — Boualoykhong Chansavat (L2/01-132)
  • 2002-01-14 Character Properties for avagrahas, etc. — Kenneth Whistler (L2/02-017)
  • 2003-06-12 Thai and Lao collation weighting rules — Kent Karlsson (L2/03-185)
  • 2004-03-09 Ordering rules for Khmer, Thai, and Lao; CTT suggestion — Kent Karlsson (WG2 N2717.doc, L2/04-110)
  • 2004-03-09 Ordering rules for Khmer, Thai, and Lao; suggestions for annex C.2 changes and a new annex B.5 — Kent Karlsson (WG2 N2718.doc, L2/04-111)
  • 2005-10-30 Note on Lao Character Names — Andrew West (L2/05-357)
  • 2006-07-27 Re: document Sk vs Lm vs C — Martin Hosken (L2/06-243)
  • 2009-08-03 Grapheme break changes, especially for Thai and Lao — Peter Edberg (L2/09-265)
  • 2010-09-17 Proposal to change UAX#29 in response to Thai, Lao, Tai Dam user needs — Martin Hosken (L2/10-460)
  • 2010-10-05 Proposal to add minority characters to Lao script (revised; WG2 N3893R) — Martin Hosken (WG2 N3893, L2/10-335)
  • 2011-04-18 Proposal to change grapheme extending properties of various characters — Martin Hosken (L2/11-114)
  • 2017-07-20 Proposal to Encode Lao Characters for Pali (revised) — Vinodh Rajan, et al (L2/17-106)
    • Recommendations to UTC #152 July-August 2017 on Script Proposals (L2/17-255) (See point 6.)
    • UTC #152 Minutes (L2/17-222) (See D.4 for decision and action items)
  • 2017-08-02 Comments on the encoding of Lao Letters Pali JHA and NYA — Weizhe Zheng, Yihua Wang (L2/17-285)
  • 2021-04-21 Proposal to Encode Lao Yamakkan — Vinodh Rajan, Jayasāro Bhikkhu (L2/21-093)
    • Recommendations to UTC #167 April 2021 on Script Proposals (L2/21-073) (See point 11.)
    • UTC #167 Minutes (L2/21-067) (See B.1 for decision and action items)
    • Recommendations to UTC #168 July 2021 on Script Proposals (L2/21-130) (See point 16a.)
    • UTC #168 Minutes (L2/21-123) (See B.1 for decision and action items)
  • 2021-07-14 Response to Comments on Lao Yamakkan — Vinodh Rajan (L2/21-143)
    • Recommendations to UTC #168 July 2021 on Script Proposals (L2/21-130) (See point 16b.)
    • UTC #168 Minutes (L2/21-123) (See B.1 for decision and action items)
  • 2022-06-14 Response to PRI 451 — Asmus Freytag (L2/22-114)
    • UTC #172 Minutes (L2/22-121) (See F.3 for decision and action items)