The main language of Laos is Lao , which belongs to the Tai family of languages, which includes Thai, Shan (Tai Yai), spoken in Burma; Phuan, spoken in Laos and parts of Thailand; and Tai Leu, spoken by the Dai minority of southern China's Yunnan province. The spoken Thai of Bangkok and the spoken Lao of Vientiane are very similar, as akin as Spanish is to Portugese, though there are pockets of Laos where no dialect of Lao, much less the Vientiane version, will be heard. Since economic liberalization, English has become the preferred foreign tongue, and it's quite possible to get by without Lao in the towns. But once out in the countryside, you'll need some Lao phrases.

The Lao script was based on an early version of written Thai. Official governement maps of Laos use a modified form of the old French transliteration system. This can create problems for English speakers, but if you keep in mind for example, that the Lao "ou" rhymes with the French "vous" not the English "noun" - reading Lao place names shouldn't be a problem. The transliteration of place names in this book follows the modified French system used by the Lao National Geographic Service. For the transliteration of Lao words in this guide, a simplified version of the same system is used. However, the Lao are quite cavalier when it comes to consistency in transliteration. In Vientiane, for instance, it is possible to see the Arch of Victory monument transliterated as "Patouxai" "Patousai" "Patuxai" and "Patusai".