Editing Lao language (section)

===French Laos (1893–1953)===
{{Main|French protectorate of Laos}}
During French rule, missing words for new technologies and political realities were borrowed from French or Vietnamese, repurposed from old Lao vocabulary as well as coined from Sanskrit. These Sanskrit-derived neologisms were generally the same, although not always, as those that developed in Thai.<ref name="Vacha">Keyes, Charles (2013), Finding Their Voice: Northeastern Villagers and the Thai State, Silkworm Books.</ref><ref name="Platt">Platt, M. B. (2013). ''Isan Writers, Thai Literature Writing and Regionalism in Modern Thailand.'' (pp. 145–149). Singapore: NUS Press.</ref>

Whilst previously written in a mixture of etymological and phonetical spellings, depending on audience or author, Lao underwent several reforms that moved the language towards a purely phonetical spelling. During the restoration of the king of Louang Phabang as King of Laos under the last years of French rule in Laos, the government standardized the spelling of the Lao language, with movement towards a phonetical spelling with preservation of a semi-etymological spelling for Pali, Sanskrit and French loan words and the addition of archaic letters for words of Pali and Sanskrit origin concerning Indic culture and Buddhism.