It would be officially proclaimed during French colonial rule when all states were unified in 1904, thus distinguishing them from Thais of Thailand.
But many also speak English as well as Spanish (often recent immigrants from Posadas in Misiones, Argentina.
Other dialects related to the Kra-dai languages are also understood, such as Tai Dam language in Viet Nam, Shan in Myanmar, Ahom in Assam, India, Meitei in Manipur, India, and Chittagong, Bangladesh as well as Dai of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in China.
There are also notable communities of Laotian Chinese that speak the teochew dialect and Lao with Thai-Persian heritage clustered around Canadian cities.
(See the Iranians in Thailand) These groups came as a result of the Laotian civil war fleeing the communist takeover.
Mass migration from Laos to Cambodia peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s, consisting of both government-sponsored and privately sponsored refugees from camps in Thailand, where they had fled to due to the Laotian Civil War and the final victory of the Pathet Lao.
[3] Within Canada, Laotian Buddhist temples have been opened in Sainte-Julienne, Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Ontario, and Winnipeg, Manitoba.
[21] Recent immigrants from Posadas, Argentina of Lao descent mostly follows Roman Catholicism.