The Vientiane Times, September 1-3 1998 What's in a name? 'Lao' or 'Laos' By Nick Enfield & Grant Evens There appears to be confusion among some foreigners in Laos about how to spell the name of the country known today by its official name, the Lao People's Democratic Republic. In particular there is confusion about whether to refer to the country as 'Lao' or 'Laos' when writing or speaking in English. Historically it has been common for English writers to refer to the country as Laos when not using the country's official title, and this is the standard form outside of the LPDR today. So why confusion inside the country? One source of the confusion for some foreigners appears to be that when they come to the country they discover that in the Lao language, the country's name has no final 's'. Indeed, there are no words at all in Lao which have a final 's'. Some people therefore seem to think that it is more correct to say, for example, that Vientiane is the capital of 'Lao' rather than 'Laos'. But where does this logic come from? There are a great many country names that are pronounced quite differently in English, or indeed are completely different words in the home language. An outstanding example is the country name 'China' which actually does not exist in any variety of Chinese. In Mandarin, the official language of China, the country is referred to as 'Zhong Guo'. In Lao, China is referred to as 'Jiin'. Another example is India, whose name in Hindi is 'Bharat', a completely different word to the English. Further away from the Asian context, inhabitants of the country called 'Finland' call their homeland 'Soumi'. A better known European example is Germany, which is known as 'Allemagne' in French, and 'Deutschland' in the native German. All these examples show that it is quite common not only for the name of a country to be pronounced quite differently in various languages, but indeed may be a completely different word. We have heard reports where foreign experts have been instructed by some Lao officials not to use the term 'Laos' in their reports, but to call the country 'Lao' instead. "Laos does not exist", they have been told by officials. So, for example, we can find the following sentences in a recent UN document: "Reduction of rural poverty is a main motivating factor for rural development in Lao. At its stage of development, rural poverty reduction in Lao will come by increasing rural employment possibilities..." The uses of 'Lao' in both cases could have been 'Laos', and we would suggest that it is more desirable to use 'Laos' in these contexts. Only if the document had used Lao PDR' in both cases would it have been correct to use 'Lao'. It is a puzzle to us why some officials would issue such instructions to foreign experts. Despite that fact that the Lao themselves have their own distinctive ways of pronouncing the names of other countries, we can only think that this instruction is some kind of zealous nationalism which insists that foreigners use the name 'Lao' in the same way the Lao do in their own language. Such officials may be unaware that the Lao also force the names of other countries to conform to their own pronunciation conventions. Consider the ways in which the Lao language renders the names of various foreign countries. While in the cases of Vietnam and Cambodia, Lao pronounces the names of these countries quite like the natives do, there are others that are extremely different in terms of pronunciation. Two good examples from Europe are Austria and Belgium. These are pronounced in Lao as something like 'Ottalik' and 'Bensik' respectively (from French Autteriche and Belgique). It so happens that English has a huge range of possible sounds that can appear at the end of a word. In English, the rounding-off of the word 'Laos' with an 's' is a very typical thing to do, as any Lao who struggles with an 's' on the end of every second word will attest. In Lao, however, and many other languages of Southeast Asia, it is impossible to finish a word with sounds like 's','f','th', and so on. In Cantonese, for example, there is a tendency to add an 'ee' sound to the end of words that end with 's'. 'Price', for example, is pronounced 'pricey', or 'tips' becomes 'tipsy', and so on. Cantonese does not have a word- final 's' sound, and so it has to add a vowel so that the 's' can be colloquially pronounced. This process of changing the pronunciation of a borrowed word to conform to the conventions of the borrowing language is called indigenisation. Laos with an 's' was one solution in English for the country's name. It could have been 'Lao', but it may well have been 'Lao-land', by literal translation from the Lao. This of course happened with Thailand when 'Prathet Thai' was translated as 'Thai-land'. But, for reasons which are obscure to us, 'Pathet Lao' is not 'Lao-land' and nor is it a country called 'Lao' Indeed, the latter usage is quite marked in English, and when used by foreigners seems almost pretentious. Of course 'Lao' is perfectly correct in English when used an adjective. For example: a Lao person, the Lao language, a Lao poem, etc. One other possibility that has tended to fall into-use is 'Laotian'. So one can say: a Laotian person, the Laotian language, Laotian poem. This, however, seems to be losing out to the more economical 'Lao'. The old saying (in English) goes: "When in Rome do as the Romans do", but only if you are speaking Italian should you say 'Italia'. Similarly in Laos, only if you are speaking Lao do you need to say 'Lao' when referring to the country. The Nation / 14 September 1998 Business Egat to postpone power buys BY WATCHARAPONG THONGRUNG THE Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) has decided to postpone power purchases from Laos' six major power projects with a combined capacity of 2,963 megawatts by at least one year from the original schedule of 2006. This follows a significant downward revision of Thailand's power demand projections. According to the latest revised power development plan (PDP) for 1998-2001, Egat's 1998 power production will decline 4.96 per cent from the PDP of September 1997. Its 1999 projected production is down 9.22 per cent from the earlier PDP while projections from the year 2000 to 2006 are down 13-18 per cent from earlier estimates. As a result, Chalermchai Ratnarak, assistant governor for power purchases, said over the weekend Egat would have to delay power purchases from Laos. He added that Egat's power reserve projected for 2001 to 2006 will be much higher than basic requirements. According to the latest projections of the PDP for 1998- 2001, the power reserve will be 56.74 per cent in 2001, 51.52 per cent in 2002, 57.48 per cent in 2003, 61.2 per cent in 2004, 50.14 per cent in 2005 and 46.17 per cent in 2006. According to Egat, its power reserve requirement is only 25 per cent. Chalermchai said the Laos projects included the Hongsa thermal power project, whose Unit 1 has a capacity of 304 megawatts and whose Unit 2 will have a 304 megawatt capacity when completed in 2003. Meanwhile, the Nam Ngeum 2 (553 megawatts) and Nam Ngeum 3 (430 megawatts) projects are due for completion in 2004. Egat has already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with all three projects and is negotiating power prices. In addition, three others being negotiated are the Sepian-Senam Noi project (365 megawatts), Nam Thern 2 project (600 megawatts) and the Sekaman project (about 400 megawatt). Earlier, Egat planned to buy power from these projects around the year 2006. An Egat source said the six projects had not started construction but developers hade invested in feasibility studies which had cost at least US$1 million per project. The source said Thailand would have to renegotiate cautiously with Laos to avoid problems in their bilateral relations. Earlier, the two countries signed an agreement under which Thailand was to buy 3,000 megawatts of power from Laos starting in 2006. Egat expects to begin talks with its counterparts in Laos on postponing the power purchases until after 2007, after the next 1999-2001 PDP is completed. Power projects in Laos will likely be suspended because Thailand's slowing electricity demand will diminish the viability of project financing since Egat is the major purchaser of power from its neighbour. "Financial institutions are not expected to lend money to the projects because of the fact that Egat has an excess power reserve," said the source. Earlier, Egat signed power-purchase agreements with the developers of Laos' Nam-thern Hin Bun and Huay Ho hydro- power projects. The source said these agreements would not be changed.