Talk:List of ethnic groups in Laos

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[edit] Language group

Need breakdown by language group. Badagnani 18:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Done, with the exception of a few unclassified ones (probably unclassified just because I couldn't find the classification in literature available to me.Kevin Borland, Esq. 22:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization

The reorganization is not good. The numbering system was removed, groups are now grouped by language and "Other" (these groups have no languages?), and it's overall confusing. I recommend regrouping these as the List of ethnic groups in Burma or List of ethnic groups in Vietnam, listed two ways: alphabetically (numbered list) as well as by language group. Badagnani 18:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't notice your comment here. I removed the numbering because I don't think the count of 47 was accurate anymore. There are about 110 that I listed out of a total of over 160. With regard to the Other group, that was temporary while I was moving everything around and finding sources. With regard to alphabetizing them, that's going to be hard to do, since many of them have multiple spellings and variant names. Take another look back at the page now, and see if you think it's OK. If not, I'll gladly work on it some more.Kevin Borland, Esq. 23:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. See List of ethnic groups in Vietnam for how we've done the alphabetization. And we've listed them by alphabetical order, language group, and by population. Badagnani 23:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way, why is it that Laos (and Vietnam, and China, and Myanmar) categorize their ethnic groups officially, while Thailand seems to keep no such list? I had to create the List of ethnic groups in Thailand article on an ad hoc basis, relying on Ethnologue and all kinds of NGO websites to get all the ethnic group names. I guess it's because the Thai government wishes a lot of them had not chosen Thailand to live in, and are hoping these "guests" (even if they've lived there for 20, 50, or even 100 years), like the Iu Mien, are going to move on eventually. Badagnani 23:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, or could be because Laos, China and Vietnam are communist countries. Tendancy to enumerate and monitor potential unhappy minority groups? Honestly, I haven't a clue.Kevin Borland, Esq. 23:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)