Editing Lao language (section)

=== Tai migration (8th–12th century) ===
[[File:Tai Migration.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.5|Map showing the general migration patterns and diversification of the Tai peoples and languages from the original Tai ''[[Urheimat]]'' of southeastern China]]
The ancestors of the Lao people were speakers of Southwestern Tai dialects that migrated from what is now southeastern China, specifically what is now [[Guangxi]] and northern [[Vietnam]] where the diversity of various Tai languages suggests an ''[[linguistic homeland|Urheimat]]''. The Southwestern Tai languages began to diverge from the Northern and Central branches of the Tai languages, covered mainly by various [[Zhuang languages]], sometime around 112 CE, but likely completed by the [[sixth century]].<ref name="migration">{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.1749-818X.2007.00033.x |title=The Languages of Vietnam: Mosaics and Expansions |year=2007 |last1=Edmondson |first1=Jerold A. |last2=Gregerson |first2=Kenneth J. |journal=Language and Linguistics Compass |volume=1 |issue=6 |pages=727–749 }}</ref> Due to the influx of [[Han Chinese]] soldiers and settlers, the end of the [[Third Chinese domination of Vietnam|Chinese occupation]] of Vietnam, the fall of [[Jiaozhi]] and turbulence associated with the decline and fall of the [[Tang dynasty]] led some of the Tai peoples speaking Southwestern Tai to flee into Southeast Asia, with the small-scale migration mainly taking place between the [[eighth century|eighth]] and [[twelfth century|twelfth]] centuries. The Tais split and followed the major river courses, with the ancestral Lao originating in the Tai migrants that followed the [[Mekong River]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pittayaporn |first1=Pittayawat |title=Layers of Chinese Loanwords in Protosouthwestern Tai as Evidence for the Dating of the Spread of Southwestern Tai |journal=Manusya: Journal of Humanities |date=1 January 2014 |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=47–68 |doi=10.1163/26659077-01703004 |doi-access=free }}</ref>