1999-01-22 A poor dictionary with inadequate coverage, and many errors.

The author appears to have been greatly influenced by the early period of the communist regime (i.e. the late 1970's) when many traditional spellings were changed in accordance with the whims of communist cadre Phoumi Vongvichit, who sabotaged much of the Lao language when the communist regime came to power; fortunately many of the more important changes in spelling have been reinstated since then. Russell's spellings therefore conform neither to current communist speilling in use in Laos today, not to traditional Lao spellings.

I wish I could recommend a satisfactory alternative in a similar (pocket) class - but there is none. For the serious student of Lao there is only one English-Lao dictionary to consider (by Soukbandith, published in the USA) and one Lao-English dictionary (by Allen Kerr, published in Bangkok by White Lotus). Both of these are fairly comprehensive (and therefore in a different class from the Russell dictionary), but the Soukbandith is printed in small print and is not more than twice the physical size of the Russell - it is perfectly viable to carry around, and about 50 times more useful than the Russell. The Kerr, although the best Lao-English dictionary, has a very heavy Thai slant on the language and is also rather dated; it is a large tome not suitable for carrying about. There is also a half-passable Lao-Lao dictionary available from the government printing press in Vientiane, which can be useful for cross-checking despite its serious typological confusion and disordered pages.

The Lonely Planet Lao phrasebook is hardly a volume I could recommend, as it is full of errors and like the Russell (and like most phrasebooks) inadequate content; however I suspect that in practice it may be less useless than the Russell in practice. Sadly, when it comes to Lao dictionaries there is just not enough available.