by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/02/03 18:01 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/02/03/1592814.aspx
Thai support has been in Windows since at least NT 4.0 (though the first version that did a really good job for it was Windows 2000, if you ask me.
But Lao (a.k.a. Laotian, a.k.a. ລາວ) did not fare as well.
I mean, some collation weights were added so Lao would at least have some weight, unlike some others.
But it was about as linguistically meaningful as ASCII order would be for Swedish; maybe it would even less meaningful than that...
Luckily Vista added support for Lao as a locale, so that lack is finally addressed!
Anyway, I was out with some friends last night and the song Lola was playing, and I was thinking about King of the Hill and that very first exposure to a Laotian family, as it occurred to me that the culture/locale name for Lao was indeed lo-LA. And perhaps it was because I had a few drinks but the following lyrics popped into my head. Apologies to Ray Davies, of course!
I saw it in Mike Judge's King of the Hill
Where Khan Souphanousinphone really seemed to be on a Roll-a
R-O-L-L roll-a.
Was he Chinese or Japanese they all would ask
But Khan kept explaining in a strident voice I'm from lo-LA.
L-O L-A LO-LA. lo-lo-lo-lo Lo-LA.
Well Khan's not the world's most physical drone
But when Hank squeezed Khan hand he nearly broke a bone
Oh my lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA
Well they're not dumb but they can't understand
He's not Chinese or Japanese he's a Laotian man
He's from lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA
Peggy served Brown Betty on that very first night
Ninh thought it was just out of sight
She figured out what was in it and suddenly
Ninh added nutmeg and improved on Peg's recipe!
lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA
lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA
Peg pushed her away
She walked to the door
Looked down toward the floor
Yes, Peg knew she had big feet
Ninh looked at her and Peg at she
Khan tried to explain that he wasn't Chinese
He's from Laos a Southeast Asian landlocked country
lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA
Between Vietnam and Thailand the country is curled
But Arlen folks have a muddled view of the world and knew no lo-LA
lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA
Well Khan lived in Anaheim the week before
And he'd never ever met a hick before
But Hank smiled and took him by the hand
And said you're my neighbor and so I'm your friend
Now Peggy's not the world's most well traveled woman
She thinks they have 70 words for rice but no word for friend
But she'd love lo-LA
lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA
lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA lo-lo-lo-lo lo-LA
Now I know some it is a bit out of order with the episode and there is something wrong with the scansion, too. But I am posting it as it came to me, hopefully someone will notice that Peggy even had her own little snowclone, which was silly not only because of its snowclone-edness but also because of course the Souphanousinphone are Laotian, not Chinese.
Apologies for the diversion from meaningful blog posts! :-)
This post brought to you by ລ (U+0ea5, a.k.a. LAO LETTER LO LOOT)