Thai or more precisely Siamese or Central Thai is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people and Thai Chinese, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Over half of the words in Thai are borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai also has a complex orthography and relational markers.[citation needed] Thai is mutually intelligible with Lao.