Re: Burmese mss ?

Jim,

Yes, it resembles Burmese precisely because it is Lao.

Many of the Lao-Dhamma glyphs are "functionally identical" to Burmese,
and others are closely derived from Mon antecedents --borrowings from
Khmer are largely stylistic rather than functional (e.g., "hooks"
added to vowel markers).

As McDaniel would point out (I assume he is too bored with the subject
to do so) there is no easy way to pinpoint the origin (from the script
alone) in a wide geographical range from Chiang Mai (Northern
Thailand) to Luang Prabang (Northern Laos) --however, this is a moot
point for the block of wood in question, as the glyphs seem to me
entirely modern (i.e., I believe I even know the textbook that the
scribe is using as a model for the (telling) glyph "n").

The portion of text that I looked at was either largely or wholly in Pali.

No, I don't have time to transliterate it _gratis_ (my fee is $350 /
hour); nobody has given me any reason to believe this block of wood is
of any historical interest or practical utility, so it's pretty low on
my list of priority documents to transliterate (i.e., compared to a
Kacc MS from Savannakhet).

E.M.