Thái people (Vietnam)
Thái, Thai or Tai people (Vietnamese: Người Thái) is officially recognized by the Vietnamese government as one of Vietnam's 54 ethnic groups. They are Tai ethnic groups that speak various Tai languages and use the Tai Viet script. They mostly live in the Northwest Region of Vietnam and are culturally and linguistically distinguished from other Tai peoples of Vietnam such as the Nùng and Tày people, who are natives in the Northeast Region. In Vietnam, the Thái nomenclature is composed of several Tai groups, of which the main groups are the Black Thai (Tai Dam, Thái Đen), White Thai (Tai Don, Thái Trắng) and the Red Thai (Tai Daeng, Thái Đỏ). The Tai Lue people are officially classified as a separated group, called Lự. They mostly speak languages in the Chiang Saen branch of the Southwestern Tai languages. Thái people in Vietnam all originate from Yunnan. However, they (Thái minorities in Vietnam) are also different from the Thai people of Thailand although they are both related and speak Tai-Kadai languages.
Not to be confused with Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand.Distribution[edit]
The Tai Dam and the Tai Don mostly live in the provinces of the Northwestern Plateau: Điện Biên, Lai Châu, Sơn La and Hoà Bình. The Tai Daeng are found in western part of Nghệ An and Thanh Hóa province where they are a major ethnic group.
According to the 1999 General Survey, there were 1,328,725 Thái people in Vietnam. [5] In Sơn La, they form a majority in the province (54.8%). They are the largest ethnic group in Điện Biên (38%) and Lai Châu (32.3%).
Other groups include the Phu Thai in Hà Tĩnh and Nghệ An (population: 200,000),[6] the Tay Thanh (Tay Nhai), the Thai Yo and the Tày Đà Bắc in Hòa Bình province.