Historical Origins of the Dai and the Tai People

1. Both the Dai and the Thai of Thailand originated from the descendants of the Baiyue of ancient China. But they are not the same people now. But because of the same origin, the language words have a lot of similarity (of course, also include the modern Zhuang people descended from Baiyue).

2. The Dai in China originated from the Mengdan country of Xishuangbanna. Historically, they were also called the Tai, and in 1952 they were renamed the Dai, but they were pronounced "Tai" until the 1980s.

(This article is based on images from the Internet, thanks to the author!)

Comparison of modern Dai and Thai clothing

Hairstyle, shawl is the biggest difference

Read a friend's Thailand travel beauty article, the text that the Thai is the Dai. On this issue, I have been tangled for a long time, from decades ago to read the old Mr. Ai Wu's "Southbound" began to be tangled, just did not quiet serious analysis. After all, the word Thai and Dai give people's imagination is very rich. Taking this opportunity, searched the Internet for relevant information, while accessing several monographs: Jiang Yingliang's "Dai History", He Guangyue's "History of the Origin and Flow of the Southern Barbarians" and "History of the Origin and Flow of the Hundred Yue" as well as Xu Jiechang's "New History of the Chinese Nationalities", write this memo, right for the reading of the experience it.

First of all, we have to clear up a concept: ethnicity is not race. We can say that a certain ethnicity has a historical relationship with a certain race, but we can't say that a certain ethnicity is the descendant of a certain race. A nation is a group of people who share the same historical memory, language and script, and who are bound by a strong sense of identity. Note that there is no element of blood or race in this definition.

I. Historical Tai and Little Tai People

The Tai people originated from the Hattori branch of the Zhuang-Dai language branch of the ancient Baiyue system of China that migrated southward. After absorbing and integrating the Dian, Build, and Kunming peoples of central Yunnan about 2000 years ago, they initially formed the prototype of the modern Tai people.

The pronunciation of the Thai name "Dai" and "Tai" is closer to "Dǎi" the further north you go, and "Tǎi" the further south you go. The further north you go, the closer you get to the "Dǎi" sound, and the further south you go, the closer you get to the ""Tài"" sound. Therefore, broadly speaking, Thai and Dai have the same meaning.

The international community Once the Thai (Tai, Lao, Shan, Assamese) people distributed in various countries were corporately known as the "Thai", and historians also referred to them as the "Tai Luo community". This group can be roughly divided into three categories:

1. the Tai Tai, mainly located in Dehong, Yunnan Province, and north-central Shan State in Burma, using the Dai language;

2. the Lanna group, mainly living in Xishuangbanna, northern Thailand, eastern Shan State, and northern Laos, using the Lanna Dai language;

3. Siamese Thais, that is, the main body of the Thais in south-central Thailand, using the Thai language.

Of the three types of groups, the former migrated southward earlier than the latter, and are known as the Tai Tai; the latter two are groups that separated from the Tai Tai and continued southward, and are known as the Lesser Tai. The cities of Chiang Mai in Thailand, Luang Prabang in Laos, Jinghong in China, and Kengtong in Myanmar were once the four major cities of the kingdom known as Lanna, which were later divided into different countries.

The three main groups of Thai people have historically established different countries, formed and used different scripts, and have similar languages and vocabularies that are not entirely interchangeable. Although they share the same origin, the Big Thai and the Little Thai have always had a weak sense of national identity, so they cannot be considered as a unified nation.

The Thai people in modern countries

The Dai as a nation rather than a primitive tribal form, should be the first generation of Dancing History recorded in Xishuangbanna, called the piece of leadership (Dai Wang) in Jinglong (now Jinghong) to establish the "Menght Dancing State" as a symbol. This is also the source of the title Dai dance (pronounced lè).

Thailand's Thai dance and Dai Nguyen, are from Xishuangbanna southward, in Thailand is categorized as a minority. In other words, the Thai officials do not recognize the Dai as the same ethnic group as the main Thai nation. The Dai businessmen in Thailand basically join the local Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and still worship the Xishuangbanna's Zhaopan leader (Dai Wang).

The first Dai king, Paya Zhen

The Dai in Laos were also carved out of the Luo ethnic group in 2000, and placed under a separate ethnic group called the Tai Dance. As you can see, Laotian officials also do not recognize the Lao as the same ethnic group as the Dai. The Laotians consider the Thais to be very much Khmers who were assimilated by the Thais, and since they have been invaded by the Thais many times in their history, most resent being called ethnic Thais.

The Temple of the Great Buddha in Xishuangbanna

The Dai of Dehong and the Shan of Burma can be regarded as the same ethnic group because they are both Tai, belonging to the same branch, and are more closely related to each other. The Dai of Xishuangbanna, on the other hand, are relatively distant, and they are more closely related to the Dai Nguyen around Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

That is to say, between the Dai in China and the Tai in neighboring countries, such as the Tai and the Lao, although they share the same roots, but they have developed independently in different countries for a long time, and have essentially formed a different ethnic group.

The Laotians in Laos

Three: Pan-Thaiism with the help of Japanese power

The term "Pan-Thaiism" refers to the "Tai nationalism" that emerged in the Kingdom of Siam in the first half of the 20th century. ". Attempts by the Tai nationalists to unify the Thai cultural circle through the Kingdom of Siam and establish a unified "Federation of Thailand", which endangered the stability of neighboring countries, were identified as "Pan-Thai nationalism".

The Terror of the Greater Tai Ethnic Circle

Before the Second World War, the Kingdom of Siam changed its name to the "Kingdom of Thailand" in an attempt to unify the Thai world and create a unified federation. It advocated the establishment of a united country by the Thai people, who shared the same language and culture, and incited these people to oppose their own government. on January 25, 1942, Thailand declared war on the U.S. and Britain, and attempted to establish the "Federation of the Thai People of the Greater East Asia" with the help of the Japanese power to include all the Zhuang and Dai-speaking ethnic groups of the Southeast Asia and China into the same living area. If Pan-Thaiism succeeds, not only will it be a great success, but it will also be a great success. If Pan-Thaiism succeeded, not only half of Southeast Asia, but even Yunnan and Guangxi would become the territory of the Thai Federation. Of course, this Thai ambition disappeared with the defeat of Japan, and on August 16, 1945, the new Thai government issued a statement that the declaration of war against Britain and the United States did not count, making a real international joke, but also avoiding the fate of the defeated country.

The Zhuang-Dai language sub-nationalities

After World War II, in view of the shadow of Pan-Thaiism, governments renamed the Dai-Tai ethnic groups in their respective territories, and in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, they were still named "Thai" and in Laos, "Lao" (Lao). In Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, they are still called "Thai", in Laos "Lao", and in Burma "Shan". In India, it is the Assam.

The Assamese in Assam, India

Fourth, the origin of the name of the Chinese Dai

At the beginning of the founding of the country, the Dehong Daitai, who called themselves Tài, were designated as the Tai; the Xishuangbanna Xiaotai, who called themselves Dǎi, were designated as the Bo (but this one is a different thing from the Bo in the Bo hanging coffin in Sichuan). However, it was later found that they should be the same ethnic group, so the self-proclaimed Dǎi of the Banna Xiaotai people was made the unified ethnic name. The reason for using Dǎi instead of Tài is of course to try to avoid the sensitive name of Thailand and Thai. At the same time, in order to maintain the historical Thai heritage, Zhou Enlai suggested to re-invent the word "dǎi" sound, namely: Thai + people = Dai.

Distribution of the Dai and neighboring large and small Tai people

In 1952, the central government officially agreed to unify the Tai people in China under the name of "Dai". Since the character "Dai" has never been used in the printed version, various documents, movies and broadcasts still call the Thais "Tai", such as the old movie "Mong Ridge Sand" in the 1950s (young people who have not seen the movie must have heard the interlude "There's a Beautiful Place"), "Moya Dai", "Moya Dai" and "Moya Dai". For example, in the old movie "Mong Ridge Sand" from the 1950s (young people who have not seen the movie must have heard the song "There is a beautiful place"), "Moya Dai" is still pronounced as "Tai. It was only in 1983 that the word "Dai" entered the official dictionary in the Modern Chinese Dictionary, and gradually became familiar to the public.

V. The Sino-Thai Crisis Caused by the Establishment of the Xishuangbanna Tai Autonomous Region

In January 1953, the Xishuangbanna Tai Autonomous Region (later changed to Autonomous Prefecture) was formally proclaimed, and it was the first ethnic minority autonomous region set up by the new China on the southwest border. The move threatened Thailand, which saw it not as an autonomous region but as a prototype for a northern Thailand. At a press conference in Thailand in February of the same year, the Thai prime minister accused New China of trying to establish "two Thais" in the same way that ****analism had established two Koreas and two Germanys, and he feared that in the future, anti-government exiles in Thailand would join the so-called "autonomous state" (自治国家). He feared that anti-government exiles in Thailand would join this so-called "autonomous state" in the future. Some U.S. officials also accused China of establishing the Xishuangbanna Thai Autonomous Region as a threat to the freedom of Thailand and the entire Southeast Asian region, with the aim of stepping up its expansion into Thailand and Laos. Of course, subsequently, with the outward promotion of the five principles of peace ****e, Thailand's such a small man's heart to the heart of the gentleman's fear is not broken.

The Thai Autonomous Region of Xishuangbanna

The first chairman, Zhaocunxin

In view of this, we should remember this principle: the Dai are an ethnic minority in China, an ethnic group originating from the unification of the first Dai king (Zhaocunxin) in Xishuangbanna during the Southern Song Dynasty, and not the Thai in Thailand.

Six, on the irregular water Dai, dry Dai

The network and a lot of literature, there is no shortage of see water Dai, dry Dai, Han Dai division. These non-standardized titles neither respect the will of the Dai people nor the national regulations of the clan name, which the Dai people do not want to see. The natural deity revered by the Dai people is water, and no matter where the Dai people are, they all have to celebrate the annual Water Splashing Festival. The name of dry Dai is a kind of disrespect to the faith of the Dai people! Mr. Jiang Yingliang, a historian of the Dai people, thought more than half a century ago that the so-called "Dry Pendulum Yi", "Water Pendulum Yi" and "Flower Pendulum Yi" are neither divisions of the Dai people themselves nor anthropological significance. (In ancient times, the Dai were called the Dai people. (In ancient times, the Dai people were called Baiyi and Panyi)

The people of water

The saying of "dry (Han) Dai" and "water Dai" is a kind of misunderstanding left over in history, which should not be abused. The Dai people resent this kind of calling, and a Dai friend once said: if we divide the ethnic groups by the water and drought of the place of residence, then is it possible to call the Han people of the coast and the Yangtze River basin Water Han, and the Han people of Gansu and Shaanxi Dry Han?

Xishuangbanna Lanna Dai

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(Source material from the Internet for reference only)