Tai Peoples and Theirs Languages: A Preliminary ... - Khamkoo

Musgrave in 1964: 221). Another report by Roux and Tran (1954) 29 cited 18,000 White
Tai in northern Vietnam. The Red Tai’s principal place is in the district of Moc Chau
(province of Son La) and in certain districts in the province of Hoa Binh and in the
highlands of Thanh Hoa. Dang Nghiem Van (1971) reported that some Red Tai in Nghe
An are called Tay Muong or Tay Chieng and in the district of Da Bac (province of Hoa
Binh) people called them Tho. Descriptions of the Black Tai, White Tai and Red Tai
languages can readily be found in the work of the doyen of Comparative Tai linguistics:
Professor William Gedney of Michigan University, recently reprinted (1964, 1988). In an
introductory work on the Thai language such as this one, there is no place to discuss the
various ethnic names of the Tai people of north Vietnam for they are numerous and
confusing to the extreme, as one would have to take into account not only how the Tai
people call themselves, but also how the Laotian, the Vietnamese the Chinese, the French
(in both old works of the 18 th – 19 th centuries writers and modern ones) and the American
call them. People who really are interested in this subject have no other recourse but to do
the fieldwork themselves. To give only one example of name-confusion, the case of the
Tho can be cited. Lebar and others (1964: 232) said that: “The literary Vietnamese term
for “soil”, Tho is sometimes used to designate one who lives in the remote country, and
the term Tho is therefore also used to designate a relatively large Tai-speaking population
in rural northern Vietnam. Lafont (1961), 30 however, considers the designation Tho a
Vietnamese term for the Tai groups to the east of the red river and contends that it
includes some White and Black Tai. Claiming that Tho is a pejorative term, a North
Vietnamese source refers to them as Tay (NNCDT 31 1959: 37)”.
One cultural trait that differentiates the Tho in the clear River delta and in the
vicinity of Cao Bang from other Tai, such as the Black Tai and White Tai, is in the script.
Tho have a script based on the Vietnamese chu nom, very closely related to Chinese
calligraphy, whereas Black Tai and White Tai have Indian based orthography. Because,
however, of many modifications made by the penmanship of generations of scribes who
have had to use stylographs carved from bamboo or a brush dipped into Chinese black ink
to write alphabets of the Indian invention, the Black Tai and White Tai alphabets look
very different form other Tai orthography which have the same Indian origin. All in all
we can say that the Tho are considered the most Vietnamized of the Tai groups in
Vietnam. Lebar and others (1964: 232), quoting a North Vietnamese source, cited the
number of the Tho in Vietnam as 437, 019.
Another country where there is a large number of Tai-speaking people is the
People’s Republic of China. In 1983, there were 760,000 Tai people in the province of
28 NNCDT is abbreviated from Nhom Nghien Cuu Dan Toc (Minority People’s Study Group),
Vietnam.
29 Henri Roux and Trân Vǎn Chu, “Quelques minorités ethniques du Nord-Indochine”, France-
Asie 10 (9 e année) 92-3: pp.131-419.
30 Pierre-Bernard Lafont, Personal notes (specific notes from previous field experiences in Laos
and Vietnam) cited by Lebar, Hickey and Musgrave (1964: p. 232).
31 See footnote No.28.
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