Name Ambiguity
The Dai people form one of the officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, and are closely related to the Thai people who form a majority in Thailand. However, as with many other 'officially recognized' ethnic groups in China , the term ''Dai'' at least within Chinese usage is an umbrella term and as such has no equivalent in Tai languages who have only more general terms for 'Tai peoples in general' and 'Tai people in China' , both of which include the Zhuang for example which is not the case in the Chinese; and more specific terms, as shown in the table below. Therefore the word ''Dai'', like with the aforementioned ''Yao'', is a Han-Chinese cultural concept which has now been adopted by other languages such as English, French and German . As a solution in the Thai language, however, as in English, the term Tai Lue can be used to mean Dai, despite referring to other groups as in the table below. This is because the two main groups actually bear the same name, both meaning 'Northern Tai' .
Although they are officially recognized as a single people by the Chinese state, these Tai people form several distinct cultural and linguistic groups. The two main languages of the Dai are and ; two other written languages used by the Dai are and . They all are Tai languages, a group of related languages that includes Thai, , and , and part of the language family. Various dialects of the Tai/Dai language family are spoken from Assam, India to Taiwan and ShanSri Province, China in the North to Java in the South. The Tai peoples follow their traditional religion as well as , and maintain similar customs and festivals to the other Tai-speaking peoples. They are among the few natives groups in China who nominally practice the Theravadin school of Buddhism.
Exodus
The original areas of the Tai Lue included both sides of the Mekong River in the Sipsongpanna. According to the Tai Lue, there were five city-states on the east bank and six on the west, which with formed twelve rice field divisions with all twelve having another 32 small provinces. These were:
On the west banks - Rung, Ha, Sae, Lu, Ong, Luang, Hun, Phan, Chiang Choeng, Hai, Chiang Lo and Mang;
On the east banks - La, Bang, Hing, Pang, La, Wang, Phong, Yuan, Bang and Chiang Thong .
Some portions of these Tai Lue either voluntarily moved or were forcibly herded from these city-states around one to two hundred years ago, arriving in countries of present-day Burma, Laos and Thailand.
The Tai Yong
In the 19th Buddhist century Chao Sunantha, son of the ruler of Chiang Rung, led a following of Tai Lue from Chiang Rung to in present-day Shan State to rule over the original inhabitants, the . They were aided by the following factors:
- Assimilating beliefs and customs and the arrival of a unifying Buddhist religion in a later period
- Family ties with and a tributary system to the city-states of Chiang Rung and , and the building of official alliances with clusters of city-states around Chiang Rai on the banks of the Mekong, such as and Chiang Khong.
Given this history, the Tai Yong are thus descendants of the Tai Lue. In Thailand, these people are know as Thai Yai and by the rest of the world as Shan.
Tai Lue in Thailand
In Thailand there are Tai Lue in many provinces of the upper regions of Northern Thailand; these provinces are:
-: Mae Sai, Chiang Khong and Chiang Saen districts
-: and districts
-: , , and districts
-: and districts
-: and districts
-Lamphun: and districts
Economy
The Dai people are typically farmers, growing a variety of tropical crops such as pineapples, in addition to the staple crop of rice. Many Dai live near the Mekong river where it meanders through the far south of Yunnan.
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