Dai people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Dai (or the Thai peoples of China; Chinese: 傣族; pinyin: Dǎi Zú, also called Dai Lue) is the officially recognized name of an ethnic group living in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture (both in southern Yunnan Province of China), and also in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar.

The Dai people form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, and are closely related to the Thai people who form a majority in Thailand.

Although they are officially recognized as a single people by the Chinese state, the Dai people form several distinct cultural and linguistic groups. The two main languages of the Dai are Tai Lü (Xishuangbanna Dai) and Tai Nüa (Dehong Dai); two other written languages used by the Dai in China are Tai Pong and Tai Dam (Black Tai). They all are Tai languages, a group of related languages that includes Thai, Lao, and Zhuang, and part of the Tai-Kadai language family. The Dai peoples follow their traditional religion as well as Theravada Buddhism, and maintain similar customs and festivals (such as Songkran, the April water-splashing festival) to the other Tai-speaking peoples. They are among the few natives groups in China who nominally practice the Theravada school of Buddhism.

Dai people are typically farmers, growing a variety of tropical crops such as pineapples, in addition to the staple crop of rice. Many Dai people live near the Mekong river where it meanders through the far south of Yunnan.

[edit] Dai groups and names

Chinese	Pinyin	Tai Lü	Tai Nüa	Thai	Conventional	Area(s)
傣仂（西双版纳傣）	Dǎilè (Xīshuāngbǎnnà Dǎi)	tai51 lɯː11			Tai Lü, Tai Lue	Xishuangbanna
傣那（德宏傣）	Dǎinà (Déhóng Dǎi)	tai51 nəː55	tai le6	tai nɯa5	Tai Nüa, Northern Tai, Upper Tai, Chinese Shan	Dehong; Myanmar
傣担	Dǎidān	tai51 dam55			Tai Dam, Black Tai; Tai Lam, Lao Song Dam (lit. "Lao [wearing] black trousers"), Tai Muan, Tai Tan	Jinping (金平), Laos, Thailand
傣绷	Dǎibēng	tai51 pɔːŋ66				Ruili (瑞丽), Gengma (耿马), along the Mekong
傣端	Dǎiduān	tai51 doːn55			White Tai, Tai Don, Tai Dón	Jinping (金平)
傣雅	Dǎiyǎ	tai51 jaː35			Tai Ya, Tai Cung, Cung, Ya	Xinping (新平), Yuanjiang (元江)
傣友	Dǎiyǒu	tai51 jiu11				Yuanyang (元阳), along the Red River

[edit] References

Zhu, Liangwen (1992). The Dai: Or the Tai and Their Architecture & Customs in South China. Bangkok, Thailand, and Kunming, Yunnan, China: D D Books and The Science and Technology Press of Yunnan.

Chinese ethnic groups (as classified by the government of the PRC)