| Abstract: |
Tai are ethnic groups predominantly descended from origional proto-Tai speakers including those who have Tai blood but no longer speak Tai languages. Today, Tai peoples are split among nations, leading to different names for them. It includes Thai or Siamese (in central and southern Thailand), the Lao (in Laos and northern Thailand), the Dai (primarily in Yunnan, China), the Shan (in northeast Myanmar), and Ahom in India. The Tai peoples follow their traditional religion as well as Theravada Buddhism, and maintain similar customs and rituals to the other Tai-speaking peoples. This wide dispersal and huge assimilation of Tai culture is because of continued migration and interaction. It is therefore possible to construct historical process of Tai through the comperative study of toponyms, lexical resources and cultural similarities such as inherited beliefs, rituals of birth and death etc.
|
