.svg) Flag of Thô Autonomous Territory, used from 1947 to 1954. | |
 Tày women | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1,845,492 (2019)[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| NorthernVietnam:Cao Bằng,Lạng Sơn,Bắc Kạn,Thái Nguyên,Quảng Ninh,Bắc Ninh,Bắc Giang Provinces | |
| Languages | |
| Vietnamese •Tày | |
| Religion | |
| Tai folk religion (Then)[2][3] andBuddhism[4] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| OtherTai peoples andVietnamese |
TheTày people, also known as theThổ,T'o,Tai Tho,Ngan,Phen,Thu Lao, orPa Di, is aCentral Tai-speaking ethnic group who live in northern Vietnam. According to a 2019 census, there are 1.8 million Tày people living in Vietnam.[6] This makes them the second largest ethnic group in Vietnam after the majorityKinh (Vietnamese) ethnic group. Most live in northern Vietnam in theCao Bằng,Lạng Sơn,Bắc Kạn,Thái Nguyên, andQuảng Ninh provinces, along the valleys and the lower slopes of the mountains. They also live in some regions of theBắc Ninh andBắc Giang provinces. They inhabit fertile plains and are generally agriculturalists, mainly cultivatingrice. They also cultivatemaize, andsweet potato among other things.
The Tày were once known as the Thổ people.Thổ is derived from Chinesetǔ (土), which means 'land' and 'local'. Although not inherently a pejorative it was often used as such in practice (cf. "bumpkin") in both Vietnam and China. Under theSocialist Republic of Vietnam, Thổ was deemed a pejorative and substituted with Tày.[7]
The Tày are closely related to theNùng people andZhuang people, who they are culturally and linguistically almost indistinguishable from. Although they are considered an indigenous group, portions of their population likely originated in China during the 11th and 12th centuries. However unlike the Nùng, they were more heavily Vietnamized due to their closer proximity to the Kinh and shared similar cultural practices with the Vietnamese such as lacquering their teeth black. By 1900 around 30% of their language was made of Vietnamese loan words.[7][8]
Tày customs were altered greatly due to Vietnamese and Confucian patriarchal structures, however some customs persisted. Polygamy with multiple equal wives and legitimacy of issue was practiced. Marriage was preferred to occur within the clan. Young wives lived with their parents until giving birth to their first child. Tày women, like those of the Nùng and Zhuang, were said to have used poison to seek revenge when wronged.[7]
The Tày and Nùng often intermarried, although the Tày seem to have held higher status in these relationships. Tày men married Nùng women more often than the other way around. Some Nùng groups were probably absorbed by the Tày.[7]
| Tày people | |
 Diorama of athen inside theVietnam Museum of Ethnology, Hanoi | |
| Vietnamese alphabet | người Tày |
|---|---|
| Hán-Nôm | 𠊚齊 |
The majority of the Tày practicesThen, anindigenous religion involving the worship oftutelary gods, gods of the natural environment, andancestors andprogenitors of human groups.[2] The patterns of this religion are inherited fromTaoism and theChinese folk religion: thegod of the universe is theJade Emperor,[2] in some local traditions (for example in the Quảng Hoà district ofCao Bằng) also identified as theYellow Emperor (Hoàng Đế).[2] For their religious ceremonies they used to be able to recite Chinese characters but now along with the characters they useglosses because many of them can't recite anymore due to the fact that Vietnamese schools don't teach Chinese characters.[9]
An altar for the ancestors is usually placed in a central location in the house. The altar room is considered sacred; guests and women who have given birth are not allowed to sit on the bed in front of the altar.
Some Tày have adoptedMahayana Buddhism under the influence of Vietnamese and Chinese culture.[4]
The Tày people speak theTày language, among otherTai dialects of theKra–Dai languages. Literacy in their own language is quite low among Tày people, probably around 5% or less. Dialects include Central Tày, Eastern Tày, Southern Tày, Northern Tày, Tày Trung Khanh, Thu Lao, and Tày Bao Lac, Tày Binh Lieu. There is a continuum of dialects to southernZhuang in China.
A part of the modern-day Tày population encompasses Tày-ized Vietnamese who live mainly in what is nowLang Son. These Tày-ized Vietnamese have their origins traced back to the Vietnamese living further south in the deltas of the Ca, Ma, and Red Rivers, e.g.Nghe An,Nam Dinh, etc. dispatched to the Sino-Annamese border by Annamese imperial governments to serve as governmental officials and local leaders (phiên thần thổ ty).[12] These people were then forbidden to return to their home areas.[12] Eventually they got assimilated into the indigenous Tày surrounding population. Their common surnames includeVi,Nguyễn Đình,Nguyễn Khắc,Nguyễn Công,Hoàng Đức,Hoàng Đình, etc. This practice started in the 15th century and ended in the early 20th century. Vi Văn Định is an example of these Tày-ized Vietnamese in the 20th century.[13]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| Austroasiatic (Vietic) | |
|---|---|
| Austroasiatic (non-Vietic) | |
| Hmong–Dao | |
| Tai–Kadai | |
| Sino-Tibetan (Chinese) | |
| Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) | |
| Malayo-Polynesian | |
| Immigrants and expatriate | |
The 54 officially recognised ethnic groups are ranked by population in their language families according to2019 census
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