Thái people (Vietnamese: người Thái) in Vietnam, also known as Táy people, are officially recognized by the Vietnamese government as one of Vietnam's 54 ethnic groups. They are Tai ethnic groups that speak various Tai languages and use the Tai Viet script. They mostly live in the Northwest Region of Vietnam and are culturally and linguistically distinguished from other Tai peoples of Vietnam such as the Nùng and Tày people, who are natives in the Northeast Region. In Vietnam, the Thái nomenclature is composed of several Tai groups, of which the main groups are the Black Tai (Tai Dam, Thái Đen), White Tai (Tai Don, Thái Trắng) and the Red Tai (Tai Daeng, Thái Đỏ). The Tai Lue people are officially classified as a separated group, called Lự. They mostly speak languages in the Chiang Saen branch of the Southwestern Tai languages. Thái people in Vietnam all originate from Yunnan. However, they (Tái minorities in Vietnam) are also different from the Thai people of Thailand although they are both related and speak Kra–Dai languages.
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Thái people (Vietnam) in the context of Tai people
Tai peoples are the populations who speak (or formerly spoke) the Tai languages. There are a total of about 93 million people of Tai ancestry worldwide, with the largest ethnic groups being Dai, Thai, Isan, Lao, Shan, Ahom, Zhuang, Tày, Nùng, Táy, and some Northern Thai peoples.
The Tai are scattered through much of South China and Mainland Southeast Asia, with some (e.g. Tai Ahom, Tai Khamti, Tai Phake, Tai Aiton) inhabiting parts of Northeast India. Tai peoples are both culturally and genetically very similar and therefore primarily identified through their language.
Thái people (Vietnam) in the context of Nùng people
The Nùng (pronounced as noong [nuːŋ]) are a Central Tai-speaking ethnic group living primarily in northeastern Vietnam and southwestern Guangxi. The Nùng sometimes call themselves Thổ, which literally means autochthonous (indigenous or native to the land). Their ethnonym is often mingled with that of the Tày as Tày-Nùng. According to the Vietnam census, the population of the Nùng numbered about 856,412 by 1999, 968,800 by 2009, and 1,083,298 by 2019. They are the third largest Tai-speaking group, preceded by the Tày and the Thái (Black Tai, White Tai and Red Tai groups), and sixth overall among national minority groups.
They are closely related to the Tày and the Zhuang. In China, the Nùng together with the Tày are classified as Zhuang people.