I'm looking for websites about the prehistoric history of Vietnam, but most of them only talk about the Cham and other tribes that settled in Vietnam before mainstream Vietnamese conquered the land.

I want to know where did MAINSTREAM Vietnamese come from? Some say we are descendants of the Kinh people in China, but who are the Kinh? Where did the Kinh come from?

Mainstream Vietnamese prehistoric history seems to have a lot of mysteries of their origin.

Was their a war between the Kinh and other Chinese peoples that resulted in us moving down to Vietnam???


Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?

We've been there around the Red-river delta way before the chinese knew how to write. And we developed a sophisticated culture and society, we didn't move south from china, but it was the other chinese tribes that moved south and mixed with us. Kinh people are true Red-river delta Vietnamese.

ETHNIC GROUPS
The Vietnamese nation was primarily influenced through a process of anthropological cross-pollination between ancient Chinese and Indian cultures.

As far as anthropology is concerned, the Vietnamese people have their origin in the Mongoloid race, which is scattered throughout northern and eastern Asia.
At present, there are about 54 Ethnic minority groups inhabiting Vietnam.

The Kinh (or Viet) people account for nearly 90 percent of Vietnam's total population. Major ethnic minority groups include the Tay, Thai, Muong, H'Mong, Dao, and Khmer. Each ethnic group has developed its own language and cultural identity, thus making the Vietnamese culture a well blended combination of different cultures.

The Viet language is recognized, however, as the official language and serves as a universal means of communication for all inhabitants of Vietnam. In the historical course of national development, all ethnic groups have been closely attached, sharing in the fight against foreign invaders, defending the country's territory, and gaining the right to national independence and self determination.



taken from TraveltoVietnam.com



Vietnamese in the ancient time

1. Origin of the Vietnamese people

Scholars have been constructing many hypotheses on the origin of the Vietnamese people. Some believed that Vietnamese belonged to a group of "Bach Viet" (one hundred clans of Viet) living in a wide region spreading from the delta of the Yang-tse kiang river to the South - south of China nowadays. One of them was the Lac Viet clan whose people practiced fishing and often went over to the sea. Each year, when the north wind came and blew south they crossed the sea to the southern side and sometimes reached the Indonesian islands. In their trips they got acquainted with a kind of bird named "Lac" - a kind of swan - and made it their totem. Their choice explained the name Lac Viet attributed to their clan. Around 333 BC, when Chinese invaded the area south of the Yang-tse-kiang river, the Lac Viet clan migrated to the South and settled in the area where the Melanesians were living and built up their nation, which has become Vietnam.

The hypothesis that Vietnamese were "children of the dragon and grand children of the fairy" has always been cherished by the Vietnamese people through centuries. It based its logic on myths, legends and folklore transmitted from generation to generation. A great number of historians and writers in the past backed this hypothesis in their research and writing. According to it, the Vietnamese took their origin from a bag of one hundred eggs born out by Au Co, a fairy married to a dragon, Lac Long Quan, the king of the Under-sea. The couple was separated sometime after their marriage, and Au Co led their fifty sons to the upland where they built a new nation according to the legend mentioned earlier. Those people were the ancestors of the Vietnamese.

taken from Vietspring.org

Just to make a headsup, some anti-Viet chinese might use this topic to cause trouble and claim that Vietnamese are chinese.

Here is a great site that traces the Vietnamese civilisation from Pre-History through to Comtemporary history. It is especially detailed in Ancient Time, Middle Ages and Modern history with detailed accounts of all the Vietnamese dynasties.

Where's the site dude?

Oh $hit sorry I got carried away. LOL

http://bvom.com/resource/vn_history.asp?pContent=Pre-History

I think those artifacts found are from people who lived in the Vietnam area before mainstream Vietnamese arrived there. Since those tools are found in prehistoric caves in Vietnam and mainstream Vietnamese didn't arrive in Vietnam until much later.

I want to about mainstream Vietnamese history like the Van Lang kingdom who I think is the first Kingdom associated with the mainstream Vietnamese people. And where did we come from before that as well?

The Viet tribes (of which us Kinh people are part of) originated in the Yellow river in northern China.

You mean Southern China right?

I finally found information on the first Vientmese Kingom which is the Van Lang Kingdom with King Hung as it's first king.

http://www.nhandan.org.vn/english/history/20000930.html

"The Van Lang Kingdom and Hung Kings

Part four of our series on Vietnam’s history looks at how King Hung headed the first Vietnamese kingdom, which was able to unite the whole people for national defence and construction.

* Factors leading to the birth of the first kingdom

Up to the stage of the Dong Son culture, Vietnam’s primitive habitants had gone through major changes in both production and society.

In accordance with old legends and history, there were 15 tribes living in the basins of the Red and Ma Rivers and each tribe was governed by a chief.

The chief and the aristocracy had the power to distribute land, manage water sources for irrigation, used the common wealth, took the surplus wealth and exploited the labour of the people.

Contradictions between the aristocratic circle and the people began to grow, but were not acute.

In reality, a State would take shape in a society when there appeared acute class contradictions which could not be reconciled.

However, the Van Lang kingdom did not appear in that common way.

The 15 Lac Viet tribes were then living mainly on farming. Water control and irrigation played a vital role to them. It came to their minds that they had to unite so as to be able to dig long canals and build big dykes and dams to supply water for production.

At the same time, the 15 tribes were usually harassed by the enemies nearby. Therefore they had to get together to cope with the enemy’s expansion and encroachment.

It was for the need of irrigation, the management of the society and the fight against territorial expansion that led to the advent of the first kingdom in Vietnam.

* The Van Lang kingdom

Of the 15 tribes, Van Lang was the strongest, with an area stretching over the both banks the Red River and from Ba Vi mountain to Tam Dao mountain. This tribe had an excellent chief who played the central role in gathering other tribes and became the chief of the union of the tribes and later, the leader of the all 15 tribes.

The leader proclaimed himself king and was called in old history as King Hung who was succeeded by many generations of his successors.

King Hung named the kingdom Van Lang and located the capital at Bach Hac (Viet Tri, Phu Tho). King Hung often presided over religious ceremonies and headed the army. Assisting the king were civilian chiefs.

The whole country was divided into 15 regions (which used to be 15 tribes). Heading each region was a military chief. This position was hereditary.

Under a region were communes, each of which was headed by a village elder who could also be assisted by a communal council. Each commune had a common house to be used for gathering and other cultural and religious activities.

A regular army and laws may not have existed at that time. Whenever a war broke out, the armed forces would be mobilised from communes. Reward and punishment depended on customs and practice at each commune or region.

The Van Lang kingdom of the Hung kings was a simple type of state, but it had already made a large contribution to unite the hearts and minds of the whole community of Lac Viet tribes for national construction and defence."

vietnamese is a mon-khmer language right? has anyone explored that connection for your origins? im not saying viets are descendants of khmer of course... but im interested to know y your language is grouped this way.

ty

interesting question..i am just guessing maybe the natives of vietnam spoke a language which is close to the mon-khmer language..then the kinh or the yueh who were pushed south by the Han...moved to the present day of north vietnam..the ethnics intermingle and what we have now are the current vietnamese..even though the vietnamese language is grouped with the mon-khmer language family..our language is tonal.it could be that the true vietnamese language started out as non tonal but through 1 thousand years of sinotization it changes and became tonal..but you have to understand..before 1990 the vietnamese language were grouped in the sino-tibitan language family..so currently the vietnamese language is still in debate to which family it should be categorize in..as for me..i think vietnamese should be in a language group of it is own

i don't mean to offend you but i would like to know if you believe vietnamese should be a language family of its own because your strong viet nationalism or possibly the historical rivalry between vietnamese & cambodian / vietnamese & chinese?

i dont know answer this..but vietnam is just unique..we are located in southeast asia but we fall in the eastern asian sphere influence...our language is tonal and has 60 percent chinese loan words but our language has a mon khmer distinctness...so i guess our language and people should be categorize differently..i suppose..time will tell...currently we dont know enough yet to make a decision

ok well i have this to say:

we filipinos are located in insular southeast asia but we fall in the western sphere influence...our language has 20 percent spanish loan words & 10 percent american loan words but our language has a austronesian distinctness (it retains austronesian structure and syntax)

you should not let foreign influence overshadow your roots. no matter how great it's pressence is. because that means you are losing your identity... or else, you might as well say fuak it and say im chinese. or spanish.

you are a funny guy...if we vietnamese didnt have a strong sense of nationalism..we would still be a province of china..but we do have a country of our own..even though we adopted many of the chinese ideologies but we are still different enough to make a name for ourself..which is Vietnam..when someone ask "where i am from?" i simply reply i am vietnamese...is that really hard to understand? as for our roots..we dont know enough yet..our root could be from the tonkin all the way to quang dong...so i dont understand your point here when you said "you should not let foreign influence overshadow your roots."

i don't know, i guess i was trying to see if we had a similar situation... but i guess not. those words were my personal feelings concerning my people's situation where filipinos think they are hispanic because they know little to nothing about their roots. i didn't mean to offend you or anything.

Our language cannot solely be categorised as Mon-Khmer or any other group. It is influenced by Chinese and French and sounds similar to the Mon-Khmer group.

Is that true that only Vietnamese and Indonesian use the words "my house" (nhà tôi) to call their spouses ?

soo........what is the real reason for vietnamese being categorized into the mon-khmer language group? Because our language sounds like khmers? I don't think we sound like khmer at all, thats why i want to know why we are in the mon-khmer group right now. Also i heard they are doing more research on where to categorize vietnamese language, where do you think we will be categorized if it were to be changed?

before the 1980s our language were grouped in the sino-tibetan language..but as the years progress the world language organization switched our language to the mon-khmer language due to the fact that some of the old basic words for body parts are somewhat similar to the khmer...that is about it..

That doesn't make sense. I find it rediculous that scholars would group languages together based solely on similarities between some old basic words, so I looked into your claim.

I came across this site on Mon-Khmer languages.
Read through it and you'll find that there are much more valid reasons to group Vietnamese as a Mon-Khmer language.

I also recall reading that if you strip away the Chinese influence from Vietnamese and the Indian influence from Khmer, you'll have two very similar languages. I'll try to find that exact article again.

Linguists do that because common basic words are highly likely can't be borrowed between languages. Counting numbers from 1 to 5(which are basic words) are very similar between Vietnamese and Khmer.

Nice posts guys..... this is such a infomative sites... i have learned heaps about our great history... keep it ups guys.....

Yes, I'm aware that it is one factor in the classification of languages. My point was that it's not the only factor, contrary to what sailador suggested. Linguists compare a lot of aspects such as origins, syntax and word structure.

Since you mentioned it, what are numbers 1 to 5 in Vietnamese?

Vietnamese numbers 1 to 5 = một, hai, ba, bốn, năm

but from 6 to 9, Khmer numeral system is different as it's based at 5 then add 1 more as it goes to nine (pram mui, pram pi, pram bey, pram bun), while Vietnamese system goes straight to 10. What I found interesting is that certain numbers in Khmer sound just like Chinese, for example number 30 (xam xaap), it sounds almost the same with # 30 in Cantonese.

Wow I didn't know our two languages are two similar. I mean number 1 to 4 are exactly the same in pronounciation, except for the word "pram" preceding it.

Pram is actually number 5, NQSH. If you takes pram (5) plus mui (1), you've got pram mui (6), and so on to 9 !

They're not similar at all

Our counting number is only similar to northern ethnics in vietnam

Viet-Muong
Sino-Viet. nhâ't nhi tam tú' ngu~ luc thâ't bát cu|'u thâp
Proto-Viet-Muong+ *moc *hal *pa *pon *?dâm *khâw *pây *t'am *cin *mïel
Vietnamese môt hai ba bô'n nâm sáu ba|y tám chín mu'ò'i
Saigon mok. hay ba bóng nâm s,áw bây tám cín mï`y
Muong môc5 hal2 ba2 bôn3 tam2 khaw3 baj4 sam3 cin3 mu'o'l1
May (Ruc, Chut) moic hal pa pón dâm ráw pa,^,.)y thám cín mièy
Thavung (Aheu) muut haal paa póon dam phalu? pih sáam cíin sip
Tay Pong (Hung) motj hal? pa pôn dhâm prâu pal sam chin mal'
Arem mutj hel' pe puôn dhâm prau po' tha|m chín mu'o'i

Counting numbers from 1 to 10 in 4000 languages

http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml

Wow, great site.
Thanks!

I see Vietnamese is classified as "Austro-Asiatic", Mon-Khmer to be exact.

i love that website!!! i visit it frequently


do you know how we can learn more about the "PROTO-LANGUAGES"? for example "Proto-Austronesian"

Just the language only in counting. Some have sinitic loan words and some from Bai Yue(Bach Viet)

vietnamese sentence stracture is also similar to austro-asiatic

it doesnt belongs to sino-tibetan

you're really crazy. khmer and vietnamese is group together because of simmiliar basic words which can't be borrowed that much. check out this forum.

http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?...801&hl=language

Ooh that is interesting... I dont know what would vietnamese sound like if we leave out the chinese influence??

this is a great thread, it discusses lovely things, i can't believ how much i learned.

hey, that does look simmiliar, i thought sino viet was the original viet system once, but i did some resear, but lets compare.

Viet-Muong

Sino-Viet. nhâ't nhi tam tú' ngu~ luc thâ't bát cu|'u thâp

Proto-Viet-Muong+ *moc *hal *pa *pon *?dâm *khâw *pây *t'am *cin *mïel

Vietnamese môt hai ba bô'n nâm sáu ba|y tám chín mu'ò'i

Saigon mok. hay ba bóng nâm s,áw bây tám cín mï`y

Muong môc5 hal2 ba2 bôn3 tam2 khaw3 baj4 sam3 cin3 mu'o'l1

May (Ruc, Chut) moic hal pa pón dâm ráw pa,^,.)y thám cín mièy

Thavung (Aheu) muut haal paa póon dam phalu? pih sáam cíin sip

Tay Pong (Hung) motj hal? pa pôn dhâm prâu pal sam chin mal'

Arem mutj hel' pe puôn dhâm prau po' tha|m chín mu'o'i


other in mon-khmer

Khmer

Old Khmer+ muuej Biier pii puuen pram pram muuej prem Biier prem pii prem puuen tap

Khmer múuej piir bèej bùuen pram pram múuej pram py'l pram bèej pram bùuen dap

Bahnaric
South

Stieng muôi baar pê puôn pram prau poh phaam sên jo'mo't

Chrau muôi var pe puôn prâm prau pôh pham su'n mât

Biat mwoj bar pee puen pram praw poh pham cin jit

Ko'ho dul bar pe poan prâm pro poh pham su'n jô't

Sre dùl bàr pe pwan pram praw poh phàm sin jet

E Mnong ju bar pây puân prâm prâw poh pham sîn mât

C Mnong ngwây bar pe pwân prâm prâw po'h pham sîn jô't

Monic

Old Mon+ moy ?bar pi? pon msun terow dempoh dencam dencit cos

Mon mòa ?ba poe? pon peson kerao hepoh hecam hecit choh

Nyah Kur mùay baar pii? pan chuun traw mpoh ñcaam ñciit cas

khmer language in letters have weird spellings....anywayz...

Mai Hac De (Mai the Black Emperor) (722) : Mai Thuc Loan was born in a poor peasant family, and was very famous for his strength, intelligence and the black complexion. In 722, being one of porters who were exhausting in transportation of Lychee fruits to Tang Emperor 's favorite concubine Yang Kuei-fei, Mai called for a rebellion and was warmly responded by the people. The rebels swept out the Tang from Vietnam and proclaimed Mai Thuc Loan Black Emperor, capital was in Van An (now Nghe An). But Mai Hac De couldn't stop the 100,000 soldiers of Tang reinforcing troop and had to shrink into the jungle and died there for a jungle disease. His son succeeded the father for a short time and was known as Mai Thieu De (Juvenile Emperor). The rebellion collapsed not long after.


HE IS BLACKANESE??? HOLY $hit!! AHAHHAHA is that why most viet people want to be black??

^^^hey we have a celebrity among us. Its tranman from AR. When is your album dropping. LMAO

Where did you find the above ? I'm surprised about the ' jing ' ( Nghe An )