About ancient Thai script in Nghe An
The cultural beauty of the ethnic minority communities in Nghe An is very diverse and rich. However, many cultural products of the ethnic minorities are at risk of being lost. The Mountainous - Ethnic Groups page opens the column Preserving ancient capital with the desire to contribute a voice in preserving the good cultural features in the ethnic minority communities in Nghe An. We look forward to receiving articles and comments from readers...
Editor's note:The cultural beauty of the ethnic minority communities in Nghe An is very diverse and rich. However, many cultural products of the ethnic minorities are at risk of being lost. The Mountainous - Ethnic Groups page opens the column Preserving ancient capital with the desire to contribute a voice in preserving the good cultural features in the ethnic minority communities in Nghe An. We look forward to receiving articles and comments from readers...
The Thai people in Nghe An are a long-standing community. They came to the western land of Nghe An nearly a thousand years ago. And now they are naturally an indigenous people. In addition to singing, dancing with panpipes, and bamboo pole dancing, writing is an extremely important spiritual and cultural product of the Thai people in Nghe An.
Thai learning materials written by Thai language teachers say that Thai language has existed since ancient times. Thai people settled in Nghe An before the 14th century, during which a small kingdom called Bon Mang was formed. It is very possible that this was the period when Thai writing systems flourished.
Currently, Thai calligraphy artisans in Nghe An are very active in contributing to the preservation of this writing. They have opened many classes to teach writing to the people, including Sam Van Binh (Quy Hop), Vi Kham Mun, Lo Kham Phi, Kha Van Hoi (Tuong Duong)... The most professional of these is artisan Sam Van Binh. This artisan has nearly 20 years of teaching Thai writing in Quy Hop, Quy Chau, Con Cuong. Recently, Mr. Binh participated in a class to teach Lai writing.
The Lai Pao script is considered the “indigenous” script of the Thai people in Tuong Duong. For many years, this script has been restored and taught in some communes of Yen Hoa and Tam Thai (Tuong Duong) by artisans Vi Kham Mun and Lo Kham Phi.
In mid-2011, in Chi Khe commune (Con Cuong), a class of Xu Thanh script appeared, taught by two artisans Kha Van Hoi and Ngan Van Toan (Tuong Duong). The class attracted over 30 participants, mainly junior high school students. It was the first Thai script class in Con Cuong district, which has a large Thai population.
According to documents of Cam Trong in Nghe An, Thai people use two Lai writing systems.
Sam Van Binh in Chau Quang (Quy Hop) is known as the most famous researcher and teacher of Thai writing in Nghe An. He once told me that: It seems that researchers of ethnic minority writing, specifically Thai writing, only research a lot about Thai writing in the Northwest and pay little attention to Thai writing in Nghe An.
Before 1950, Thai script was still popular among Thai communities in Nghe An. Then, for various reasons, Thai script was no longer popular. There are very few ancient Thai script books left in the southwestern districts of Nghe An. We only had the opportunity to see some documents in the collection of Thai artifacts from the past to the present by Mr. Vi Van Son in Con Cuong town. The owner of this artifact said that it was previously owned by Mo Hau in Luc Da commune (Con Cuong).
When we visited Mo Hau, this old man over 70 years old who practiced shamanism could no longer read that script. He said that the Thai script that Mr. Son was holding was left by his father, who used to be a village inspector. He had only heard that it was a document about ancient folk remedies.
Mai Son