Tai

Tai is a complex of closely related tonal, analytic languages and dialects of the Kra-Dai family, spoken in an arc from southern China to Laos, Thailand and the Shan hills of Myanmar. Its best-known members are Siamese, or Thai, Lao, Shan and Dai varieties such as Tai Lü and Tai Nüa, which shade into one another as a dialect continuum.

Southwestern Tai speakers moved out of southern China between the eighth and tenth centuries and founded chiefdoms and kingdoms in the Mekong and Chao Phraya valleys. They wrote in Brahmi-derived alphabets adapted from Mon and Khmer models, the earliest Thai inscriptions appearing at Sukhothai around 1292; the Zhuang used Chinese-derived Sawndip characters.

In the Ayutthaya kingdom of 1351 to 1767, Siamese absorbed many Khmer words. Theravada Buddhism carried in Pali and Sanskrit terms shared across the Tai world.