Kinh: Ancestral Origins of Vietnam’s Dominant Group
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Bronze age ornamental drum, still prominent in Vietnam today (source: wikimedia)
The Kinh are the dominate ethno-cultural group of modern-day Vietnam. The Kinh flourished in the lowlands of Northern Vietnam along the Red River (e.g. modern Hanoi).
The Kinh came to prominence over the course of two millennial of conquest and colonization of other kingdoms and ethnic groups, especially the Cham people of central/southern Vietnam and various Khmer-kingdoms near modern-day Ho Chi Minh City and Cambodia. Vietnamese history is suffused with wars and skirmishes between groups in what is now South and Central Vietnam. For instance, the image below shows the time-line of expansion of the ruling Viet elites (“Nguyễn lords”) into South Vietnam over multiple centuries.
Deeper in time, the origins of the Kinh are more hypothetical. Currently, scientists think that the Kinh are not an indigenous group, but arrived to Vietnam from an ancient group related to the Dong Son culture in what is now southern China (Blench 2017). In particular, the Kinh do not seem to share ancestry with the mesolithic “Hoabinhians” — the ancient inhabitants that once dominated South East Asia for tens of thousands of years.
Modern-day Kinh seem to be genetically mixed with many of the other ethnic groups in Vietnam. In particular, researchers point-out their centrality in genetic-clusterings among all other Vietnamese groups (Macholdt et al 2020).
This genetic mixing may be due to many centuries of inter-marriages. Most likely, it is due to the assimilation of other ethnic groups into the dominant Vietnamese culture and indentity. For instance, the high prevalence of the family-name “Nguyễn” is thought to be a result of ethnic minorities voluntarily adopting the name in order to blend in with the Kinh culture and/or to avoid persecution during the Nguyễn dynasties.
Cham People of Vietnam
The Cham people are a large and distinct ethnic group in Vietnam, especially in Central and Southern Vietnam. Throughout history, there were large Champa kingdoms, peaking in the 7th to the 10th centuries, when they rose to comparative prominence as major traders. Over millennia of warfare, the Champa eventually fell to the Viet of the North and were marginalized. Their artifacts, architecture, and religious iconography are vaguely Indian in style, and various dynasties were Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist.
There are hints of Cham’s ancient from their language: the Chams speak a variant of the “Austronesian” language family, which includes groups from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Madagascar. The language is most similar to the Aceh people of Indonesia (Thurgood 1999). It is suggested that the original Chams came from settlers from Indonesia around the time of the Sa Huynh culture. (Reinecke, 2022)
TIP: learn about the Sa Huynh Culture at the Hoi An Museum
Genetic studies confirm this Island-Asiatic origin of the Cham people — there is even evidence of connections with India. However, after their arrival, there has been “extensive interacting” with other mainland East Asian groups, with whom modern-day Cham share a lot of ancestry.
Nonetheless, the Cham and other Vietnamese ethnic minorities, such as the Ede and Giarai, form a distinct genetic cluster that is most dissimilar from the Kinh, Khmer, Thai, Chinese, and other groups. Unlike most other Vietnamese ethnic groups, including the dominant Kinh, the Cham do not show any “excess ancestry” with the Chinese Han. (Dang et al 2020).
Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien Groups in Vietnam
The Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien language groups make-up a large cluster of somewhat-related ethnic minority groups in Northern Vietnam and across southern China and SE Asia. Tai-Kadai include groups like Tay, Colao, Boy, Lachi, Nung — groups that dominate Thailand and neighbouring Laos. The Hmong-Mien language groups includes the famous H’mong, as well as the Pathen and Dao, and many other groups in China.
Tip: To witness the incredible diversity of Vietnam’s minority peoples’, visit Ha Giang and the plateaus of Dong Van, where there are >20 ethnic groups in close proximity. Read more here.
Both families are thought to have originated around 1200 BC, in what is now southern China, and possibly in northern Vietnam for the Tai-Kadai branch (Edmondson and Gregerson 2007; Sidwell 2014). The beginning of their separate migrations into South-East Asian is dated to around 500 BC.
Multiple genetic studies reveal that the two groups show only slight differentiation from each other. Otherwise, they are genetically overlapping and have high inter-relatedness with the Kinh and Muong and Khoumu.
