Editing Vietnamese people (section)

===Origins and pre-history===
According to the Vietnamese legend, ''The Tale of the Hồng Bàng Clan'' (''Hồng Bàng'' thị truyện), written in the 15th century, the first Vietnamese were descended from the [[Vietnamese dragon|dragon]] lord [[Lạc Long Quân]] and the [[Xian (Taoism)|fairy]] [[Âu Cơ]]. They married and had one hundred eggs, from which hatched one hundred children. Their eldest son ruled as the [[Hùng king]].{{sfn|Kelley|2016|pp=165–167}} The Hùng kings were claimed to be descended from the mythical figure [[Shen Nong]].{{sfn|Kelley|2016|p=175}} 

The earliest reference of the proto-Vietnamese in Chinese annals was the ''Lạc'' (Chinese: Luo), ''[[Lạc Việt]]'', or the [[Dongsonian]],{{sfn|Kiernan|2019|pp=41–42}} an ancient tribal confederacy of perhaps polyglot [[Austroasiatic language|Austroasiatic]] and [[Kra-Dai language|Kra-Dai]] speakers who occupied the [[Red River Delta]] in northern Vietnam.{{sfn|Kiernan|2019|p=42}}<ref>{{citation |surname1=Kelley |given1=Liam C. |title=Vietnam at the Vanguard: New Perspectives Across Time, Space, and Community |pages=88–107 |year=2021 |editor-surname1=Gillen |editor-given1=Jamie |editor-surname2=Kelley |editor-given2=Liam C. |editor-surname3=Le |editor-given3=Ha Pahn |chapter=Competing Imagined Ancestries: The Lạc Việt, the Vietnamese, and the Zhuang |publisher=Springer Singapore |isbn=978-9-81165-055-0 |surname2=Hong |given2=Hai Dinh}}</ref> 

One hypothesis suggests that the forerunners of the ethnic Kinh descend from a [[Vietic languages|subset]] of [[proto-Austroasiatic]] people in southern China, either around [[Yunnan]], [[Lingnan]], or the [[Yangtze River]], as well as mainland [[Southeast Asia]]. These proto-Austroasiatics also diverged into [[Mon people|Monic]] speakers, who settled further to the west, and the [[Khmer people|Khmeric]] speakers, who migrated further south. The [[Munda people|Munda]] of northeastern India were another subset of proto-Austroasiatics who likely diverged earlier than the aforementioned groups, given the linguistic distance in basic vocabulary of the languages. Most archaeologists, linguists, and other specialists, such as Sinologists and crop experts, believe that they arrived no later than 2000 BC, bringing with them the practice of riverine agriculture and in particular, the cultivation of wet rice.<ref name="Blench2018">Blench, Roger. 2018. [https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/52438/3/JSEALS_Special_Publication_3.pdf Waterworld: lexical evidence for aquatic subsistence strategies in Austroasiatic]. In ''Papers from the Seventh International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics'', 174–193. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society Special Publication No. 3. University of Hawai{{okina}}i Press.</ref><ref name="Blench2017">Blench, Roger. 2017. ''[http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Austroasiatic/Waterworld.pdf Waterworld: lexical evidence for aquatic subsistence strategies in Austroasiatic]''. Presented at ICAAL 7, Kiel, Germany.</ref><ref name="Sidwell2015b">Sidwell, Paul. 2015b. ''Phylogeny, innovations, and correlations in the prehistory of Austroasiatic''. Paper presented at the workshop ''Integrating inferences about our past: new findings and current issues in the peopling of the Pacific and South East Asia'', 22–23 June 2015, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Peiros |first=Ilia |year=2011 |title=Some thoughts on the problem of the Austro-Asiatic homeland |url=http://www.jolr.ru/files/(68)jlr2011-6(101-114).pdf |access-date=4 August 2019 |work=Journal of Language Relationship}}</ref> 

Some linguists, such as James Chamberlain and Joachim Schliesinger, have suggested that Vietic-speaking people migrated northwards from the [[North Central Coast|North Central Region]] of Vietnam to the [[Red River Delta]], which had originally been inhabited by [[Tai languages|Tai]] [[Tai peoples|speakers]].{{sfn|Chamberlain|2000|p=40}}{{sfnp|Schliesinger|2018a|pp=21, 97}}{{sfnp|Schliesinger|2018b|pp=3–4, 22, 50, 54}}{{sfn|Kiernan|2019|pp=46–47}} However, Michael Churchman found no records of population shifts in [[Jiaozhi]] (centered around the Red River Delta) in Chinese sources, indicating that a fairly stable population of Austroasiatic speakers, ancestral to modern Vietnamese, inhabited the delta during the [[Han dynasty|Han]]-[[Tang dynasty|Tang]] periods.{{sfnp|Churchman|2010|p=36}} Others{{Who|date=January 2024}} have proposed that tribes in northern Vietnam and southern China did not have any kind of defined ethnic boundary and could not be described as "Vietnamese" (Kinh) in any satisfactory sense.{{sfnp|Churchman|2010|pp=27–29, 31, 32, 33}} Thus, attempts to identify ethnic groups in ancient Vietnam are problematic and often inaccurate.{{sfnp|Churchman|2010|p=25}}

Another theory, based upon linguistic diversity, locates the most probable homeland of the Vietic languages in modern-day [[Bolikhamsai Province]] and [[Khammouane Province]] in Laos as well as in parts of [[Nghệ An Province]] and [[Quảng Bình Province]] in Vietnam. In the 1930s, clusters of Vietic-speaking communities discovered in the hills of eastern Laos were believed to be the earliest inhabitants of that region.{{sfn|Kiernan|2019|p=52}}

But so far, many scholars link the origin of the [[Vietic languages]] to [[northern Vietnam]], around the Red River Delta.<ref name="Sagart 2008">{{cite book |last1=Sagart |first1=Laurent |title=Past Human Migrations in East Asia |date=2008 |isbn=978-1-134-14963-6 |editor-last1=Sanchez-Mazas |editor-first1=Alicia |pages=133–157 |chapter=The expansion of setaria farmers in East Asia: a linguistic and archaeological model |doi=10.4324/9780203926789 |id={{HAL|hal-04864187}} |quote=The cradle of the Vietic branch of Austroasiatic is very likely in north Vietnam, at least 1000km to the south‑west of coastal Fújiàn |editor-last2=Blench |editor-first2=Roger |editor-last3=Ross |editor-first3=Malcolm D. |editor-last4=Peiros |editor-first4=Ilia |editor-last5=Lin |editor-first5=Marie}}</ref><ref name="Ferlus 2009">{{cite journal |last1=Ferlus |first1=Michael |date=2009 |title=A Layer of Dongsonian Vocabulary in Vietnamese |journal=Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society |volume=1 |pages=95–108 |id={{HAL|halshs-00932218v3}}}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Alves |first=Mark |date=10 May 2019 |title=Data from Multiple Disciplines Connecting Vietic with the Dong Son Culture |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333720204}}{{self-published inline|date=April 2025}}</ref>