The Ngái (;

Chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...

: ) are a Hakka-speaking community in

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

and other nearby countries of

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

, whose ancestors were Southern Chinese. The Vietnamese government separated Ngai from Cantonese when considering ethnic minority groups. The term "Ngai" comes from the

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

first person pronoun "ngai" (, "I / me"), and some Ngai use the

endonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

"San Ngai" (山𠊎, "mountain

dwelling In law, a dwelling (also known as a residence, abode or domicile) is a self-contained unit of accommodation – such as a house, apartment, mobile home, houseboat, recreational vehicle, or other "substantial" structure – used as a home by ...

Ngai"). The Ngái people speak

, a Sino-Tibetan language but are classified separately from the Hoa or urban ethnic "Overseas Chinese" by the Vietnamese government. The Ngái population was 4,841 in 1999 but down only 1,035 in 2009 and up to 1,649 in 2019.Tổng điều tra dân số và nhà ở Việt Nam năm 2009: Kết quả toàn bộ.
Hà Nội, 6-2010. page 134-225.

References

Chinese diaspora in Asia Ethnic groups in Vietnam Hakka {{Asia-ethno-group-stub

See also

References