Rau peoples
The Rau people, also known as Lao, were an ethnic group of ancient China. Their descendants are the Zhuang, Buyei, Tày–Nùng and other Kra–Dai-speaking peoples.
Names
The ethnonym and autonym of the Lao people, together with the ethnonym of the Kra-speaking Gelao people, would have emerged from the Austro-Asiatic 'human being'.The etymon would have also yielded the ethnonym /, a name given to the Vietnamese by Tai speaking peoples, currently slightly derogatory. In fact, / was an exonym used to refer to Tai speaking peoples, as in the Literature of Laos#The [epic poem of Thao Hung Thao Cheuang|epic poem of Thao Cheuang], and was only later applied to the Vietnamese. In Pupeo, kew is used to name the Tay of North Vietnam.
The name Lao is used almost exclusively by the majority population of Laos, the Lao people, and two of the three other members of the Lao-Phutai subfamily of Southwestern Tai: Isan people, Nyaw people and Phu Thai speakers.
The name Rau comes from Zhuang raeuz and means 'we, us'.
Kam–Tai populations in China
In Southern China, people speaking Kam–Tai languages are mainly found in Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan, Guangdong and Hainan. According to statistics from the fourth census taken in China in 1990, the total population of these groups amounted to 23,262,000. Their distribution is as follows:; Zhuang
; Bouyei
; Kam
; Hlai
; Mulam
; Maonan
;Lin'gao