"Lac" Means Rice

The word "Lac" is pronounced as "Lạc" in Chinese Vietnamese, but as "law, lawah, loh" in Chinese. So, what is the best way to find the meaning of those words that sound like "law, lawah, loh" in the indigenous ancient Viet?

Let’s start with Vietnamese proverbs, or Vietnamese popular rhythmic words. In the region of Quảng Bình, in northern Central Vietnam, the following proverb is quite popular: What rice is enough for dogs, and what "law" is enough for chickens". The word "law" (ló in Vietnamese) in the above sentence means "rice", because in the rural areas between Thừa Thiên and Nghệ An, people say "ló" to mean "rice". In addition, it is well known that the montagnards grow a special type of rice called "lúa lốc". The word "lốc" is derived from "ló ".

Two recent Vietnamese dictionaries Từ điển đồng nguyên and Từ điển tiếng Huế both mention that "ló" means "rice". According to the author of Từ điển đồng nguyên, this word is still being used by some ethnic people living in the mountainous regions in Vietnam; for example, the Mường, the Brou, the Mon ..., and many other Southeast Asian ethnic people.

Two details in Thủy kinh chú quoted from Giao Châu ngoại vực ký are noteworthy:"When Giao Chi was not organized as districts yet, the cultivatable lands were called Lac farms and the farming depended on tides. The people who lived there were called Lac people. They later had Lac King, Lac Knights and many Lac Generals ..."

The first detail is "When Giao Chi was not organized as districts yet, the cultivatable lands were called Lac farms and the farming depended on tides". Depending on tides to farm, Lac farms are clearly rice fields, and Lac is rice, not wheat, not barley that are grown in dry fields.

According to Phan Khoang "until the West Chou Dynasty (1186-771 BC) the Chinese only lived in the Yellow River basin ..."⁽¹²⁾ This is easily seen when looking at maps of Chinese anthropology and population throughout the ages in English books written about ancient China that can be found in libraries in North America. The ancient Chinese lived in the Yellow River Valley; they grew wheat, barley in dry fields, not rice.

A U.S. researcher reveals that "the arts of cultivating rice and domesticating cattle were doubtless opted from the despised races of the remote south." The same researcher also believes that "Confucius⁽¹³⁾ has subsisted chiefly on millet cakes.... Confucius never tasted tea, and it is doubtful that Wang Ch'ung, six centuries later, did either ..."⁽¹⁴⁾ Tea is a beverage originated in the south.

More and more results from American, Chinese and Vietnamese researches show that Southeast Asia is the first center of the world's rice civilization, which subsequently spread around the world. According to the same researches, Hòa Bình in North Vietnam was the focal point of the Southeast Asia rice civilization ⁽¹⁵⁾. Hòa Bình is a region lying along the winding Đà river that pours into the Red River, near Mê Linh district (where the famous Trưng Sisters – Vietnam’s first female Generals - uprose to quash the Chinese invasion led by Ma Yuan).

" According to An Outline History of China, which is considered as the official voice of the researchers of Chinese history, the archaeologists have unearthed a very large number of sites in the Hemudu village, Yuyao District Zhejiang Province, dating back 7000 years ago, with fossils of rice, bone and wooden blades that were used to grow rice" ⁽¹⁶⁾

Zhejiang (in Pinyin) Province, also written as Chekiang (transcribed in We-Giles), is Triết Giang province (transcribed in Chinese Vietnamese). It is located in the south east of Yangtze River, north of Fujian province, in China. The territory of Zhejiang did not belong to China 7,000 years ago or 5,000 BC. This detail clearly shows that the rice growing in China was originated from the south.

The people living in the area south of Yangtze River were known to the Chinese as Bach Viet (or literally, One Hundred Viet), while Zhejiang is where the East Viet people lived. East Viet people are ethnically not Chinese, and it is well known that different Viet ethnic groups living in the south of the Yangtze River were related to each other in the ancient times. As an evidence of this relationship, many local people living in the south of Zhejiang province are using some words that are more like Vietnamese than Chinese, because their ancestors are Bach Viet people, among which is the Lac Viet ethnic group.(17) Nowadays, the issue of "Viet" (Yueh) race is a very sensitive political issue in the southeastern provinces of China and Taiwan.

Secondly, the sentence in the quote from Thủy kinh chú repeats the same information in Giao Châu ngoại vực ký "...the cultivatable lands were called Lac farms and the farming depended on tides. The people who lived there were called Lac people. They later had Lac King, Lac Knights and many Lac Generals who ruled the districts..." In this sentence, the word "Lac" is repeated several times.

If the word "Lac" is interpreted as "rice", then "Lac farms" means "rice fields" which is more meaningful than "Lac" as a bird, because "Lac farms" as "bird farms" is meaningless. "Lac farms" can also be interpreted possibly as the farms that belonged to the Lac people; but such interpretation is incorrect because as written, the sentence would make more sense if "lac farms" (instead of "Lac farms") means rice fields. In the sentence that follows, the author of Giao Châu ngoại vực ký clarifies " ... They later had Lac King, Lac Knights and many Lac Generals who ruled the districts..." Moreover, according to Hoàng Văn Chí, there are no such Chinese Vietnamese words as "Hán điền" (Chinese farm) or "Pháp điền" (French farm); hence "Lạc điền" (Lac farm) cannot be interpreted as farm that belongs to the Lac people.⁽¹⁸⁾

Finally, "Lac people", "Lac King", "Lac Knights", "Lac Generals" relied on "Lac farms" for their survivals. They all were "Lạc Việt" people who grew rice to survive. Their ethnic origin is differentiated from the other ethnic Viet groups such as the Bách Việt in the south of the Yangtze River, the Mân Việt in Fujian, the Dương Việt in Jiangxi, the Nam Việt in Guangdong, the Đông Việt in Zhejiang ... "Lạc Việt" was mentioned several times in Hậu Hán thư by Fan Yeh (398-446), especially from the Trưng Sisters’ uprising against Su Ting in 40 and Ma Yuan in 41.