In recounting the early history of the Thai of Thailand, we deal with the common history of all Thai-speaking people to an identical extent as with the history of Laos and Shans in particular. Nobody, I believe, knows for certain the earliest home of the ancestors of the Thai-speaking people. Some authorities believe that the Thai's first historical appearance was in China some three thousand years ago. There are certain surmises that their earliest home was somewhere in the vast tract of land in West China, and from that time onwards, they appeared frequently in the Chinese records as "the Barbarians" south of the yang-tse king river. Whether "the Barbarians" as recorded by the Chinese, were the ancestors of the Thai is a matter of conjecture . However we will pass over this until we reach more definite ground in the 7th century A.D., evidence of a kingdom known to the Chinese as Nan-chao. The name Nan-chao is a hybrid combination of two words . "Nan" means south in Chinese, and " Chao " is a Thai word meaning lord, or in its present day meaning among the Thai , the Laos and the Shans, a prince