Over the centuries, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism have melded with popular Chinese beliefs and ancient Vietnamese animism to shape the spiritual life of the Vietnamese people, known as the Triple Religion. The Vietnamese language kinh is a hybrid of Mon-Khmer, Thai and Chinese elements with most of its basic words deriving from the monotonic Mon-Khmer languages. Popular artistic froms include traditional paintings on frames and mounted silk, puppetry theatre, music and cultural dance, and religious sculpture.