Montagnards are different from the Vietnamese in that they speak languages of the Mon Khmer or Malayo-Polynesian linguistic stocks and physically resemble Cambodians, Malays and Indonesians. Although divided into nearly 40 distinct ethnic groups, Montagnard characteristics have historically set them apart from the Cham and Vietnamese.

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In a world centered on small communities, kinship was primary and resources were shared by all. The people respected the integrity of their natural surroundings, and each society had leaders who served as stewards in preserving it. Livelihoods were based on agriculture with rice the staple crop. Villagers farmed slopes and bottomland within the never-ending cycle of rainy seasons followed by dry seasons, of fields planted or fallowing. The forests supplied game, wild fruits and vegetables, and firewood as well as hardwood, bamboo, and rattan for their houses, artifacts and wood carvings. Although their religious practices varied, all of the highland people tried to keep in harmony with their deities. Throughout the highland world there were expressions of beauty in art, architecture, music, and dance.

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The highlanders remained relatively aloof from the Chinese great tradition that molded the society of the Vietnamese and others. Cham rulers had tributary relations with some highland leaders and there was trade with outsiders. But lowlanders by and large regarded the mountain country as remote and forbidding, populated by backward tribes. The Vietnamese remained in their orderly lowland villages surrounded by paddy fields. Kingdoms and dynasties among the Cham, Khmer, Lao and Vietnamese flourished and crumbled, monumental cities were sacked and abandoned, and populations shifted. All the while in the background, the mountains, their peaks shrouded in mists, were silent and seemingly immutable.

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The arrival of the first French missionaries at the highland town of Kontum in the middle of the nineteenth century ushered in an era of ever-increasing contact among the Montagnard tribes themselves and the outside world. As the French colonization of Indochina progressed, administration of the highlands became increasingly formal. Growing numbers of French traders and plantation owners wedged themselves into previously unexplored territories; and as early as 1899, parts of the highlands became formally divided into "Montagnard Provinces."

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In some instances, the developing relationships were harmonious and, to varying degrees, mutually beneficial. The French and Vietnamese gained access to a largely unexploited territory, while the less isolated Montagnard groups were exposed to the goods and techniques of culturally more advanced societies. French administrators and Christian missionaries established schools, hospitals and leprosariums for Montagnard use.

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World War II, the French Indo-Chinese War, and the U.S. Vietnamese war changed the way in which the Montagnards would live and cope in modern society. They are still adapting to these changes today while trying to maintain many of their traditional ways to preserve many aspects of their culture.