Who were the Cantonese(Guandong Ren)?, Discuss about the Cantonese History

Who were the Cantonese? I am Cantonese, but not sure about the region and its history. We'rnt the Cantonese seen as barbarians during Ancient China and up until the Yuan dynasty?

The cantonese originated from the "Yue" (越) people. Basically, a cantonese is a chinese who comes from the southern region of Guangdong (canton) province in south China, where the dialect of Cantonese (粤语) is spoken. The region of Hongkong, Guangzhou, Foshan, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, Macau etc.all speaks cantonese, and is where cantonese people stayed and originated. Many of the overseas chinese are also cantonese. If you visit this region, all the people there speaks cantonese, although they can also speak mandarin.

Please take note that the spoken chinese language was only unified during the Republic of China times (after 1911), when Republic of China decided to adopt the Mandarin policy to unify the spoken language. Basically before 1911, different regions speak their own dialects and the communication proves to be rather cumbersome, despite the fact that the written language was already unified by Qinshihuang in 221BC.

You might be aware that the father of Republic of China, Sun Yat Sen, is a cantonese (he was born in Zhong Shan) and when Republic was founded, there was a debate whether Cantonese or Mandarin should be adopted as the official language of China. At that time, the north speaks Mandarin (the Beijing dialect) , while the south speaks cantonese. The vote and election later was that Mandarin wins and thereafter Mandarin was adopted as the official language. Had Cantonese won the vote, all chinese could be speaking cantonese instead. The only exception was Hong Kong, which was under british rule and did not adopt the mandarin policy and that's why up to today, Hong Kong still uses Cantonese as the official chinese language in education, politics everywhere.

I'll discuss briefly about the history of the Yue (越) people, from which the cantonese originated. The Yue people are the ancestors of the cantonese, to be more precise "Southern Yue" tribes were the direct ancestors. The cantonese are in fact very closely related to today's north vietnamese, in terms of looks, body structure and language. And compared to northern Chinese, the cantonese are generally shorter and look differently (they appeared to look more like northen Vietnamese)

History of Yue People

Basically, during the spring/autumn and warring states period times, the people that dwelled in the southern region of what's called "Zhejiang", "Fujian", "Guangdong" provinces today and northern part of "Vietnam" are called "Yue" people. The Yue people are quite diverse and have many clans and tribal federation. The Yue people are considered by the civilized chinese of the central plain (中原) as uncivilized and therefore barbaric. Because of so many clans and tribes, the Yue people are also called the "Hundred Yue" (百越).

During the Spring/Autumn period, among the Yue people, the tribes that are more advanced and civilized will have to include the "Yue" (越) clan and " Gou Wu" (句吴) clan. During those times, they dwelled in the region of the lake Tai. The Yue clan founded the Yue state (in today's Zhejiang province region) while the Gou Wu established the Wu state (in today's Jiangsu province region). Later, the Wu state defeated the Yue state and the king of Yue, "Gou Jian" (勾践) had to rear horses for the king of Wu, "Fu Chai" (夫差). However, the king of Yue later gained trust from the king of Wu and he was allowed to return to Yue kingdom. Legend had it that after he returned to Yue kingdom, he worked very hard to make his kingdom strong. Finally after 10 years of hardwork, he finally defeated the Wu state. However, by the late Warring states period, the Kingdom of Yue was conquered by the Chu kingdom (one of the 7 strong states during the warring states period).

Although the Yue kingdom was conquered by the chu kingdom, the Yue people survived. The Yue people of former yue state and Wu state intermixed with the Hua Xia people (ancestors of Han-chinese) . After the warring states period, the "hundred Yue' term began to become popular. During the Western Han period, the people of the south were officially called "Hundred Yue". The "Yue" (越) could also referred to another Yue "粤" (which means "cantonese").

During the early Han dynasty period, the "Hundred Yue" were divided into "Eastern Ou" (东瓯), "Min Yue" (闽越), "Southern Yue" (南越), "Western Ou" (西瓯), "Luo Yue" (骆越) etc, main groups.

1. "Eastern Ou" (东瓯) - also known as "Ou Yue" (瓯越). They dwelled in the region of previous Yue and Wu state. (today's Zhejiang Wenzhou region)

2. "Min Yue" (闽越) - also within the region of previous Yue state (today's Fujiang province) - these were the ancestors of the "Min" chinese people today (who speaks Hokkien dialect)

3. "Southern Yue" (南越) - within the region of today's Guangdong province, later developed into the region of Guangxi province and its south part. They were the ancestors of cantonese today.

4. "Western Ou" (西瓯) - within the region of today's western part of Guangdong province and southern part of Guangxi province

5. "Luo Yue" (骆越) - today's north Vietnam region. The ancient Luo Yue people were the direct ancestors of today's Vietnamese. Today's vietnam in chinese is called "Yue Nan" (越南), which means south of Yue.

The above Yue people were all conquered by Emperor Han Wudi during his military expansion campaign of the south (I'll narrate this campaign in my next posts) and after that, these regions in the south became part of the Han provinces. After this conquest, the term "Hundred Yue" disappeared from the history records of the chinese. Some of the Yue people were sinificised and mixed with the Han-chinese. Some of the Yue people became the ancestors of today's "Gao Shan" ethnic
(高山族) in Taiwan. Another Yue faction became today's "Dai" ethnic (傣族) in southern China. Others became today's "Zhuang" ethnic (壮族), "Bu Yi" ethnic (布依族), "Tong" ethnic (侗族), "Shui" ethnic (水族) in Southern China.

Basically, today's "Zhuang" ethnic (壮族) and "Tong" ethnic (侗族) in South China were related to the polynesian people in south-east asia.

It is thus important to note that Yue was a generic term to referred to barbarian people of the south during warring states. The Southern Yue tribes/people were the ancestors of today's cantonese.

Also they still use tradational writing system rather then the new system.

Taiwan and Hongkong all uses the traditional characters that dated from the 5th century AD, because they were unaffected by the chinese writing reform of People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1950s, in which PRC adopted the simplified writing, which currently is the norm 'standard' chinese writing worldwide.

As for Singapore and Malaysia, they had also already adopted the simplified writing, although the older generations were educated in the traditional writing.

(Because I'm educated in Singapore, I can read and write in the simplified characters. However, I can also read the traditional writing used in Taiwan and Hongkong, although I can't really write in traditional characters )

My wife's roots are Hakka. There are many Cantonese-speaking people in the Hong Kong SAR and Guangdong province with Hakka blood. They also have their own Hakka dialect, and my wife knows some of it.

I researched this a little one time, and found out that the Hakkas are sometimes referred to as "the wandering people of China", because for hundreds of years they have migrated from one region to another.

I guess the Hakka would be a good topic for another thread.

Wow, thanks Zhaoyun, thats some good info there, so good I'm going to print it. I guess my dad would love to know this.

Many of my friends here do not have much knowledge of their culture, heritage, and stuff, I am not exception. So, we sometimes tell stories and talk about our heritage. Folf stories, myths, like the Dragon Boat festival. I'm just wondering, if you guys do that? We're trying to know our roots.

Yup, we always do that in the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in Taiwan. We also get to eat Zong Zi (粽子), a pyramid-shaped mass of glutinous rice wrapped in leaves.

Just wondering, what is the name for people who speak Taiwanese (台語), or the language people speak in Fu Jian (福建) in China?

I think, we call them "Min"(闽) or "Min Nan" people (闽南人) to be exact . To be more proper, the dialect is called "Min Nan" language (闽南话).

In Taiwan, the "Min Nan" dialect is called "Taiwanese"(台語), which IMO is not correct, because the Min Nan dialect originated from Fujian province and not from Taiwan. They arrived in Taiwan, because many Min Nan people migrated to Taiwan from Fujian province ever since 17th century onwards. "Taiwanese" is not an ethnicity, because we know in Taiwan, there are "Min Nan" people, Hakka people (客家人), mainland Chinese (外省人), as well as Aborigines (原住民).

In Singapore, the "Min Nan" people are called "Hokkien" people. "Hokkien" is the taiwanese (台語 )/ Min Nan (闽南) language pronounciation for "Fu Jian" (福建), and the dialect is called "Hokkien" language ("Hokkien Wei"). Hokkien people are the largest chinese group in Singapore (around 40%), and many of the Singaporean chinese's ancestors came from Fujian province.

The "Min" chinese people dwelled in the region of Fujian province (around Xiamen, NanAn cities), in Taiwan, and in many parts of South-East Asia (such as Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia).

The direct ancestors of the "Min" people today were the ancient "Min Yue" (闽越) people (one of the "Hundred Yue" ) which I have mentioned above. You might notice that the chinese character "Min" (闽) , when analysed and broken up, consists of a character "insect" (虫) inside a door (门). This was how the highly civilized han-chinese viewed the "Min" people as "an insect inside a door" (in short, they viewed the Min people as barbarians).

(anyway, the discussion of the Min people or Hakka should be in another thread.. let us not deviate from the subject of Cantonese)

Be my guest.

wouldn't it be MIN NAN REN. Its this the symbol for person? 人

Yes.

It is always amazing to know about the diversity of China's origins, especially the ancestry of the different provinces. You can even tell today that Cantonese have a lot of austronesian blood and can often pass for Vietnamese or even Filipino, and can look very different from Northerners. The same goes for Fujianese and other southern territories.

I always thought that Southern Chinese looked more Huaxia than Dongyi.

what about the theory that Cantonese and other southern dialects are much more closely related to ancient Chinese.

its definiately believable, i took a 古代汉语 class with some Canto friends and when they read it, it flowed so much more smoothly, when i read it, it was studdery and awkward.

i honestly can't believe that today's Cantonese are the DIRECT descendants of the Yue people. The Yue kingdom was annihilated and dispersed by Han Wu Di. The barbarian invasions at the end of Jin Dynasty and Tang dynasty caused massive migration to the south from the north which is why i think Guangdong ren call themselves Tang ren. In my 古代汉语 class was doing Tang poetry. the teacher said only the Canto speakers could read this outloud, the rest of us had to stay silent. Also, Guangdong Chamber Ensemble music(except for the use of Gaohu) is closely related to the music of the Tang dynasty.

care to elaborate further

are you saying Guangdongren=Yue, because just because Guangdong happens to be the same place where 南越 use to be isn't a very good explanation