Cantonese originally not Chinese???

[Sum Won]

On this "case by case" issue above, let me clarify a bit, and let's dissect everything that was proposed by me. First of all, the original question was whether or not Cantonese were ORIGINALLY Chinese ("Cantonese" in the context of the whole topic, to be descendants of Yue people), and proposing the possibility that they might have fled to Japan. After about seven months, my only response was to eatsee, criticizing me on my Japanese. A month later, was when the forum started boiling out more people, pushing this forum to a new limit. This was because the forum was redesigned and using new software --Many thanks to those programmers and IT guys. Here, we were still debating whether or not the Cantonese had any connection to the Japanese. Originally, I used the relations between the Cantonese "hai" and Japanese "hai". As this new rush of people came about, in one post I made, I compared the Japanese usage of "wa" to the Cantonese usage of "wa", but this proposal was still flat-out struck down by many of you, and I haven't gotten around to proving this. Immediately following this, I began concentrating more on the Qin-T'ang era for my arguements, and didn't float off to another region of the world to prove my point (I might do that later however), because even if the original inhabitants did flee, we're not sure whether or not they only fled to Indo-China, but because they were very close to a big body a water, who knows where they might have fled?

Setting aside this maritime-escape issue they might have had, we began to concentrate on the people on the land.
You brought up the fact that similar religions were practiced on both sides, and proposed that they could have been of the same culture.
I countered this, with the theory of trade and cultural/religious diffusion by means of it.

Along the way, we've brought up the point of nomenclatures. As I have constantly been referring to what I now call the "proto-Cantonese", you stick by the book and refer to everyone from ZheJiang to GuangXi as the Bach Viet.
(to clarify once again, what I mean by "proto-Cantonese", that would be the ancestors of the modern people that speak one of the Yue dialects)
Also sticking to the book, is the fact that you still agree that these same people moved to VietNam. I proposed another theory, disproving this thought here
http://www.chineselanguage.org/forum/re ... 1290&t=400
by bringing up a possibility that the term "VietNam" itself is a nomenclature, around the fifth paragraph onwards. Still you flat out deny this.
I proposed the fact that the Bach Viet term itself, could be a nomenclature, in that the Chinese tended to over-generalize things in certain areas. Remember, they referred to the Southern people as "Man" (Barbarians), regardless of what their race was. In that respect, Bach Viet could be a nomenclature.

[ppk]

on any normal day, you call them chinese in the first place. then you further classify them as cantonese or hokkien or hubei. just like you first classify an american as an american, then he's a northerner or a southerner. but for academic purpose, like looking for specific cultures or language history, the chinese called the ancient people before the conquer of canton the ancient viets. there is no way to find a pure descendant of any ancient race in china now. viets is the term they addressed themselves, not a chinese invention. bachviet or baiyue may be a chinese invention, but the vietnamese still used it. they refer themselves as the descents of bach viets. if you have been to vietnam, you will find the north vietnamese look almost identical to chinese southerners, and their accent more like cantonese.

[Sum Won]

There is also the possibility that the VietNamese were given this term, and stuck with it. As if you were isolated from the rest of the world, with only your parents to tell you how the world is. If they tell you that the color of the text is white, you'd follow. The VietNamese were conquered several times over by the Chinese, and have been fairly sinicized. So it's hard not for them to follow Chinese texts and call themselves Viets. Remember, VietNam is "South of Viet", unlike NamViet "Southern Viet". Maybe there could've been some Bach Viet located in this area, like in strips of Northern VietNam, but generally, I think they were Champa that had more contact with the Viets.

I would like to avoid using "appearance" for an arguement, because appearances don't necessarily tell one's race. (I've seen a Mexican who looked completely Oriental before, and my friend saw a Mandarin girl who looked completely caucasian.)

On accents, the northern dialect [of VietNamese] isn't closer to Cantonese in certain areas, and the southern dialect isn't closer in others.

For example, the Mandarin pronounciation "Yang"
Cantonese: Yeung
VietNamese: duong
*The "d" above is pronounced with a Z-sound in the north, and a Y-sound in the south*

And remember, the words that the Cantonese and VietNamese have in common, are all from T'ang Dynasty Chinese.

[RedSultan]

PPK, regarding your point of people in different regions having similar religious practices - this could easily have occurred through trade. In the old Roman Empire and even further back to the times of Ancient Greece, ancient Egyptian gods and even myths appeared in Roman and Greek religions. Trade brought about an exchange of not only goods but also religions. The same occurred in Africa with African cultures converting to Islam after conducting trade with the Arabs (or "Saracens" as they were known as back then). But then the similarity of religious practices could very well be a mere coincidence. For example, the appearance of massive stone megalith monuments in places all across Europe including Britain, France, Belgium, and Italy, all of which were built in different places but around similar times.

[Terence]

Dear PPK

I would like to know if 'viet' is a vietnamese sound translation from Yue ; if it is 100% equivalent to yue in vietnamese language.

[ppk]

no. the sound of 'yue' came much later cos 'yue' is modern mandarin pronounciation, which probably came into the picture only after 1300ad. the ancient pronounciation probably sounded more like 'viet'. the chinese written character of 'yue', however, is of a longer history, more than 2200yrs. i am not sure of this but i have the impression that the vietnamese has no writing of their own in the beginning, and they borrowed chinese words to 'romanise' their language, like chinese using the alphabet in 'hanyu pinyin'. so they probably borrowed the writing form of 'yue' in chinese but pronouced it in their way, as 'viet'.

[Terence]

Thanks PPK, then could you tell me if vietnamese think that the term 'viet' is from yue and it bears the same recognition as Chinese' s yue. Some Chinese scholars said that yue 越was actually evolved from hotness熱indicating the area without snow. Do you have any idea on this.

[ppk]

i have not done a thorough search, but i believe 'viet' is how the aborigins in vietnam/canton area called themselves. the chinese used a chinese word that sounded like 'viet' to address these neighbours/opponents, and the word is the chinese character 'yue'. the vietnamese adopted a lot of chinese culture and they probably adopted the word the chinese used to address them too. both 'hotness' and 'yue' probably co-existed in ancient china, not one after another, so its not quite possible 'yue' came from 'hotness'. 'yue' was initially used as a verb, meaning to 'cross over', and it is also the name of an ancient state, said to be from the descendants of the ruler 'shaokang' in xia dynasty. they fought with the state of 'wu' during the 'spring anf fall' era in ancient china(around 500-460 bc).

[Terence]

I know the Wu-yue history but that's what I wonder if that yue in Wu-yue is the same as yue/viet. It's probably not, I think. I interpret that baiyue is a term calling the southerners who have similar customs and outlook as wu-yue's yue. And it[s a name given by Han to those foreigners whom they were not familiar with. As time went by, Han distinguish East and West Ou, Dong, Men-yue, Li, Miu. Yiu. Mao. Liu. among Bai yue. So whether viet is a collective name the vietnamese used to include baiyue or just an individual tribe among bai yue. Moreover, north vietnam was called by Han as Couchin during Han dynasty, it seemed to have no relation with viet. Thus I can't find why vietnam is written as 越南in Chinese history. Does Vietnamese have a Chinese writing form for viet? Is it the same as that written in Chinese. Could you do me a favour to check it out since I have little knowledge on vietnamese.

To pay you, I hereby posted a legend which gave way to test whether you Cantonese is an descendant of the aborigines of yue: If both of your little toes have two layers of nail. you are pure native descendants. If it happens on either one foot, your northern ancesters had married the aborigines.

[ppk]

the 'yue' in wu-yue conflicts were the later min'yue people. also called 'dong yue' before han dynasty. their surname is 'luo' as in 'luo'tuo'(camel). i think 'min' was pronounced as either 'bun', 'bin', 'mun' or 'min' in han dynasty. the chinese called the few ancient states in vietnam as ri'nan, jiao'zhi, lin'yi etc till tang dynasty. in ming the name of zhan'cheng(champa?!) and an'nam was used. they have learned writing since the sui dynasty, probably from the palivian buddhism sutras from sri lanka. burma, thailand, cambodia and indonesia had similiar writings. from what i know chinese was only used as a pinyin, so reading the chinese writings have no meaning unless one can figure out the palivian/vietnamese word it symbolised.

yeah i got 2 layers of nails on both little toes, and my ancestors were from fujian(hokkien, i am a hoklo) around 10+ generations ago, which is quite recent. so the chances are that they didnt marry any aborigins(cos there are no more when they arrive) and i'm probably a northern chinese native(my ancestors moved to fujian in early song dynasty, probably 25 generations ago). the other thing i heard is single eyelid. all the terra cotta warriors in the qin shi huang tomb were probably single eyelid and i think they are the true northerners. i think double eyelids only came after buddhism was introduced into china and we start to see double eyelids in buddhism sculptures or paintings. so those with double eyelids probably had some foreign blood in their family somewhere in history.