Cantonese originally not Chinese???

[Quentin]

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To Sum Won
Well, to clarify whether or not VietNam written in Chinese (by the VietNamese) the same or not, for those who haven't figured out Terence's answer to his own question, it is. For reminders, VietNam was also conquered by the Chinese for a few millenias. Even now, if you read in earlier posts, many VietNamese surnames can be translated in Chinese. It wasn't until the Portuguese dictionary for the VietNamese language (which was made for Europeans), which introduced any Romanization to their writing system. Even the VietNamese (Kinh) in China, don't use this system (I'm not sure if they [the Kinh] still retain their pronounciations to the Chinese words, and how their VietNamese dialect is to Northern VietNamese).
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Sorry Sum Won, I don't mean to be rude but do you really know what KINH actually mean?

[Dylan Sung]

Kinh is 京.

Dyl.

[WeEWeW]

Just to say hi!

[Quentin]

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To Dylan Sung
Kinh is 京.

Dyl.
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What I mean is do you know why viets called themself Kinh? it nothing to do with race and vietnamese never use the term Kinh when they distiguishing between themselve and Chinese.

[ppk]

kinh is among the 50+ minority races in vietnam, same thing in china. the kinh u memtioned might not apply to all vietnamese. anyway, overseas chinese usually called themselves 'tang people' instead of 'chinese'. that doesnt mean that they are the true descendants from tang dynasty.

[anthony]

WHO GIVES A @!#$.

[anthony]

WHO GIVES A SHITT!!

[Sum Won]

Quentin:
Of course the VietNamese don't use it to identify themselves against the Chinese --they use it to define themselves among the other races within their own country. I may not know why they call themselves the Kinh exactly, but you seem to know a significant amount on the issue, so please do tell.

ppk:
-Check your ethnologues, and you'll find that he Kinh are the majority in VietNam instead.
-If the Kinh in China don't correspond to the Kinh in VietNam, what are your theories on who they really are? I'm opened to suggestions...

[HKB]

I might have sent parts of this message twice accidentally, sorry.

Anyways, the Manchurian language is grouped into the family of languages called the Ural-Altaic family. Other languages grouped also in this particular group include Mongolian, all the Turkish languages, and Finnish (in Europe). Unlike Chinese (belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family), the Ural-Altaic languages possess inflection and largely poly-syllable words. They don't distinguish their words by using pitches and intonations. Cantonese does.
On top of that, the Cantonese PEOPLE could have been...mixed...with initially aboriginal peoples in Canton but you can only go so far as to SUPPOSE that they were indeed mixed, there is as of now NO direct substantiated evidence resulted from well-documented research material that suggest the cantonese are not total Han. Furthermore, your arguement only puts the ethnicity of the Cantonese people in question, not the language itself. Well I gotts go and can't say as much as I'd like to but my last comment is that Cantonese is officially grouped by international linguistic researchers as part of the Sino-Tibetan family (it has always been and always will be), whereas Vietnamese is grouped with the Khmer Family and Japanese is its own family (perhaps related to Korean and the Ural-Altaic in certain ways). I trust these scholars and believe Cantonese to be completely Chinese in origin. p.s,. they..the cantonese use more ancient Han Yu than Mandarin does.

[UBB]

I am a Cantonese boy from Hong Kong and I totally consider myself to be completely Chinese. How DARE you say that Cantonese merely have Chinese blood in them and that "we" should seek independence?! This is ridiculous! After all the wars we cantonese fought for China?! TOOOOOISTED!!