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NanYue 南粤


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秦始皇三十三年(公元前214),秦遣军自南野(今江西南康西南章水南岸)越大庾岭,始取岭南地,置桂林﹑南海﹑象郡,开拓南疆。汉元鼎五年(公元前112),武帝发五路大军南征,其中一路由豫章(今南昌)下横浦(即浈水),陷寻陜(今始兴附近),各路会师番禺(今广州),灭南粤国,置九郡。

Does anyone know where I can find information on the history of the NanYue kingdom. What percentage of present day Guangdong people could be descendants of the NanYue people? [/b]

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There are plenty of websites online. Just run a search for Nanyue either in English or Chinese at Google.com. It's interesting that some Vietnamese-centric sites claim that Nanyue was ancient Vietnam.

The last time I was in Guangzhou, which was Christmas 2002, there was a brand new museum dedicated to the Nanyue Kingdom. Too bad they were still renovating at the time, but it looks promising from the outside.

It'd be extremely difficult to research on what percentage of present day Guangdongren are descendents of Nanyueren because it would require tracing of family trees which is hard to come by especially after all the wars that's occured. However, it is interesting how many native Guangdongren look similiar to modern day Vietnamese though.

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Due to the geographical proximity and China's thousand years domination over vietnam (it was treated as a province), I wouldn't be surprised to find Guangdongren look more similar to Vietnamese. In fact, a lot of present day Vietnamese are descendents of ancient Chinese immigrants. I tried a search on google, but all I found were very brief history of the kingdom like the one I pasted above. I would like information such as the map and population of the kingdom, as well as the number of later Han migrants compared.

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  • 1 month later...

Cantonese Yue dialect may coincide with the Yue dialect of the United States. The Yue dialect of the Timucua language places it as the northernmost dialect of this Amerind language. Timucua mostly resided in Florida, but on the Atlantic coast of Georgia have been found curious Japanese-like shell mounds. I'm now considering an Asian migration from East to West, rather than the other way around. There are not enough words preserved from this extinct Yue dialect to draw any firm conclusions. The Yue were a tribe who lived near the coast and inland, including the Okefenokee swamp. It is known, though, that the use of arms in rowing had significance to the Timucua: where right(dextra) denotes 'strength' 'goodness' and left(sinistra)denotes 'suspicion' 'evil' in most languages of the world, to the Timucua, it was the opposite. Left was 'strength,.' etc.

So, any investigation of Nanyue or their language/culture might take this into consideration.

Regards,

Mat

anvile2002@yahoo.com

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The characters 粤 in "南粤" should be written 越 like 南越 (Nan2 Yue2 or Nam Việt ) or 越南 (Viet Nam). You'll find plenty of information with Google using "南越".

In the past, the 赵 ( Zhao4, Triệu ) has been considered a vietnamese dynasty by the Vietnamese.( And actually 越南 is just an inversion of 越南). But the prevailing interpretation is now that's a chinese dynasty.

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nnt,

Proceeding to the target semantics: Yue4 'to overstep, to exceed, moreover.' Nan2 'the South.' Weiger's dictionary has yue4 'to cross over, step over(a boundary/border/frontier)' 'to climb/get over/cross(smth.)' 'still more' <the more....the more....> Mucdrov's Ch.-Ru. dictionary has yue4 'bookish(to escape from prison)' 'to fall, drop, sink, decline' abbr. for Vietnam, 'zhejiang'....Weiger's dict., however, also has a similar yet slightly different character for yue4 'battle axe.'

It is in the Bol'shoi Kitaisko-Russko Slovar that one finds a compelling clue: yue4guo4 'surpass, exceed, cross over a mountain' and can also mean 'eclipse'(in sense of pass beyond); the followuing are still yue4 nan2 same characters:

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yue4ye3qi4che1 'cross-country (4-wheel drive)vehicle'....not new term because chariot is che1 and so is charioteer in other dictionaries. Yuenan3yu Tilapia mossambica (a fish), yue4nanren2 is obvious, nan2 = nanmu(Phoebe nanmu Gamble)(botany), yue4nan2bi isRussian dong 'Donets Basin.' Donets coalfields is north of Black Sea. Russian dong diverges into many place names, Vietnam, Camb., Kazhakstan, etc.

Archaic Chinese Yue4 'transgression(Shi) pass over(Shu) extend(Kuoyu)proclaim, extol(Shi)far away(Kuoyu)dispense(Tso)to spread far(Shu)throw down, fall(Shu)...loan for id. 'regulate(Shu) and(Shu) a particle(Shi)opening, hole(in a lute)(Li)....stands for g'wat/yuat/huo....to be continued

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huo 'to plait straw(for a mat)(Tso)....graphs 306 a-f are 'moon(Shi)month(Shi)b,c, and d are from Yin bones. Russian dong may implicate Dingling(see mulan thread). The fish is endemic to Nile region. Tian Shan migration theory may coincide to Dungan, who are certain to have crossed it emigrating out of China. Russ. dong is also Don Cossack.

Check ranges of Tilapia and P. nanmu, maybe more clues. Strong is the evidence for stone axe in one yue4 example, but may be first stone axe was not stone, but bamboo used in sericulture?

Regards,

Mat

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  • 2 weeks later...

The various dialect that the southerners are speaking now are some of the only remaining reminder of their 越 (yue) past. The southerners that include Cantonese, Hokkiens etc are slightly shorter than northerners and northerners are physically well built and fairer. But years of intermarriadge and better nutrition have made most of the southerners more similar to pure Han.

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The various dialect that the southerners are speaking now are some of the only remaining reminder of their 越 (yue) past.

Southern dialects are purely Chinese, no less than Mandarin in anyway. They came directly from ancient Chinese, not from that some other language you called 越 or whatever. Just because Cantonese is called 粤语 does not mean it came from 越 kingdom. It is a Han language to the core.

The southerners that include Cantonese, Hokkiens etc are slightly shorter than northerners and northerners are physically well built and fairer. But years of intermarriadge and better nutrition have made most of the southerners more similar to pure Han.

Please enlighten me what "pure Han" is. You have some serious racial misconception. You can say that northern population and the southern population generally look a little different, given the difference in geography, sun lighting, diets, work and life styles, AND the span of time in the absence of direct gene flow, etc. Let's assume we all started somewhere along the HuangHe region. i.e. Shang dynasty. Throughout history, people migrated both north and south in massive numbers, then they either drove out or absorbed the original local populations. Southern populations have as much Han blood in them as Northern populations. However, despite all the differences, we are still very much the same.

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Actually the northern Chinese are not the real Han while the southern Chinese are.

Why? Just look at the history.

How many years has Northern China been under non-Han rule during the last 1,200 years?

Let's count. 500 years of Liao, Jin and Yuan rule + 250 years of Qing rule.

For most time people in Northern China became colonial subjects. They had to be forced into intermarriage with these non-Han tribes.

On the other hand, people who didn't want to become slave and loved freedom fled to the south. And when the south was conquered, they would not hesitate to rise up.

Who were the national heroes?

Zheng Chenggong, Taiping, Sun Yat Sen, Mao Zedong,......etc were all southerners.

The north only produced "heroes" like Boxers so far.

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If linguistic preservation is a reflection of which people kept most of their original Han blood, southern populations are certainly more Han than Mandarin speaking regions in the North, but it's really meaningless to distinguish who's the pure and the original. None of us is the original, but all of us share the same heirtage and culture.

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Can Cantonese express all the pronounciation in Chinese character?if not, then how can these people be original Han people. Many people claim that Hakkas were pure blooded Hans but historical records shows that Hakkas have intermarriadge with the local Yueh population in Guangzhou. Their language were claimed to be ancient Han languange but a recent research by linguist and historians show that Mandarin was the original language of the Hans. The present form of Mandarin spoken have been modified during the Kuomintang era and Lushun movement. All southerners are the children of Yueh. No matter how much we may deny, the physical evidence clearly shows that. Eventhough the northern frontier have had much mixed blood (Monggol, Huns and Manchus), Mandarin was always used as the official language of the courts, the Hans did not die away but assimilated these people as well.

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Mr Ian Li, what makes you think that Southerners are pure Hans?

i agree that no Chinese Han today are pure Hans but the northern population resembles the pure Hans the most. Heard of the Han migration and conquest to the south? Those were the days where native Yuehs were driven off their fertile region by superior Hans. They fleed to Vietnam, Siam and most of Southeastasia. The remainders settle in Yunnan and southern Guangzhou and eventually disintegrated to the various tribes of Yunnan. But most of them became subjects of Han and intermarried with the Han conquestidors

that mostly includes Mechant much dispised by the Hans in the north and soldiers. Yueh chieftains also willingly accept their new masters by adopting Han surnames. This process went on for a few centuries and eventually these southern populations thought of themselves as the pure Hans.

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According to Mr. Sterling Seagrave (author of Lord of the Rims and a few asian historical title), an eighteen century survey by Spaniard anthrolopologist clearly reveal that the Han likeness decreases as they move southward along China. The Cantonese were the most un-Han liked with complexion like Malays and Vietnamnese and also berbers of the arabic world,having bigger eyes, big and flatter nose index (negrito) and having inferior physical qualities. As they move northwards, the Hokkien population were having more Han liked population but a majority of them still have Yueh features. Only when they reach upper-Changjiang river where they find nearly perfect Han features (light yellowish complexion, sharp nose, slanted eyes and physical well-built).

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If you think that southern Chinese have inferior physical quality (How do you define inferior?) than the northern Chinese, then I would say that Northern Chinese also has inferior physical quality as compared with the Africans (Hmmm.....except Yao Ming but he is not northern Chinese though).

Since Africans might have come to present day North China first, mostly likely the Northern Chinese would have African blood while Southern Chinese do not.

No wonder the facial complexion of some Northern Chinese are really identical with my African American friends.

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