Cantonese originally not Chinese???

[RedSultan]

You accuse Sum Won of being one-sided, yet you too are being one-sided. Rather than making a long tirade about this, I'll get straight to the point - that's quite hypocritical.

I know very little of my own culture because admittedly, I am one of the many victims of Americanism. But as a proponent of the preservation of culture and one who ardently believes that we must do all we can to find the truth, I believe we the Cantonese people do have the obligation to find our true ancestral anc cultural roots. We simply can't go on denying what our ancestors once were, since that would be self-betrayal. To simply blindly going on saying your all "Chinese" even though your ancestral roots may be unique from traditional Han Chinese is the same as the way minorities in America simply call themselves "American", but are ashamed of their own ancestral culture. Many people gave up their cultural identity and simply became clones merely to appease the majority of society. That is a very sad thing that happens and continues to happens as our cultural identities are continuing to disappear in this dark age of globalization. We must have pride in what we are and not go on and say we're something else.

[kp]

Just statements like these:

"those natives having been conquered would love to live as citizens under Canton Government (not use the historical term), due to higher living standard, better technology and higher culture. Those not being conquered living around the Han cultural sphere would like to take advantage from Han. Then, contacting with Han, learning from Han and deliberately fusing to Han took place from time to time"

"As for the so-called indigenous culture of the native, what was that?"

Though Terrence seems to be extremely educated on this subject, these type of statements show his opionions are extremely biased.

Viets sure didn't want to become part of the "Han" race. Tibet is still trying to get their independence TODAY......

[Sum Won]

You're correct in asking what the "indigenous Cantonese culture" is, and if I haven't made myself clear in earlier posts, "we should strive to research on the subject". That's what this forum was originally for. If none of you remember, look back at the earlier posts, to see how we were debating over the subject of "Cantonese originally not being Chinese". This topic was set up to settle an answer, if not the least to ask more questions. Sadly, it has turned into a political debate (which I myself have been part of). So "without further adieu", I will now continue on my research.

[snow]

hello!
I want to ask how to spelling 谭 喜 悦 from cantonese.
Thank a lot

snow

[Ally]

I only just scanned the sixty or so messages here, so I might be repeating someone's words. I thought that the Hakka dialect is closest to the ancient Chinese sounds...

[iserlohn]

Cantonese is the closest to MC (Middle Chinese (Tong and Sung)) and all the p/t/k endings are still kept in Cantonese.

Modern Mandarin seems to have evoled from the northern MC dialects and is more progressive, droping all of the p/t/k endings.

Many dialects can be traced to more ancient roots, including Hakka and Fukkien. However, as we move further back in time, the languages in China would have been more fragmented, with regional differences more pronounced.

It is really hard to trace back the pronounciation of languages thousands years back. Even languages that have a phonetic script cannot be restructed fully. Most of the information we have for ancient chinese dialects comes from rhyme and style guides.

[David]

Taishanese, a sub-dialect of Cantonese, has more in common with Mandarin than does Cantonese with Mandarin.

For example:

Where
Who
Eat rice
The pronounciation of the number "one"
And it's Chairman Mao not Chairman Tao fat.

[Sum Won]

"hopefully, when you say 'taishan', you're referring to the yue language variation, rather than the taishan in the saying 'You yan bu zhi tai shan'"

Everyone knows here that Cantonese (the yue dialect in general, sorry for not being politically correct or concise) has many variations within it. I'm not an expert on TaiShan, but even if this is true and are trying to challenge the theories that Cantonese were originally not Chinese, you'll have to consider the factors of hakka migration. If this is not the case, then let's apply the theory that Cantonese were originally not Chinese. If you notice how the Cantonese (most of them) say "who" as "bin goh" instead of "sui".

[ppk]

the question here is 'cantonese originally not chinese?'. when did we start using the term 'canton' and 'cantonese'? at least from the moment we use 'canton' to name a southern region in china they are oredi chinese, and i believe this had even been longer. the ancient baiyue, however, are not huaxia ppl. but they dun really exist anymore cos they were conquered and intermarried with qin ppl long time ago and there are no more true blue baiyue ppl now.

and japanese is not from chinese. they and korean belong to mongolian line of language, usually with verb at the end of the sentence. in chinese its 'i eat my dinner', in japanese it's 'i my dinner eat'. structurally they are different. but they did borrow chinese characters and pronouciation. japanese ppl were not from chinese region. their bone and facial structure doesnt resemble most ancient human skeletons unearthed in china.

[Ally]

I don't think that Hakka people say sui for who either. They say na-aa, or something to that effect.