Can Cantonese be regarded as ancient Chinese?

There are many archaic sounds in standard Cantonese/Cantonese Cantonese dialect, many archaic words in Cantonese, and many words in Cantonese, including modal particles, which can be directly found in ancient Chinese classics. In the northern dialect of China, these archaic words have been abandoned or rarely used. Grammatical items such as postposition and modifier inversion are preserved in Cantonese. In addition, modern Cantonese still tends to use monosyllabic words which are dominant in ancient Chinese. Some words that are regarded as popular by Cantonese speakers can be found in ancient books.

Although some modern Cantonese can be traced back to ancient times, there are differences between ancient and modern usage. Moreover, Huaxia and South Vietnamese aborigines who moved to Lingnan in ancient times lived together for a long time, and their languages, cultures and customs infiltrated each other. Modern Cantonese still contains southern Cantonese elements at the bottom, which are manifested in vocabulary and grammar. Some Cantonese loanwords also come from English. Since1980s, with the increasing communication between Hong Kong, Pearl River Delta and other Cantonese areas and the mainland, many Cantonese loanwords have gradually entered Mandarin.

Therefore, modern Cantonese and ancient Chinese are no longer the same concept, but retain a lot of contents of ancient Chinese.