Why is Cantonese called ancient Chinese by some people?

Cantonese, also known as Cantonese or Vernacular, is a kind of tonal language and belongs to Sino-Tibetan language family.

Cantonese is called ancient Chinese by many people because it originated from elegant words in the ancient Central Plains and has a complete set of nine tones and six tones, which perfectly retains the characteristics of ancient Chinese and leaves traces of entering tones in ancient Chinese. Moreover, the vowel consonants in modern Chinese are greatly reduced, while there are vowel consonants in Cantonese ancient Chinese.

Extended data

Features of Cantonese:

Preserved a large number of ancient elements in China.

Standard Cantonese/Cantonese Cantonese dialect has many archaic sounds. Cantonese people have kept older words and expressions. Many Cantonese words, including modality, can be found directly in ancient books in China. In the northern dialect of China, these archaic words have been discarded or not used. There are grammatical items in Cantonese, such as modifiers, suffixes and inverted sentences. In addition, modern Cantonese still tends to use the dominant monosyllabic words in ancient Chinese. Some words that Cantonese people like can also be found in ancient books.

Left behind the elements of ancient South Vietnam.

Ancient China and South Vietnamese aborigines who moved south to Lingnan lived together for a long time, and infiltrated each other in language, culture and customs. The bottom of modern Cantonese still contains South Vietnamese elements, which are reflected in vocabulary and grammar. Modern Cantonese and modern Zhuang language have many common words in daily life. Whether these words are the origin of ancient Chinese, the remains of the ancient Baiyue dictionary, or the inherent words borrowed from ancient Chinese by other minority languages, people believe that Cantonese-based words are the origin of ancient times. Baiyue, there is no textual research. At present, about 20% of the words in Cantonese are not recorded in the ancient documents of China, so they are not used frequently.

Absorb foreign words

Cantonese loanwords mainly come from English. Loanwords began to appear in Guangzhou in the Qing Dynasty, but in the colonial history of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Cantonese (Hong Kong Cantonese) absorbed a large number of loanwords, which influenced Cantonese-speaking areas in Guangdong.

References:

Cantonese Baidu Encyclopedia