History and Origin of Cantonese

History and Origin of Cantonese

The Cantonese language has a history of about 2,200 years since the Qin DynastyThe Cantonese language has a history of about 2,200 years since the Qin Dynasty.

Qin and Han

During the ancient times, several primitive tribes in the Lingnan region were generically referred to as the Southern Barbarians by the Chinese in the Central Plains. After Emperor Qin Shi Huang went south to conquer the "Hundred Yue", the Chinese came to the Lingnan region, while the southern barbarians fled to the mountains or further south. At that time, the language of the Huaxia began to spread to the Lingnan region. After the fall of the Qin Dynasty, Zhao Tuo, the lieutenant of Nanhai County, annexed Guilin County and Xiang County and claimed the throne, establishing the short-lived state of South Vietnam. During the heyday of the Han Dynasty, the Huaxia people merged with many neighboring ethnic groups to become the Han people. This was the period when the Cantonese language took shape.

North and South Dynasties of the Wei and Jin dynasties

During the North and South Dynasties of the Wei and Jin dynasties, the Central Plains were once again in the midst of a prolonged civil war, and the north fell to foreigners for the first time, so a large number of Central Plains scholars fled to the south of the mountains, and the Chinese language of the north continued to make an impact on the local language. At that time, the ancient Chinese language was mixed with the previously formed ancient Cantonese, which further narrowed the difference between the ancient Cantonese language and the Chinese language of the Central Plains. This was a period of growth for the Cantonese language.

The Tang and Song dynasties

During the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the Han population in the Lingnan region increased further, and the aborigines, who had long been in contact with the Han, were Sinicized. In contrast, in the mountainous areas where the Han were less widely distributed, the native aborigines continued to maintain their own language and culture. At this stage, Cantonese was still influenced by Old Chinese and became a language that corresponded to the pronunciation of Middle Chinese and had a partially independent vocabulary. Between the fall of the Tang Dynasty and the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun fell for four hundred years, during which time a large number of Han Chinese from the Central Plains continued to move south to the Pearl River Delta, narrowing the gap between the ancient Cantonese language and the Chinese language of the Central Plains. This was also the last time that the difference between Cantonese and Central Chinese was narrowed. By this time, Cantonese had become very close to Middle Chinese in terms of pronunciation and grammar. Therefore, the Tang and Song dynasties can be regarded as the finalization of the Cantonese language. Therefore, modern Cantonese can still correspond to the pronunciation of the Guangyun of the Song Dynasty, but it is difficult to correspond to the pronunciation of the ancient Chinese of the Yuan Dynasty or later.

Yuan, Ming, and early Qing

During the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols moved their capital to Metropolitan City (formerly known as Yanjing, later renamed Beijing), which was located within the sixteen states of Yanyun, and adopted the local language as their official language. The difference between Middle Chinese and Middle Chinese and Cantonese kept getting bigger after that: the Middle Chinese at that time developed rapidly towards Beijing official language, and the initial consonant of Beijing official language disappeared rapidly (i.e. -p/-t/-k rhyming endings fell off, e.g., the three words "入日北" have different initial consonant endings in Middle Chinese and modern Cantonese), and the following characters emerged Cantonese, which had already been finalized, developed independently without the influence of the Yuan Dynasty. From the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the rhyming endings of the Central Plains Mandarin further disappeared (the only remaining endings in modern Mandarin are -n/-ng, with the -m end merged with the -n end). The g/k/h consonants connecting the i/u consonants were completely jawed into j/q/x consonants (e.g., the word "Jiqi Ruoxi" has g/k/h consonants in both Middle Chinese and modern Cantonese, but is completely jawed into j/q/x consonants in modern Mandarin); Cantonese, on the other hand, has smoothly and slowly changed into modern Cantonese, most notably no longer distinguishing between z/c/s and -n/-ng consonants, with -m endings merging with -n endings). The most obvious thing is that it no longer distinguishes between z/c/s and j/q/x consonants, and assigns the yin-accented sounds to the upper and lower yin-accented sounds according to the length of the Cantonese rhymes (e.g., the two yin-accented characters of "色锡" have short and long rhymes, respectively; the former is assigned to the sharp upper yin-accented sound, while the latter to the lower yin-accented sound, which is almost as low as the yang-accented sound).

Toward the end of the Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was closed to foreigners, leaving only Guangzhou as a port of entry for trade with other countries, and many foreigners came to China mastering Cantonese rather than the official language. Many foreigners came to China and mastered Cantonese rather than the official language. Many officials in Beijing often came into contact with Cantonese in order to conduct business with foreigners, which led to the first reverse spread of the Cantonese language to the Central Plains. During this period, a large number of Cantonese people migrated to the Americas, Australia and Southeast Asia, and the Cantonese language began to spread to all parts of the world.

When the Republic of China was founded in modern times, although there was a tendency for the northern vernacular to replace the formal writing of the literary language, there was not much restriction on the actual use of Cantonese, and at one point there was a proposal to designate Cantonese as the national lingua franca. However, after the founding of the PRC, during the national campaign to promote the northern languages as Putonghua, Cantonese has been increasingly influenced by Putonghua to the extent that many of the younger generation in the Cantonese-speaking areas of mainland China do not know how to pronounce some of the specialized terms in Cantonese. This situation has caused many native speakers of Cantonese to begin to feel a sense of mother tongue crisis.

Expanded reading: Cantonese speaking skills

Just like learning English, you need a specific environment to learn fast, for example, if you go to a foreign country for a period of time, you will find that your English level has increased dramatically, at least the listening is, so to learn Cantonese, it is best to stay in the Cantonese-speaking areas of Guangdong for a long time.

Secondly, we should watch more Cantonese TV and listen to more Cantonese radio stations, so as to enhance our understanding of the Cantonese language, so-called "the more contact we have, the deeper we understand it"

The second thing is, the Cantonese text is honestly as a Cantonese person, I do not know how to read it, but from the surface, I probably understand it, after all, it does not have much to do with the language listening to the statement.

There is also the learning of a language, you need to try more, even if you say the wrong thing, it does not matter, if you talk to the person who is speaking Cantonese, then just let him do the teacher to correct your words, that is to say, as long as you dare to say, at any time and any place you can find a teacher.

Because there are more foreign words in Cantonese nowadays, and Cantonese is often changing, it is important to keep up with the times, and listen to some Cantonese MP3s, videos, or some news, which can help a lot, and generally learn Cantonese in about a few months.

Methods for efficiently learning Cantonese

First, listen to more:

1. Listen to audio tutorials for learning Cantonese online;

2. It doesn't have to be much.

Use the cycle of learning method, that is, every day to learn three new words, learn new words before reviewing yesterday before the day of the three sentences), learn to use, boldly say it.

3. Mastering Cantonese and Mandarin:

Cantonese and Mandarin are both Chinese languages, and their consonants, rhymes, and tones have a certain correspondence, so mastering the correspondence between the two will make learning twice as easy.

Generally speaking, Cantonese has more vowels, rhymes and tones than Mandarin, which means that a word with the same vowel in Mandarin can be divided into two or three vowels in Cantonese.

For example, the character with consonant k in Mandarin is divided into k, f, and h in Cantonese, such as "靠、亏" with consonant k, "苦、阔" with consonant f, and "空、康" with consonant h.

The characters with consonant k in Mandarin are divided into two or three consonants.

The same is true for rhymes and tones. Cantonese has nine tones, and it is important to note which two tones in Cantonese are equivalent to a certain tone in Mandarin.

Some people say that Cantonese is difficult to learn, but it is mainly a matter of confidence and learning method.

How can I learn Cantonese well?

First, be persistent and spend some time learning Cantonese every day;

Second, take the initiative to talk to people, don't just wait for others to talk to you;

Third, don't be afraid to speak it wrongly or be laughed at and don't speak it, as the saying goes, speak it wrongly and learn more! To be bold, careful and thick-skinned, listen to more talk to practice ear and mouth.

Hong Kong Cantonese Learning Tips

1. As much as possible, soak up the Cantonese environment

As much as possible, listen to Cantonese people, watch Cantonese TV programs, and listen to Cantonese learning tutorials on some Cantonese teaching websites. Create an authentic Cantonese environment for yourself at all times. Even if you can't speak it, you can still increase your perception of Cantonese and speed up the pace of your Cantonese learning.

2. Put off learning Cantonese characters

Some people may disagree, but if you want to learn Cantonese quickly, learning Cantonese characters will hinder your entire Cantonese learning pace. It's better and easier to study and learn Cantonese characters when you can converse verbally with Cantonese speakers. (Here's the good news: in Cantonese, most of the characters look and have the same meaning as in Mandarin, but only a few of them are Cantonese-specific; and it doesn't matter if you can't read those special Cantonese characters, the language is all about verbal communication.

4. Don't be shy, speak up

Speak up, speak a lot of words to be fluent, so you can't learn if you don't speak up. Even if you are wrong, the other side can not understand, you can still use other ways of speaking to explain to him, until he can understand what you mean, usually they will help you correct the error, tell you the correct way to speak is how. As the saying goes, the more you speak, the more you learn, the more things you learn! You need to be bold and careful and thick-skinned, and listen more and more to practice your ears and mouth.

5, at least 30 minutes a day to learn Cantonese

Language learning is a process of continuous accumulation, only to insist on continuous learning in order to learn well, learn fast, learn fast, do not be lazy