Chinese Language and its different dialects

[Ray]

 

[RedDragon]

A simple fact for u : that guy hates China.

Totally agreed. And that guy will be totally blind to things he don't want to believe. Sometime discuss with him is just waste of time.

 

[Ray]

Totally agreed. And that guy will be totally blind to things he don't want to believe. Sometime discuss with him is just waste of time.

Pathetic excuses being trotted when one cannot support the grandiose claims being made as a part of ongoing propaganda and disinformation!

Maybe the Chinese, being so wise, should not be blind to what has been posted.

And as I said, if they can debunk what has been posted, especially the Wiki and BBC, it will be the right way to address the issue than make pathetic whimpers aimed to derail, obfuscate and move the point off on a tangent to be finally lost in the maze!

 

[ice berg]

What a funny "discussion". It is all about what perspective you have.
You can focus on the differences or the similarities.
BBC or wiki may focuse on the differences between the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan and China.
The chinese posters are focusing on the similarities.
Neither contradicts each other.

A fact some die-hard refuses to see is that despite the differences between the dialect, people generally can understand each other.
I dont understand why some people just like to trolling around.

As far as I know. none of us are linguistic experts. Let us take a deep breath here.
People with personal experiences has stated their views.

P.S I do find it funny that people who have never been in Taiwan or mainland can preaching about the chinese language just by reading one BBC article and some wiki links.

What an irony!

 

[Ray]

What a funny "discussion". It is all about what perspective you have.
You can focus on the differences or the similarities.
BBC or wiki may focuse on the differences between the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan and China.
The chinese posters are focusing on the similarities.
Neither contradicts each other.

A fact some die-hard refuses to see is that despite the differences between the dialect, people generally can understand each other.
I dont understand why some people just like to trolling around.

As far as I know. none of us are linguistic experts. Let us take a deep breath here.
People with personal experiences has stated their views.

P.S I do find it funny that people who have never been in Taiwan or mainland can preaching about the chinese language just by reading one BBC article and some wiki links.

What an irony!

I love the irrelevance.

So, now to divert attention,bring in a new 'weapon' - irrelevance!

So, one who has not been to China, should know nothing about Mao Tse Tung too, right?

Mao never existed, right?

And one who has not been to China or seen a Mainland Chinese, should believe that there is nothing called China even if one sees it in a Map, right?

I got this off the internet. Listen to it.

Now that is also bogus, right?

File:Zh-pinyin tones with ma.ogg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Ray]

I am amazed to what length and convoluted arguments the Chinese will go to, just to perpetuate a falsehood!

 

[ice berg]

I am more amazed to what length certain people will go to lecture the chinese about their own language using only wiki links and BBC..

You must be really bored when you got retired.

 

[Ray]

I am more amazed to what length certain people will go to lecture the chinese about their own language using only wiki links and BBC..

You must be really bored when you got retired.

The deceitful and ignorant requires education. It is called doing social service!

I agree it is embarrassing for the Chinese that they are not aware of their language and its variations.

As Mao said - Frogs in the Well!

I am not aware what it is like in China for retired people, but in India, leaving one profession because of age limitation, does not impede being fruitfully employed.

Just to clear your cobwebs, they have a profession called analyst. And that is not a 24 x 7 task and since money is not the issue, one can work at leisure!

Or even have a shot at ping pong, hear other sing song, or even see the old film King Kong, and show up the Chinese doing ding dong with their ridiculous propagation of total falsehood to befool the people!

Links and BBC are more authentic than the lies coming out of the post of the embarrassed Chinese in a robotic and programmed denial mode!

Guess why it was required to have a Standard Chinese?

Was there a requirement to have it, when all could understand all the Chinese spoken right from Mongolia to Taiwan, Singapore and even in India?

Are you suggesting that the Chinese are so bored that their pastime is to reinvent the wheel?

 

[ice berg]

To think that some copy and paste from wiki is gonna make you an expert on chinese language.

As Mao said - Frogs in the Well!

I leave you to your delusions.

Have fun with your thread!

 

[Ray]

Some more to enlighten those Chinese basking in the limelight of self denial


It was decided in a draft on August 7, 1912, a month after a conference led by the Cai Yuanpei on July 10, that a set of phonetic symbols were to be used for education purposes. The Commission was set up in December, led by Woo Tsin-hang. The Commission ended on May 22, 1913. A later similar organization that still exists, also headed by Woo Tsin-hang for a while, is the Mandarin Promotion Council.

The first meeting took place on February 15, 1913 in Beijing, with 44 delegates. The chairman was Woo; vice-chairman Wang Zhao (王照). There were two representatives per each of the 26 provinces. The Tibetans, the Mongolians and the overseas Chinese each had one representative. Prominent members included:

Cai Zhang (蔡璋)
Chen Suiyi (陳遂意)
Gao Kunnan (高鯤南)
Hu Yuren (胡雨人)
Li Liangcai (李良材)
Liu Zishan (劉繼善)
Lu Zhuangzhang (盧戇章)
Ma Tiqian (馬體乾)
Wang Rongbao (汪榮寶)
Wang Sui (王崔)
Wang Yi'an (汪怡安)
Xing Dao (邢島)
Yang Qu (楊麴)
Yang Zenghao (楊曾浩)

here were three main ideas of how the phonetic symbols should be:

Using certain complete Chinese characters to symbolize other characters of the same sound
Supporters included Wang Zhao, Wang Rongbao, Wang Yi'an, and Cai.
Using Latin alphabet letters
Supporters included Yang Zenghao and Liu
Using non-existent symbols
Supporters included Woo, Lu, Ma, Li, Xing, Wang Sui, Hu, Yang Qu, Gao, Chen, and Zheng.

The three groups discussed for two months and adopted 15 symbols from Zhang Binglin's all-Zhuanshu Jiyin Zimu (記音字母), which was the proposal by the Zhejiang Committee. Jiyin Zimu was renamed to Zhuyin Fuhao.

After its proclamation, several aspects of Zhuyin were further modified, including:

Rearranging the order of the symbols
Adding ㄜ (Pinyin e)
ㄦ, originally just r, was now also er (a retroflex vowel)
The three dialectal symbols—万 (v), 广 (gn), and å…€ (ng) -- were deleted, but are still to be found in Unicode Bopomofo (U+3105..U+312c).
The tone system was modified

The Commission established the Seven Mandarin Sound Promotion Programs (《國音推行方法七條》 Guoyu Tuixing Fangfa Qi Tiao):

Proclaimed Zhuyin Zimu. [On November 23, 1918]
All provinces were to establish places to promote and study the 6500 standardized Mandarin sounds (國音傳習所), where the county representatives would gather and return to their counties to spread the words. [Established in 1920, along with Summer Mandarin Seminars (暑期國語講習所)]
Using the gramophone to record the exact pronunciation. [Recorded in 1920]
Having Mandarin be a compulsory subject in all elementary school.
All teachers were to speak solely in Mandarin in elementary and middle schools.
All textbooks and some official documents were to be annotated by Zhuyin.

 

[Ray]

To think that some copy and paste from wiki is gonna make you an expert on chinese language.

As Mao said - Frogs in the Well!

I leave you to your delusions.

Have fun with your thread!

The unfortunate part is that the Chinese have been unable to debunk or rubbish anything I have written, cut and paste or otherwise.


They have merely put out obfuscation, denial, attempts to derail and such like activities including your irrelevance.

The ideal way would be to prove anything that has been stated by me as incorrect. However it should be unimpeachable and not mere gut feelings and Face-book chats.

Have you been able to do it?

Just see your last post.

Why be so pathetically handicapped when you all normally roar like animals of the wild!

So Mao did not say that the Chinese are Frogs in the Well?

That is news.

May not be known in China for obvious reasons of the CCP keeping the Chinese ignorant, but it is known to the world!

 

[Ray]

The Chinese are pathetic.

Whole lot of jingoism, but totally devoid of the gumption to correct anything with unimpeachable authority except fictitious anecdotes which too did not face scrutiny being debunked with genuine Taiwanese opinions with link to the same!

Watch the space for more of Chinese obfuscation, denial and tangential arguments!

They just cannot accept reality!

 

[Ray]

But for the Chinese with their fairy tales life would indeed be a bore!

God Bless them, even if they don't believe in God and instead Mao, Deng, Hu, Wu and all those interesting folks that control their mindset and approach to life in general!

Chinese language they say is the same and yet they have Committees set up to standardise it so that to the world it appears as ":Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" !

I don't know how that is to be said in Chinese.

Maybe

一个人民、一个帝国,一项指南,

 

[Ray]

愿上帝保佑毛主席

必须滚动在不适于他的坟墓!

I think that means

God Bless Chairman Mao

Must be rolling in discomfort in his grave!

 

[Ray]

Wah Guru de Khalsa, Wah Guru de Fateh! is all one can say!

 

[mylegend]

The identity of Han comes after Han Dynasty. If you look at history prior Han Dynasty, much of people refer themselve people of Chu, Lu and etc... That change in the Han Dynasty, and Confucius's idea does play a role in the transition. However, even before Han Dynasty, all the Waring states are all in one writing and speaking system, the writing from state to state is slightly different but it traced back to the same root.

Ray, the Yue you repeatedly talk about appear in the famous History Record and their ruler does consider them-self part of system rather than Barbarian. Guangdong and Northern Vietnam is conquer during Qin Dynasty, and the general who conquer the region later rebel and place himself as King of region after death of Qin Shi Emperor... However, he still use the same language and he is consider himself not to be barbarian... His troop from North inter-marry with the locals and Han or Qin culture(non Barbarian culture spread to the region... Much of other region that China conquer share similar stories... If you call area conquer thousand of years ago not to be consider legitimate part of Chinese territories I'm done with debating with you...

Paragraph above may have some mistake, I draw it from my memory of reading The Cambridge History of China that I read 7 years ago, so some of thing may not be correct. It is a great book to look at History from Western Viewpoint.

According to your theory, United State is not even a legitimate country.

Amazon.com: The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 1: The Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 BC-AD 220 (9780521243278): Denis Twitchett, Michael Loewe: Books

here is a link of Qin and Han Volume of the Book, you might find it free somewhere else online. It is a academic book with a lot of reference, sort of boring to read. However, I found it interesting. If you read through all the volume, you will find out how Chinese civilization expand to current status, it have detail on how China expanded into present state.. I suggest you to just read the online free edition(pirate) I bought the collection for my bookshelf but the price is insane...

After all, the Roman call their norther neighbor barbarian just like the Chinese call their neighbor, and in that period of time, Roman and Chinese really enjoy cultural supremacy over its neighbor, that is why the culture spread with ease. Country like Korea did not even attempt to create their own writing system until.1444 partly attribute to Chinese conquer of northern region of Korea from108 BC to 313 AD and cultural supremacy that China enjoy in Northeastern Asia for many year...

No large country exist without conquer, expansion and migration.

 

[Ray]

he Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang (known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu),[note 1] was the second imperial dynasty of China. It followed the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE), which had unified the Warring States of China by conquest. Interrupted briefly by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of Wang Mang, the Han Dynasty is divided into two periods: the Western Han (206 BCE – 9 CE) and the Eastern Han (25–220 CE).

Adequate to state is the undermentioned facts'.

The concept of Han culture began with the Shang dynasty, 1750 -1040 BC, whose political centre was located north of the Yellow River.]The Shang provided China's first written history as well as the assertion of central cultural superiority over the surrounding people by designating as barbarians everyone who did not yet acknowledge the central government supremacy. The Chinese distinguished between 'raw barbarians' (shengfan) or the unassimilated people and the 'cooked barbarians' (shufan) or assimilated taxpayers who enjoyed the fruits of Chinese culture. For example, Han Chinese officials separated the 'cooked' Li of the coast of Hainan, who enjoyed the benefits of Chinese civilisation, from the wild 'uncooked' Li of the central forests, far from the influences of Han culture.


Barbarians were given generic names in the Chinese classics and histories: the Yi barbarians to the east, the Man to the South, the Rong to the west and Di to the north (when westerners arrived by sea, they were officially designated until the late 19th century as Yi). Until the 1930s, the names of outgroups (wai ren) were commonly written with an animal radical: the Di, the northern tribe, were linked to the Dog; the Man and the Min of the south were characterised with reptiles; the Qiang was written with a sheep radical. This reflected the Han Chinese conviction that civilisation and culture were linked with humanity; alien groups living outside the pale of Chinese society were regarded as inhuman savages. To be labelled a barbarian was a cultural rather than racial distinction.

That the custom of sharply distinguishing went along with calling China the Middle Kingdom (zhong guo), , which began by ruling the Central Plain (zhongyang) in North China. Rather than using outright military conquest of outsiders, the theory of 'using the Chinese ways to transform the barbarians' (yongxiabianyi) was promulgated. By Chinese cultural absorption or racial integration through intermarriage, a barbarian could become Han Chinese (hanhua). To be counted within China, groups accepted the rituals and cosmology that gave the Han dynastic state the Mandate of Heaven to rule over mankind. Non acceptance of this politicised culture left one outside of Zhongguo or China

Link

But what has Han culture to do with the Chinese Language?

 

[Ray]

The present Chinese language varieties developed out of the different ways in which dialects of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese evolved. Traditionally, seven major groups of dialects have been recognized. Aside from Mandarin, the other six are Wu Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Min Chinese, Xiang Chinese, Yue Chinese and Gan Chinese. More recently, other more specific groups have been recognized.

After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty, northern China was under the control of the Jin (Jurchen) and Yuan (Mongol) dynasties. During this period, a new common speech developed, based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital, a language referred to as Old Mandarin. New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, drama and story forms.

The rhyming conventions of the new verse were codified in a rhyme dictionary called the Zhongyuan Yinyun (1324). A radical departure from the rhyme table tradition that had evolved over the previous centuries, this dictionary contains a wealth of information on the phonology of Old Mandarin. Further sources are the 'Phags-pa script based on the Tibetan alphabet, which was used to write several of the languages of the Mongol empire, including Chinese, and the Menggu Ziyun, a rhyme dictionary based on 'Phags-pa. The rhyme books differ in some details, but overall show many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects, such as the reduction and disappearance of final plosives and the reorganization of the Middle Chinese tones.

In Middle Chinese, initial plosives and affricates showed a three-way contrast between tenuis, voiceless aspirated and voiced consonants. There were four tones, with the fourth, or "entering tone", comprising syllables ending in plosives (-p, -t or -k). Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch, and by the late Tang Dynasty, each of the tones had split into two registers conditioned by the initials. When voicing was lost in all dialects except the Wu group, this distinction became phonemic, and the system of initials and tones was rearranged differently in each of the major groups.

The Zhongyuan Yinyun shows the typical Mandarin four-tone system resulting from a split of the "even" tone and loss of the entering tone, with its syllables distributed across the other tones (though their different origin is marked in the dictionary). Similarly, voiced plosives and affricates have become voiceless aspirates in the "even" tone and voiceless non-aspirates in others, another distinctive Mandarin development. However, the language still retained a final -m, which has merged with -n in modern dialects, and initial voiced fricatives. It also retained the distinction between velars and alveolar sibilants in palatal environments, which later merged in most Mandarin dialects to yield a palatal series (rendered j-, q- and x- in pinyin).

The flourishing vernacular literature of the period also shows distinctively Mandarin vocabulary and syntax, though some, such as the third-person pronoun tā (他), can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty.

Vernacular literature

Until the early 20th century, formal writing and even much poetry and fiction was done in Literary Chinese, which was modelled on the classics of the Warring States period and Han Dynasty. Over time, the various spoken varieties diverged greatly from Literary Chinese, which was learned and composed as a special language. Preserved from the sound changes that affected the various spoken varieties, its economy of expression was greatly valued. For instance, 翼 (yì, wing) is unambiguous in written Chinese, but would be lost among its more than 75 homophones in spoken Chinese.

The literary language was less appropriate for recording materials that were meant to be reproduced in oral presentations, materials such as plays and grist for the professional story-teller's mill. From at least the Yuan dynasty, plays that recounted the subversive tales of China's Robin Hoods to the Ming dynasty novels such as Water Margin, on down to the Qing dynasty novel Dream of the Red Chamber and beyond, there developed a literature in written vernacular Chinese (白話/白话; báihuà). In many cases, this written language reflected Mandarin varieties, and since pronunciation differences were not conveyed in this written form, this tradition had a unifying force across all the Mandarin-speaking regions and beyond.

Hu Shih, a pivotal figure of the first half of the twentieth century, wrote an influential and perceptive study of this literary tradition, entitled Báihuà Wénxuéshǐ (A History of Vernacular Literature).

Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people living in many parts of southern China spoke only their local language. As a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties, known as Guānhuà. Knowledge of this language was thus essential for an official career, but it was never formally defined.

Officials varied widely in their pronunciation; in 1728, the Yongzheng emperor, unable to understand the accents of officials from Guangdong and Fujian, issued a decree requiring the governors of those provinces to provide for the teaching of proper pronunciation. Although the resulting Academies for Correct Pronunciation (正音書院, Zhèngyīn Shūyuàn) were short-lived, the decree did spawn a number of textbooks that give some insight into the ideal pronunciation. Common features included:

loss of the Middle Chinese voiced initials except for v-
merger of -m finals with -n
the characteristic Mandarin four-tone system in open syllables, but retaining a final glottal stop in "entering tone" syllables
retention of the distinction between palatalized velars and dental affricates, the source of the spellings "Peking" and "Tientsin" for modern "Beijing" and "Tianjin".

As the last two of these features indicate, this language was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. This form remained prestigious long after the capital moved to Beijing in 1421, though the speech of the new capital emerged as a rival standard. As late as 1815, Robert Morrison based the first English-Chinese dictionary on this koiné as the standard of the time, though he conceded that the Beijing dialect was gaining in influence. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court.

Standard Chinese

In the early years of the Republic of China, intellectuals of the New Culture Movement, such as Hu Shih and Chen Duxiu, successfully campaigned for the replacement of Literary Chinese as the written standard by written vernacular Chinese, which was based on northern dialects. A parallel priority was the definition of a standard national language (traditional: 國語; Wade–Giles: Kuo²-yü³; simplified: 国语, pinyin: GuóyÇ”). After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation, the National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard, calling it pÇ”tōnghuà (simplified: 普通话; traditional: 普通話; literally "common speech").

The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both the PRC and the R.O.C. (but not in Hong Kong and Macau). This standard can now be spoken intelligibly by most younger people in Mainland China and Taiwan, with various regional accents. In Hong Kong and Macau, because of their colonial and linguistic history, the language of education, the media, formal speech and everyday life remains the local Cantonese, although the standard language is now very influential. In Mandarin-speaking areas such as Sichuan, the local dialect is the mother tongue of most of the population. The era of mass education in Standard Chinese has not erased these regional differences, and people may be either diglossic or speak the standard language with a notable accent.

From an official point of view, the PRC government and R.O.C. government maintain their own forms of the standard under different names. Technically, both Pǔtōnghuà and Guóyǔ base their phonology on the Beijing accent, though Pǔtōnghuà also takes some elements from other sources. Comparison of dictionaries produced in the two areas will show that there are few substantial differences. However, both versions of "school-standard" Chinese are often quite different from the Mandarin dialects that are spoken in accordance with regional habits, and neither is wholly identical to the Beijing dialect. Pǔtōnghuà and Guóyǔ also have some differences from the Beijing dialect in vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics.

The written forms of Standard Chinese are also essentially equivalent, although simplified characters are used in Mainland China and Singapore while people in Taiwan, Macao and Hong Kong generally use traditional characters.

Geographic distribution and dialects

Most Han Chinese living in northern and south-western China are native speakers of a dialect of Mandarin. The North China Plain provided few barriers to migration, leading to relative linguistic homogeneity over a wide area in northern China. In contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have spawned the other six major groups of Chinese dialects, with great internal diversity, particularly in Fujian.

However, the varieties of Mandarin cover a huge area containing nearly a billion people. As a result, there are pronounced regional variations in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.

Most of northeastern China, except for Liaoning, did not receive significant settlements by Han Chinese until the 18th century, and as a result the Northeastern Mandarin dialects spoken there differ little from Beijing Mandarin. The Manchu people of the area now speak these dialects exclusively. The frontier areas of Northwest and Southwest China were colonized by speakers of Mandarin dialects at the same time, and the dialects in those areas similarly closely resemble their relatives in the core Mandarin area. However, long-established cities even very close to Beijing, such as Tianjin, Baoding, Shenyang, and Dalian, have markedly different dialects.

Unlike their compatriots on the south-east coast, few speakers of Mandarin dialects emigrated from China until the late 20th century, but there are now significant communities of them in cities across the world.

Classification

The classification of Chinese dialects evolved during the 20th century, and many points remain unsettled. Early classifications tended to follow provincial boundaries or major geographical features. In 1936, Wang Li produced the first classification based on phonetic criteria, principally the evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials. His Guānhuà group included dialects of northern and southwestern China, as well as Hunan and northern Jiangxi. Li Fang-Kuei's classification of 1937 distinguished the latter two groups as Xiang and Gan, while splitting the Guānhuà group into Northern, Lower Yangtze and Southwestern Guānhuà groups. The widely accepted seven-group classification of Yuan Jiahua in 1960 retained separate Xiang and Gan groups, beside a single Mandarin group with Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern and Jianghuai (Lower Yangtze) subgroups.

The linguist Li Rong proposed that the Jin dialects of Shanxi and neighbouring areas constitute a separate group at the same level as Mandarin, and used this classification in the Language Atlas of China (1987). Li distinguishes these dialects based on their retention of the Middle Chinese entering tone (plosive-final) category (also preserved by Jiang-Huai dialects) and other features. Many other linguists continue to treat these dialects as a subgroup of Mandarin.

The Language Atlas of China divides the remaining Mandarin dialects into eight subgroups, distinguished by their treatment of the Middle Chinese entering tone :

Northeastern, or that spoken in the northeast of China (known in the West as Manchuria), except the Liaodong Peninsula: This dialect is closely related to Standard Chinese, with little variation in lexicon; there are very few tonal changes.

Beijing and environs, such as Chengde, Hebei: The basis of Standard Chinese. Some people in areas of recent large-scale immigration, such as northern Xinjiang, speak the Beijing dialect or something very close to it.

Ji-Lu, or that spoken in Hebei ("Ji") and Shandong ("Lu") provinces, except the Jiaodong Peninsula, including Tianjin dialect: Tones are markedly different, but vocabulary is generally similar; generally, full intelligibility is not difficult with Beijing Mandarin.

Jiao-Liao, or that spoken in Shandong (Jiaodong) Peninsula and Liaodong Peninsula: Very noticeable tonal changes, different in "flavour" from Ji-Lu Mandarin, but with more variance; significant, but not full intelligibility with Beijing.

Zhongyuan (lit. "central plain"), spoken in Henan province, the central parts of Shaanxi in the Yellow River valley, and southern Xinjiang: Significant phonological differences, with partial intelligibility with Beijing. The Dungan language, a Chinese-derived language spoken in Kyrgyzstan, belongs to this group and is generally intelligible with Mandarin.

Lan-Yin, or that spoken in Gansu province (with capital Lanzhou) and Ningxia autonomous region (with capital Yinchuan), as well as northern Xinjiang.

Jiang-huai (or Xia-Jiang), spoken in the parts of Jiangsu and Anhui on the north bank of the Yangtze, as well as some areas on the south bank, such as Nanjing in Jiangsu, Jiujiang in Jiangxi, etc.: Significant phonological and lexical changes to varied degrees; intelligibility is limited. Jiang-Huai has been significantly influenced by Wu Chinese.

Southwestern, or that spoken in the provinces of Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and the Mandarin-speaking areas of Hunan, Guangxi and southern Shaanxi: Sharp phonological, lexical, and tonal changes are present; intelligibility with Beijing is limited to varied degrees.

 

[mylegend]

he Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang (known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu),[note 1] was the second imperial dynasty of China. It followed the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE), which had unified the Warring States of China by conquest. Interrupted briefly by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of Wang Mang, the Han Dynasty is divided into two periods: the Western Han (206 BCE – 9 CE) and the Eastern Han (25–220 CE).

Adequate to state is the undermentioned facts'.

The concept of Han culture began with the Shang dynasty, 1750 -1040 BC, whose political centre was located north of the Yellow River. The Shang provided China's first written history as well as the assertion of central cultural superiority over the surrounding people by designating as barbarians everyone who did not yet acknowledge the central government supremacy. The Chinese distinguished between 'raw barbarians' (shengfan) or the unassimilated people and the 'cooked barbarians' (shufan) or assimilated taxpayers who enjoyed the fruits of Chinese culture. For example, Han Chinese officials separated the 'cooked' Li of the coast of Hainan, who enjoyed the benefits of Chinese civilisation, from the wild 'uncooked' Li of the central forests, far from the influences of Han culture.


Barbarians were given generic names in the Chinese classics and histories: the Yi barbarians to the east, the Man to the South, the Rong to the west and Di to the north (when westerners arrived by sea, they were officially designated until the late 19th century as Yi). Until the 1930s, the names of outgroups (wai ren) were commonly written with an animal radical: the Di, the northern tribe, were linked to the Dog; the Man and the Min of the south were characterised with reptiles; the Qiang was written with a sheep radical. This reflected the Han Chinese conviction that civilisation and culture were linked with humanity; alien groups living outside the pale of Chinese society were regarded as inhuman savages. To be labelled a barbarian was a cultural rather than racial distinction.

That the custom of sharply distinguishing went along with calling China the Middle Kingdom (zhong guo), , which began by ruling the Central Plain (zhongyang) in North China. Rather than using outright military conquest of outsiders, the theory of 'using the Chinese ways to transform the barbarians' (yongxiabianyi) was promulgated. By Chinese cultural absorption or racial integration through intermarriage, a barbarian could become Han Chinese (hanhua). To be counted within China, groups accepted the rituals and cosmology that gave the Han dynastic state the Mandate of Heaven to rule over mankind. Non acceptance of this politicised culture left one outside of Zhongguo or China

Link

But what has Han culture to do with the Chinese Language?

Warring State all consider itselfs as civilized people, however, the understanding of being member of Greater China is not as Strong as Han. After fall of Qin, One of warring state King Xiang Yu, consider himself the King of Chu Kingdom and instead and have understanding he is people of Chu, however, after Han Dynasty, ambitious King and Warlord no longer call themselves people of just certain region... Instead, they want to control the "Tianxia"

Chinese History originated from Xia Dynasty(first Dynasty)(unable to verified), and followed by Shang(verified). The identity was found then, however, not until after Han Dynasty, people believe that greater China are meant to be united. People become more accustom to identify themselves to greater China instead of region that shares the same culture and heritage.

 

[Ray]

Since you speak of the Yue, may I show what is written in a Chinese Forum - China History Forum?

History of Yue People

Basically, during the spring/autumn and warring states period times, the people that dwelled in the southern region of what's called "Zhejiang", "Fujian", "Guangdong" provinces today and northern part of "Vietnam" are called "Yue" people. The Yue people are quite diverse and have many clans and tribal federation. The Yue people are considered by the civilized chinese of the central plain (中原) as uncivilized and therefore barbaric. Because of so many clans and tribes, the Yue people are also called the "Hundred Yue or Baiyue" (百越).

During the Spring/Autumn period, among the Yue people, the tribes that are more advanced and civilized will have to include the "Yue" (越) clan and " Gou Wu" (句吴) clan. During those times, they dwelled in the region of the lake Tai. The Yue clan founded the Yue state (in today's Zhejiang province region) while the Gou Wu established the Wu state (in today's Jiangsu province region). Later, the Wu state defeated the Yue state and the king of Yue, "Gou Jian" (勾践) had to rear horses for the king of Wu, "Fu Chai" (夫差). However, the king of Yue later gained trust from the king of Wu and he was allowed to return to Yue kingdom. Legend had it that after he returned to Yue kingdom, he worked very hard to make his kingdom strong. Finally after 10 years of hardwork, he finally defeated the Wu state. However, by the late Warring states period, the Kingdom of Yue was conquered by the Chu kingdom (one of the 7 strong states during the warring states period).

Although the Yue kingdom was conquered by the chu kingdom, the Yue people survived. The Yue people of former yue state and Wu state intermixed with the Hua Xia people (ancestors of Han-chinese) . After the warring states period, the "hundred Yue' term began to become popular. During the Western Han period, the people of the south were officially called "Hundred Yue". The "Yue" (越) could also referred to another Yue "粤" (which means "cantonese").

During the early Han dynasty period, the "Hundred Yue" were divided into "Eastern Ou" (东瓯), "Min Yue" (闽越), "Southern Yue" (南越), "Western Ou" (西瓯), "Luo Yue" (骆越) etc, main groups.

1. "Eastern Ou" (东瓯) - also known as "Ou Yue" (瓯越). They dwelled in the region of previous Yue and Wu state. (today's Zhejiang Wenzhou region)

2. "Min Yue" (闽越) - also within the region of previous Yue state (today's Fujiang province) - these were the ancestors of the "Min" chinese people today (who speaks Hokkien dialect)

3. "Southern Yue" (南越) - within the region of today's Guangdong province, later developed into the region of Guangxi province and its south part. They were the ancestors of cantonese today.

4. "Western Ou" (西瓯) - within the region of today's western part of Guangdong province and southern part of Guangxi province

5. "Luo Yue" (骆越) - today's north Vietnam region. The ancient Luo Yue people were the direct ancestors of today's Vietnamese. Today's vietnam in chinese is called "Yue Nan" (越南), which means south of Yue.

The above Yue people were all conquered by Emperor Han Wudi during his military expansion campaign of the south and after that, these regions in the south became part of the Han provinces. After this conquest, the term "Hundred Yue" disappeared from the history records of the chinese. Some of the Yue people were sinificised and mixed with the Han-chinese. Some of the Yue people became the ancestors of today's "Gao Shan" ethnic
(高山族) in Taiwan. Another Yue faction became today's "Dai" ethnic (傣族) in southern China. Others became today's "Zhuang" ethnic (壮族), "Bu Yi" ethnic (布依族), "Tong" ethnic (侗族), "Shui" ethnic (水族) in Southern China.

Basically, today's "Zhuang" ethnic (壮族) and "Tong" ethnic (侗族) in South China were related to the polynesian people in south-east asia.

It is thus important to note that Yue was a generic term to referred to barbarian people of the south during warring states.
History of Hundred Yue People - China History Forum, Chinese History Forum