Where's the accent?

As the predecessor of Mandarin is Manchu Mandarin, its origin, evolution and development are only 300 years today, and it is not an authentic or branch of Chinese with a history of more than 2,000 years. So where is the pronunciation of Han nationality in China? Is it extinct now? In fact, these problems have already been studied in China's history and linguistics. The research works and materials of mainland scholars before 1949 and overseas, Taiwan Province and Hongkong scholars after 1949 have clearly analyzed, demonstrated and explained these problems. The final opinion of real scholars is that Cantonese (Cantonese) is a Chinese pronunciation, at least a Tang and Song pronunciation or a Chinese pronunciation, with an evolutionary difference of only 98%. In all dialects in southern China, the pronunciations, pronunciations and meanings of the ancient Chinese language in the Central Plains are preserved. Hearing this conclusion, many northerners, especially those north of the Yangtze River, will be very dissatisfied, saying that Guangdong was a barbarian land in ancient times and its language must be ancient. What qualifications are there to represent China accent? But this is a fact proved by historical and practical evidence. The reality is that the meanings, pronunciations and intonations of rural dialects in Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei and other places in northern Guangdong are 85-90% similar to those of Cantonese, such as "Sun", "Rain", "Wet" and "Home". The farther north you go, the greater the difference. When you get to Henan, you basically don't know each other. Native Americans, European Chinese, Hong Kong and Macao people are proud to know that "the ancients of the Tang Dynasty also spoke Cantonese". When their ancestors first went to work in the United States and Canada to earn money, they did not call themselves Qing Han Chinese to foreigners, but called themselves Tang people, because they were handed down from generation to generation from their ancestors. No matter which generation, they all spoke the same language as their ancestors, that is, the language of the Tang Dynasty. Later, Chinese ancestors developed and established a Chinese community in the United States, and named it "Chinatown". Since then, Huaxia Andrew has gone to the world. Today, in the United States, Britain, France, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries, it has become the second most populous language except Canada, and its influence in the world far exceeds that of Mandarin.

The Huaxia nationality, which originated in the Central Plains and now Hebei, was still confined to the Yellow River valley, a small part of the north and south of the Yangtze River, and most of the south of the Yangtze River until the seaside, and was still the residence of Baiyue tribe. It was not until after the Qin Dynasty that the Huaxia people in the Central Plains entered this area on a large scale for military, war, trade and other reasons. Guangdong, called Lingnan in ancient times, is the farthest geographical distance from the Central Plains, but it began to associate with the Central Plains Dynasty and was conquered by the Chinese people for the earliest time, more than 2,200 years ago, hundreds of years earlier than entering the Jiangnan area, and much earlier than the neighboring provinces in the north and the east today. The large-scale entry of Huaxia people in the Central Plains into Lingnan can be divided into four periods, and of course they also brought Huaxia language for communication in that period, which is a strong evidence to confirm that Cantonese (Cantonese) is the orthodox language of Han people in China.

First, after Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, I don't know for what strategic needs, he sent generals Ren Tao and Zhao Tuo to lead the troops with 500,000 yuan to conquer Lingnan, the barbarian land, set up Nanhai, Guilin and Xiang Jun, and build Panyu City (now the old city of Guangzhou). Nanhai County is the largest and most important county, and the areas directly under the jurisdiction of the county magistrate include Guangzhou, Panyu, Foshan, Nanhai, Shunde, Xinhui, Shaoguan, Dongguan and Shenzhen. Guilin and Xiang Jun are in today's Guangxi, but not here. Among these 500,000 troops, some were Han, Wei and Zhao who were conquered earlier, and some were the original Chu people who were first ceded to the Jianghuai area of Qin State. Zhao Tuo's hometown is today's Baoding, Hebei. These 500,000 people must speak the orthodox language of the northern Huaxia nationality, and they have no A Qin accent. Because from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Warring States Period, the six Shandong countries were the orthodox places of China, and Qin was still barbarian in their eyes. Can you say that they are not the ancestors of the Han nationality? If someone says so, he may know that his ancestors were Wuhu people in the Tang Dynasty and Fan Laker, Liao people, Xixia people and Jurchen people in the Song Dynasty, not pure ancient Chinese descent. Since then, Huaxia Yin has taken root in Lingnan and gradually spread its influence around. Later, after the demise of the Qin Dynasty, Chu and Han contended in the Central Plains, and Zhao Tuo called the King of South Vietnam a separatist regime. All these 500,000 people and their descendants settled in Lingnan, and none of them returned to the north. In the Han Dynasty, Zhao Tuo was attached to the central government again, until Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty took advantage of the civil strife in South Vietnam and sent 65,438,000 troops to recover reunification. Since then, it has been directly under the jurisdiction of the Central Plains Dynasty until the Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms, the Western Jin Dynasty and Lingnan. The name of Guangzhou City began in Wu Dong during the Three Kingdoms period and has never changed since then. Its cultural history and connotation are much earlier and deeper than those of other big cities in China. 500,000 Qin Jun and the descendants of the Han army who followed also continued to thrive, merging and merging the local indigenous Vietnamese. The number of Han people is getting stronger and stronger, and it must be very close to the Central Plains. What they say is definitely the positive tone of the Han Dynasty, even if it is mixed with ancient Vietnamese, the proportion will be small. Just like Spain colonized South America and Britain colonized North America, it is not clear whether the colonists used Spanish, English or Indian indigenous languages. Interestingly, from the late Qin Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period, most areas south of the Yangtze River, such as Hunan, Jiangxi in northern Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the east, were barbarian areas of Yue tribes such as Baiyue, Ouyue and Minyue. They have their own tribal leaders, and at most they only accept the knighthood of the Central Plains dynasty, failing to rule directly. As for some people who say that "there were no Han people living in Guangdong during the Northern and Southern Dynasties", they are really ignorant. At that time, there were already a large number of descendants of Huaxia people in the Central Plains and Han people who moved south from Lingnan, and Chinese culture, including Chinese language, was absolutely dominant.

Second, during the Eastern Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, there was chaos in the world, and a large number of Han people in the north fled the chaos and moved south. Some of them were scattered to Fujian, Meizhou, Chaoshan and other places in eastern Guangdong today, and developed into later Hakkas. Part of it passed through Hunan and Jiangxi, crossed Nanling and entered today's Guangdong, bringing more advanced agriculture, ironware and handicraft technology in the Central Plains. They combined with the original Han people in Lingnan to cultivate production, and their local population and influence grew day by day. Since then, the activities of the original indigenous Yue people in Lingnan have faded out of historical records. Can you say that the clothes representing the culture of the Northern Han Dynasty moved south only to Jiangnan, but not to Lingnan? At that time, Lingnan was ruled by the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the five southern Han Chinese courts of Song, Qi, Liang and Chen, and it was not until the Sui Dynasty that it was unified with the Han Dynasty, which merged the five lakes of Xianbei in the north.

Third, the Tang and Song Dynasties witnessed the great development of Chinese civilization economy and culture. From the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, the focus of economy and finance and taxation gradually shifted from the former northern region to Jianghuai, Jiangnan and Lingnan, that is, the vast area south of the Yangtze River to the ocean. Since the Northern Song Dynasty, there is no historical record about the activities of Yue people in Jiangnan. They all became Han people and accepted the use of Han culture, language and lifestyle. In the Tang Dynasty, the earliest city envoy, the Foreign Trade Bureau, was established in Guangzhou, which was responsible for inspecting foreign ships entering and leaving the harbor, collecting customs duties and buying government monopoly goods. Since then, Guangzhou has become a specialty of domestic exports, a pearl and jade distribution center imported from the West and Arabia, a famous domestic city and an internationally famous commercial port, and its prosperity is no less than that of the capital Chang 'an. Especially after the mid-Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty gradually declined. Chang 'an experienced many wars and its prosperity ended, while Guangzhou's economy and trade became more prosperous, surpassing Chang 'an and Yangzhou and Jiangling in the Yangtze River valley. At that time, the Tang court sent a large number of officials and bureaucrats to Guangzhou, and their families and subordinates would follow. A large number of businessmen and people from all walks of life also came to Guangzhou to look for business and job opportunities, similar to today's situation. In addition, the languages and pronunciations spoken by the descendants of Han people who have settled in Guangzhou since the end of the Han Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties are definitely not Dahan's accent, but Datang's accent. The research conclusion that "Cantonese is China accent" made by real experts and scholars is based on this historical fact. By the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms were in chaos, and these Tang people could not return to the north. Their descendants must have settled in Lingnan from generation to generation. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the management organization of overseas trade was changed to "city shipping company", and the first one was established in Guangzhou. Until the Southern Song Dynasty, Guangzhou maintained a prosperous commercial economy, and the situation of northern Han people migrating and settling in Guangzhou was the same as that in the Tang Dynasty. The Chinese spoken by the Han people living in Guangzhou at that time was also the pronunciation of the Song Dynasty, if not the pronunciation of the Tang Dynasty.

Fourth, at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, Mongolia invaded south on a large scale. In order to avoid the war, the Han people in the south of the Yangtze River made the last large-scale migration in history, and entered Zhuji Lane in Shaoguan today through Nanling Ancient Road. This time, the immigrants who fled the chaos were different from the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and they were clan-like, that is, all the clansmen migrated with their surnames and left written records. Shaoguan mountain area is narrow, the land is barren, and it is difficult to make a living. So Han immigrants migrated again, taking water in batches in an organized way, going south by land and road, with more than 3,000 people in each batch. They finally arrived in the surrounding areas with Guangzhou as the center, that is, Panyu, Nanhai, Shunde, Xinhui, Conghua, Zengcheng and other places today, settled down and cultivated land. These Han ancestors who went south brought and created the unique farming methods in the Pearl River Delta, and of course, the standard language of the Southern Song Dynasty that is still in use today. Most of their descendants still live in the original area where their ancestors opened villages and towns, and did not continue to migrate or return to the north. This great migration of the Han nationality also left a living historical record-genealogy, which is still preserved and continued by their descendants and has become a powerful historical evidence. In many rural areas of Fiona Fang, which is 0/0 km away from the old Guangzhou City/Kloc-0, the genealogy of the oldest family records that their ancestors came from Jiangnan (now Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi), arrived in Zhuji Lane at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, and then moved to their current residence. The ancestors of other minority genealogies also came from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and entered Guangdong through Jiangxi and Fujian at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. Nowadays, there are hundreds of old or renovated houses in Zhuji Lane, Shaoguan, which are the ancestral temples of Guangdong's major surnames and record the history of their ancestors moving to Lingnan from here. Every year, many children, led by their parents and elders, come to Zhuji Lane to worship their ancestors. They were told that this was the origin of their ancestors' trip to Guangdong. Interestingly, the surnames and clans of the residents in the old city of Guangzhou and the rural population in the surrounding suburbs are not strong, but many mixed surnames live in the same town. They were handed down from generation to generation by their elders. They really settled in Guangzhou from their distant ancestors, but few people can find genealogy and records. In the 1920s and 1930s, some scholars came to a conclusion through investigation and study. Most of the ancestors of people living in Guangzhou urban area and suburban rural areas near the urban area are: 1. 500,000 descendants of Qin Jun and the later Han army who stayed in Panyu City (now Guangzhou), 2. Officials sent to Guangzhou in the Tang and Song Dynasties and their families, aides, businessmen and people of all colors from the north. Descendants who did not return to the north for various reasons. Due to the unique geographical conditions in Lingnan, the descendants of Han ancestors who moved into Lingnan during the Qin, Han, Tang and Song Dynasties have been living stably in Guangzhou and its surrounding suburbs, and rarely moved out. This is the last great migration of Han nationality, and its historical record and influence have continued to this day, which proves that Guangdong's culture and language have preserved and continued the orthodoxy of Han nationality in China. Because no one will say that the Han orthodoxy represented by the Han people in the Southern Song Dynasty is lower than that of the Han people in the North under the rule of the Jin State.

The fifth is the stable period. After the reunification of the Yuan Dynasty, Mongolians concentrated in the north politically and militarily, and naturally concentrated in cities and ports near the Grand Canal in the east, and their numbers increased greatly. Although Guangzhou is also one of many foreign trade ports, its status and importance have greatly declined. The Yuan Dynasty discriminated against the Han people in the south and called them southerners. It will not send talented Mongolian officials and a large number of Mongolians to the south to be in power, nor do it want to be far away from Lingnan, a metropolis with over-developed economy and trade, which will easily give the Han people the support and foundation for resistance. Most of the appointed officials were Northern Han people or civil and military officials who surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty in the Southern Song Dynasty. Therefore, different from the Tang and Song Dynasties, a large number of northern Han Chinese or Mongols entered Guangzhou in the Yuan Dynasty. Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, the language and pronunciation of the Han nationality have been maintained, and they are completely unaffected by the language of the northern nomadic people. By the Ming Dynasty, productivity, handicrafts, commerce and trade, economy, and the quality and variety of commodities all had unprecedented development, reaching the peak of ancient development. The focus of economic and trade is in the Jianghuai and Jiangnan areas, and the number of foreign trade seaports is greatly reduced compared with that of the Yuan Dynasty. There are only three coastal areas in the south, and Guangzhou is one of them. However, due to the influence of the maritime ban policy of the Ming Dynasty, the import and export trade volume was much lower than that of the previous generation, and at this time, a large number of northerners did not enter. Moreover, after the Ming Dynasty, there was no migration tide of middle-class or above Northern Han people who fled to Lingnan, which continued to maintain the purity of the Tang, Song and Chinese languages. Later, the Qing government completely closed its doors to the outside world, strictly forbidding economic and trade exchanges between the people and foreign countries, and even official exchanges were rare. Only one place in Guangzhou is approved to trade with foreign countries, and it is conducted through official and commercial designated commercial companies. Manchu sent to Guangzhou in Qing Dynasty had only the initial 2,800 flag soldiers to monitor green camp, which was made up of Han people. These Eight Banners and their descendants have lived in several places in the inner city for generations. They have been flag soldiers for generations, forbidden to produce, forbidden to do business, and never married Han people. Slowly, they have lost the Manchu language and customs of their ancestors, not to mention the Cantonese language of the descendants of the Tang and Song Dynasties. By the end of the Revolution of 1911, they were first forced to declare their support for the Republic of China, become civilians and adopt the Chinese surname. They speak standard Cantonese, which is more pure and orthodox than the northern Han people. On the contrary, no one can deny that the provinces in northern Guangdong, the farther north they are influenced by Mongolia, especially the Manchu Dynasty, are more divorced from Andrew in Tang and Song Dynasties in pronunciation and meaning.

Cantonese (Cantonese) not only has a prominent origin and represents the noble orthodoxy of ancient Chinese, but also has a brilliant development in the future. Go to the world before Mandarin, and let foreign countries and the West know what is the correct pronunciation of China earlier. Before the Opium War, Guangzhou was the only foreign trade port allowed by the Qing Dynasty. More and more Cantonese people worked as comprador (purchasing and sales agents) for foreigners, providing freight and warehousing services. They first walked out of the closed shackles, gradually learned about the outside world from foreigners, and were the first to accept the influence of advanced western democracy and scientific thought. Therefore, most of the earliest advocates of Westernization, improvement, reform and revolution in the late Qing Dynasty were Cantonese. In order to explore the truth of saving the country and science, the first batch of people who went to study in the west at their own expense, and the first batch of people who went to the United States and Canada on a large scale to earn money in order to get rid of the ignorant and poor life under the Qing dynasty were all Cantonese. They developed and established "Chinatown", which brought the language of the powerful China Dynasty-Tang Dynasty, which was highly praised by westerners, to the world. As a result, for a long time, westerners only knew China's Tang dialect, but didn't know there were Han people and Mandarin. This situation continued until China's reform and opening up in 1980s. Another important area for the brilliant development of Cantonese is Hong Kong. /kloc-Before the middle of the 0/9th century, all the people living in Hong Kong were Hakkas-the other was the descendants of Northern Han who moved to Guangdong in the Eastern Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and Southern Song Dynasty. After the Opium War, Hong Kong was ceded to Britain by the Qing Dynasty, and gradually developed into a commercial port and an import and export trade base, which required a lot of labor and attracted a large number of Cantonese people to settle down, do business and work. They also brought Cantonese to Hong Kong, replacing Hakka as the common language. At the beginning, Cantonese was the second official language in Hong Kong except English, but it actually surpassed English. Especially since the 1960s, Cantonese has been used for communication in work and life, from high-level government agencies, companies and foreign enterprises to low-level factories and shops, and even foreign bosses in government agencies, companies and factories should learn from it. In the early days, the population of Hong Kong was mostly Cantonese, but during the civil war between War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and China, a large number of rich, educated and skilled people moved to Hong Kong from Chinese mainland, especially from Shanghai, Zhejiang and Fujian. They can be said to be elites in all aspects of Chinese mainland at that time, far higher than the quality of most Cantonese people in Hong Kong, and the number of people who moved to Hong Kong was later estimated to be no less than that of Cantonese people who had been living in Hong Kong, or even more. They should have brought their hometown dialect to Hong Kong and continued to use it, so that Cantonese, Shanghai dialect, or Cantonese, Shanghai dialect and Fujian dialect may coexist in Hong Kong in the future. Just like Guangzhou now, the number of people who use foreign dialects has far exceeded that of their parents. Because Shanghainese in the south of the Yangtze River and Fujian people in the southeast are famous for their local concepts and pride in China, they will not give up using their mother tongue easily without special reasons. But in fact, it never happened. In a short period of time, they accepted and got used to using Cantonese without any dispute or reservation, and their hometown dialect gradually became invisible in Hong Kong's social life. The reason is that they know that Cantonese is the orthodox pronunciation of the Han nationality in China, and it is not shameful to replace it with the orthodox language of the Han ancestors, but they should be proud and necessary. Unlike many northerners today, especially those north of the Yangtze River, these China elites at that time resisted and despised Cantonese, saying that it was the wild sound of ancient Yue, and they were unwilling to recognize and accept the language of their Han ancestors. In the past few decades, because of its important economic position and strength, Hong Kong has become one of the strong fortresses supporting the traditional culture and orthodox language and customs of the Han nationality in China, and has been recognized and accepted as one of the orthodox successors of Chinese culture by Japan and South Korea, countries with the same origin of Chinese civilization. However, Chinese mainland, although we think that we are the direct descendants of the creators of Chinese civilization, we have not been recognized by the same brothers of civilization.

Today, with the increasing economic and commercial strength and influence of Chinese people around the world, it is believed that the influence of Cantonese in the world will continue to strengthen and expand. There is no denying the fact that as long as you can listen and speak Cantonese, even if you don't know English and French, it is exaggerated to travel around the world, but there is no doubt that you can travel around the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. As long as you know Cantonese, you can live, work and travel in these countries without any difficulties except study. Even if you can read and write English, French, spoken English and listening, you can still find a job in a foreigner's company, office and municipal service department. Many foreigners can communicate with China people in Cantonese in their work and life. Many non-Cantonese people I know who have been studying, working and having cultural exchanges in the United States, Canada and Britain for a long time, as long as they have had in-depth contact with the local Chinese society and learned about the life of truly native Chinese, all admit that "Cantonese is the ancient saying of China and the pronunciation of China" when they come back. Without exception, they have learned to speak fluent Cantonese, which can only be distinguished by native Guangzhou people. Today, Putonghua education in primary and secondary schools in Guangdong Province is stronger than before the 1990s. If this continues, the gradual variation and extinction of regional dialects will be inevitable, no matter whether it was a historical accent or a dialect of a famous megacity now, it is good that Cantonese will not. Even if they die in the land where their ancestors originated and developed, the vast number of Chinese overseas, Hong Kong, Macao and Southeast Asia will continue to be Han people in China.