When did Cantonese begin to be spoken?

The historical development of Cantonese has gone through about 2,2 years from the Qin Dynasty to the present.

Qin and Han Dynasties

Since ancient times, many indigenous tribes living in Lingnan area have been called Baiyue by the Huaxia people living in the Central Plains, and Nanyue people are one of them. After Qin Shihuang attacked Baiyue in the south, Chinese people came to Lingnan area. Most South Vietnamese people mixed with Chinese people, and a few South Vietnamese people fled to mountainous areas or areas further south. After the demise of the Qin Dynasty, Zhao Tuo, the commander of Nanhai County, annexed Guilin County and Xiangjun County to become the king, and established Nanyue State, the first feudal dynasty in Lingnan. During the period of Nanyue State, the policy of "Hundred Yue" was implemented and compiled, and the Chinese and Vietnamese mixed peacefully and intermarried with each other, gradually forming a mixed language form of primitive ancient Cantonese. This period is the embryonic period of Cantonese. In the heyday of the Han Dynasty, the Huaxia nationality merged with many surrounding ethnic groups and evolved into the Han nationality, and Han people moved to Lingnan one after another, which brought the Central Plains Chinese and began to have a superimposed influence on the original ancient Cantonese.

Chinese has dialects and * * * languages since ancient times. According to historical records, in the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius called * * * the same language as Ya Yan. Elegant speech is based on Luoyang elegant speech. Confucius had more than 3, apprentices from all over the world at that time. In ancient times, there were dialects, and students from all over the world spoke their own dialects. How can Confucius make students from all over the world understand when he lectures? Because there were * * * homonyms called elegance at that time, Confucius used elegance when giving lectures, so there was no obstacle to communication.

in the Han dynasty, the homonym of * * * developed further. At that time, it was called a general language. People who speak different dialects in different places can communicate in common language, which is an ancient situation.

Some people think that Hakkas first migrated from North China to South China with the migration tide during several wars and turbulent times in history. Their ancestors migrated from present-day Henan Province and Shanxi Province, and at the same time brought the characteristics of their local languages. Since then, the languages in these areas have gradually evolved into the current Mandarin dialect.

However, many phonetic features of ancient Chinese that are still used in Hakka dialect, including the suffix [-p] [-t] [-k] that can also be found in other southern dialects, have disappeared in some northern mandarin.

due to the migration of Hakka people, Hakka dialect will be influenced by the dialects where Hakka ancestors migrated. For example, many * * words can be found in Hakka, Minnan and Cantonese.

For example, the term "take care of cows" in Cantonese Weitou dialect is the same as "zon ngiu" in Hakka dialect.