The birthplace of Cantonese

There are usually two opinions about the birthplace of Cantonese: Guangzhou and Guangxin (Wuzhou).

The forum "Guangdong Fengkai: the birthplace of Lingnan culture" jointly organized by the Counselor's Office of Guangdong Provincial People's Government, Guangdong Pearl River Culture Research Association, Lingnan Archaeological Research Center of Sun Yat-sen University and Fengkai County People's Government was held in Fengkai. At the meeting, historical experts announced the new achievements of investigation and research in recent ten years: Cantonese originated from China's ancient "Ya Yan", which further confirmed that Guangxin (Fengkai) was the birthplace of Cantonese, and Cantonese was a living fossil of China's ancient Mandarin, which was of irreplaceable value to the study of China's ancient culture and language.

Cantonese retains the oldest "elegant words"

Luo Kangning, assistant inspector of the Counselor's Office of the People's Government of Guangdong Province and a famous linguist in Guangdong Province, after nearly ten years' investigation and research, has come to the conclusion that Cantonese originated from the ancient "elegant character" in China, further confirming that Guangxin and Fengkai are the birthplaces of Cantonese and the living fossils of ancient China Mandarin. ?

There was a national dialect in ancient China, which was called "Ya Yan" from pre-Qin to Han Dynasty and "Mandarin" after Song Dynasty. Today, many dialects in Chinese retain some elegant elements, and Cantonese is the most elegant element. Yayan, based on primitive Chinese, was originally used only in Chinese tribal alliances headed by the Yellow Emperor. After Qin Shihuang unified China, he practiced "the same language and the same species", and the status of Yayan was correspondingly improved, becoming the national homology at that time. The first person who brought Yayan to Lingnan was the "Kenzi" recruited from all over the country after Qin conquered the "Land of Hundred Yues". Most of these squatters are fugitives from the former six countries, as well as their husbands and wives. They "come from all corners of the country" and must communicate with each other in polite words.

Guangxin is the birthplace of Lingnan culture and Cantonese.

The Xiaohe Ancient Road and Gui Xiang Waterway (namely Lingqu) were two important passages for Han people in the Central Plains to enter Lingnan before the Tang Dynasty. Guangxin is located at the confluence of Gui Jiang, Hejiang and Xijiang, which is the crossroads of Xijiang. It is the transportation hub of Lingnan. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent envoys from Xuwen and Hepu to sail to Southeast Asia and the Indian Peninsula, opening up the Maritime Silk Road. The export passage is from Xiaoshui, Hejiang to Guangxin, and then through two corridors, namely, North Liujiang-South Liujiang and Nanjiang-Jianjiang trade passages to Xuwen and Hepu. Guangxin became the early commercial center of Lingnan. Business activities are inseparable from language communication. It is through business activities that Ya Ci introduced from the Central Plains and integration of language, a native of Baiyue, formed Cantonese.

Guangxin was also the earliest position in Lingnan to spread the culture of the Central Plains. Chen Yuan, Shi Xie and others run schools here, so that Baiyue indigenous people gradually accepted the Confucian culture introduced from the Central Plains, and Han immigrants also absorbed some elements from Baiyue culture, thus forming the early Lingnan culture with the Han immigrant culture as the main body. With the development of cultural exchange, Cantonese, with Yayan as the main body and absorbing some elements of Baiyue indigenous language, has gradually become the main language of the people in this area. Guangxin is the birthplace of Lingnan culture and Cantonese.

The early Cantonese center was not in Guangzhou, but in Guangxin.

Cantonese is distributed along the Yangtze River. It takes the middle reaches of Xijiang River as the center, and expands outward in four channels: east, west and south. The first passage is the Xijiang River-the Pearl River, that is, along the Xijiang River eastward to Panyu (Guangzhou). Including Wuzhou in Guangxi and Zhaoqing, Foshan, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Shenzhen in Guangdong, as well as Hong Kong and Macao. The second river is Xijiang-Yujiang, which goes back to Xijiang, Jiang Xun and Yujiang and reaches Jiaozhi County. Including Nanning, Chongzuo, Guigang and most counties in Guangxi. The third river is Beiliu River-Nanliu River. Including Guangxi Yulin, Beihai, Qinzhou, Fangchenggang and other cities and counties. The fourth passage is Nanjiang-Jianjiang, that is, going up Nanjiang and crossing Yunkai Mountain Range to Jianjiang Valley. Including Yunfu, Maoming, Yunnan, Luoding, Xinyi, Gaozhou, Huazhou, Zhanjiang, Wuchuan and Lianjiang in Guangdong.

In addition, there are two sub-dialect areas in Cantonese: one is the Yang Mo Valley. Second, the Tanjiang River Basin, including Jiangmen, Guangdong, and its affiliated Xinhui, Taishan, Kaiping and Enping, these four cities (districts) were called "Siyi" in history, and their Cantonese dialects were also called "Siyi Dialect". Overflowing dialect is also popular in Heshan and Doumen District of Zhuhai. Siyi area is not far from Guangzhou, but Siyi dialect is the most different sub-dialect from Guangzhou dialect in Cantonese system, because Tanjiang River and Pearl River are not separated by water. This fact strongly proves that the center of early Cantonese was not in Guangzhou, but in Guangxin.

Cantonese has maintained an elegant rhyme for thousands of years.

In the sixth year of Ding Yuan in the Western Han Dynasty (BC11year), after the destruction of South Vietnam, a "Toe Secretariat" was set up to supervise the counties. Most of the time, the interlocking history is located in Guangxin; In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Department of Cross-toe Secretariat was located in Jiaozhou, and the national government was also in Guangxin, becoming the capital and political center of Lingnan. While learning China culture and Chinese characters, the aborigines also learned elegant characters. The languages of these aborigines are very different. They can't communicate with each other and have no written language. Therefore, in addition to using elegance in communication with Han people, tribes also use elegance in communication. Elegant speech has become a homophonic word for indigenous tribes. At the same time, some elements of ancient Baiyue language were absorbed by the language of Han immigrants, thus gradually forming a dialect of Chinese-Cantonese. Thousands of years of war and turmoil in the Central Plains and the North began to disappear from the Zhou Dynasty as the standard pronunciation of Chinese in the Central Plains. However, the Lingnan area has maintained a relatively stable situation, and Cantonese, which evolved from the elegant characters in the Central Plains, has always maintained its original phonology.

Without Cantonese, Lingnan culture would cease to exist.

Guangdong local traditional culture is usually divided into three parts: Guangfu culture, Hakka culture and Chaoshan culture. In fact, it is based on the three major Chinese dialects in China. Cantonese is not only the mother tongue of people in Guangfu, but also the largest dialect in Guangdong and even the whole Pearl River Basin. It not only contains the traditional culture of Guangfu area, but also preserves a large number of traditional cultures that have disappeared in the Central Plains. Without Cantonese, many varieties of Lingnan culture in Guangfu area no longer exist. In the process of building a cultural province, it is necessary to re-study the value and protection of Cantonese.

Experts call for the establishment of Guangdong Pavilion to preserve living fossils.

Cantonese is a rare living fossil of quaint words, which is of irreplaceable value to the study of ancient culture and language in China. In recent years, many scholars have called for the establishment of a national language museum, but it has never been realized. As the birthplace of Cantonese, Fengkai can take the lead in establishing a Cantonese pavilion in the pavilion to collect and accumulate local Cantonese materials, including voice records, documents, Cantonese expansion maps and so on. Especially those peculiar phonetic phenomena, such as the voiced sound mentioned above, are disappearing, so Cantonese, the rare living fossil of China's oldest "Mandarin", should be preserved as a valuable historical relic in time.

Cantonese also retains most ancient words.

Reading ancient Chinese in Cantonese makes it easier to understand the artistic conception in the lyrics than in other dialects.

Cantonese retains more ancient words and meanings, and its wording is quaint. In the northern dialect, these ancient words have been abandoned or rarely used. For example, in Cantonese, "sticky" means "stork" and "police officer" means "police officer". Many words in Cantonese, including modal particles, can be found directly in China ancient books. For example, the modal particle "taboo" in Guangzhou dialect is often used at the end of a sentence (now it is often written as "hoe"). Reading the Book of Songs? National wind? Zheng Feng? Uncle Tian Yu ""Uncle likes to shoot taboos and avoid taboos ". Another example is "making a earthen stove" (eating hot pot), which is an ancient cooker; Tooth smoke "(that is," cliff smoke ",which means danger, in ancient Chinese, it means" smoke from the kitchen on the cliff ",which means" hut on the cliff "-naturally dangerous); Xi Xi "(now Cantonese means" make trouble "and" make trouble "; It comes from an ancient book that describes the sound of walking in water when clothes are all wet-imagine the taste of walking in water, and it is not difficult to find Cantonese words. For another example, there is basically no difference between "Zou" and "Zou" in modern Chinese, but in Guangzhou dialect, "Zou" means walking, while "Zou" retains the meaning of the word "run" in ancient Chinese. However, with the implementation of Putonghua in Guangdong and the influence of foreign population, many archaic words preserved in Guangzhou dialect have been rarely used. To preserve ancient culture, Cantonese is the link.