欽民有五種：一曰土人，自昔駱越種類也。居於村落，容貌鄙野，以唇舌雜爲音聲，殊不可曉，謂之蔞語。二曰北人，語言平易，而雜以南音，本西北流民，自五代之亂，占籍於欽者也。三曰俚人，史稱俚獠者是也。此種自蠻峒出居，專事妖怪，若禽獸然，語音尤不可曉。四曰射耕人，本福建人，射地而耕也，子孫盡閩音。五曰「蜑人」，以舟爲室，浮海而生，語似福、廣，雜以廣東、西之音。「蜑」别有記。——《嶺外代答》
There are five kinds of Qīn people: First, the natives, who are a kind of Luòyuè people since ancient times. They live in villages, have a rustic appearance, and mix sounds with their lips and tongue that are difficult to understand, which is called the Lóu language. The second group is northerners, who speak a simple language mixed with southern accents. They were originally refugees from the northwest, and have occupied and registered their residence in Qīn since the Five Dynasties. The third group is the Lǐ people, who are known in history as the Lǐ Liáo. This kind of people come from the barbarian caves and specialize in serving monsters. They look like beasts, and their speech is very incomprehensible. The fourth is the Shègēngrén, who are originally from Fújiàn. They shoot land and farm, and their descendants all speak the Fújiàn dialect. The fifth is the Dàn people, who live in boats and float on the sea. Their language sounds like Fújiàn and Guǎng (Guǎngdōng), mixed with the sounds of Guǎngdōng and Guǎngxī. There is a separate record for Dàn.——Answers from Outsides of the (Five) Ridges
First of all, the place we are talking about here is hundreds of kilometers west of the Pearl River Delta, so the situation in the Pearl River Delta is also unknown. Secondly, if the Pearl River Delta spoke still non-Sinitics or has little Sinitic content, then why is the language of the Dàn people mentioned here not considered “difficult to understand” under the premise of being similar to Fújiàn and Guǎngdōng?
Finally, back to my point, if we insist that only the people in the Yellow River Basin are Hàn (I’m not against it anyway), then the people in the Pearl River Delta would still be difficult to classify as an ethnic group that was linguistically more different from the Hàn. Given the historical discrimination of the people in the Pearl River Delta against Dàn people, it seems that they were also not Dàn people. There is also no record of their self-proclaimed name in history. Therefore, they can only be set in the middle and had no name. As for “mestizos”, it is just a metaphor I used to describe this situation where these unnamed people could be neither Lǐ, Liáo, Zhuàng, Yáo, Shē, Dàn, nor Hàn.
Guangxi or Guangnan Xilu was and still is included in Lingnan. Pearl River delta isn’t the only region of Lingnan, nor is it the only place where Cantonese is spoken. There’re many Cantonese speakers in western Guangdong and Guangxi, and some historians even postulated that Cantonese originated from the area around Zhaoqing or Wuzhou in western Guangdong / eastern Guangxi.
Well, it doesn’t matter what language they spoke, they were still considered by contemporary Sinitic authors like Zhou Qufei to be Dan and not Han.
And even in the Pearl River delta / eastern Guangdong Dan weren’t the only Non-Han or Non-Sinitic group, there was also a group called She (輋) who likely spoke a Hmong-Mien language (there’re still a few native speakers left of this language in some villages in the Chaoshan region, and there’re efforts to revive it).
So if eastern Guangdong / Pearl River delta in the medieval era were populated by Dan and She, and western Guangdong / Guangxi were populated by Li, Liao, Dong, Man, Zhuang, etc. then where would the Han fit?
Have you ever heard of “divide and conquer”? Just because residents in the Pearl River delta disliked the Dan didn’t mean they weren’t the same people. It’s just that the people who chose to become sedentary and sinicized hated the ones who stubbornly retained their old ways of life, a perfect example of “divide and conquer”.
I don’t think you should use the modern geography of languages to make assumptions about what it was like a thousand years ago. These people might speak Cantonese simply because they received similar education later in history. Just like you can argue that the reason both northerners and southerners all speak Chinese is because southerners have adopted a cultural shift (originated in the north). In any case, the records at place A cannot represent the situation at place B without verification.
Can you find the original text by Zhōu Qùfēi that says people in the Pearl River Delta are Dàn people?
The origin of Cantonese is still controversial, some say it originated from the Pearl River delta, others say it originated from further west in the Zhaoqing region. AFAIK I don’t think linguists or historians have reached any consensus about this, thus you shouldn’t assume that it necessarily originated from the Pearl River delta.
I can’t, but I found another primary source from another Song author named Zhu Mu, who recorded the different peoples living in various regions of Guangdong at that time in his book Fang Yu Sheng Lan. This can serve as evidence that the people known as “Li Liao” or “Yi Liao” were quite common in Guangdong during the Song era.
南宋作家祝穆《方舆胜览》对广东各地的描述
南雄州：俗杂夷夏
韶州：其民短，力弱材
潮州：夷獠遂生
肇庆府：夷獠杂居土旷民惰，不力于耕
南恩州：与夷僚杂居，瘴疠以春州为首，耕种多在洞中
德庆府：夷獠相杂
My rough translation:
State of Nan Xiong: mixture of Yi and Xia
State of Shao: people there are short and weak
State of Chao: Yi Liao lived there
Zhaoqing: Yi Liao lived there and the natives are lazy, not suitable for farming
State of Nan En: Yi Liao lived there and the disease of Zhangli (ancient Sinitic name for “malaria”) was prevalent in Chunzhou, so farming has to be done in caves
What I mean is that it is possible that Cantonese language did not have a single ancestor that originated in the Lingnan region, just like modern Lǐngnán people speak with a similar accent, but the origin is just school teachers from various places who spoke Mandarin with a strong accent influenced by negative transfer.
Well, if you can’t solve this problem, who spoke the language of the Dàn people similar to? Who were those people who lived in the Pearl River Delta, farmed in low-lying areas, worked in the government, engaged in business with Arabs, or served as soldiers for the government? There will always be people asking this question.
Well, never denied that there were Sinitic officials or governors living there, and you may call them Han. But most of them were probably not native to Lingnan but instead migrated from somewhere else.
However, the bulk of the population of Lingnan at that time was still made up of Yi Liao, Li Liao, Dong, Zhuang, Man, She, Dan, Yao, etc. Primary sources were very clear about this, and those people were definitely not considered Han.
Both genetics and linguistics as well as historical records show that Cantonese have substantial influences and admixtures from the native Austro-Tai and Hmong-Mien populations.
I’m not sure why you seem to have the strange urge to distance the Cantonese as much as you can from the natives, even claiming that they did not come from Lingnan or did not have any Lingnan ancestor. That’s definitely not the case based on the available evidence, they formed in the Lingnan region, they couldn’t have formed anywhere else.
Your assumption about my opinions is also quite abrupt.
First of all, I do not think they did a perfect job representing the Malians or the Ethiopians, but with the recent patch they tried to change some of that with the introduction of unique castle, monk, and monastery graphics for each civ. And at least that’s a good sign.
Secondly, I also do not accept Wu representing Baiyue. None of their units or bonuses are based on the Austro-Tai or Hmong-Mien natives.
Thirdly, if you want civs with more differences, then aren’t the historical records on Li Liao and other Non-Han natives of South China perfect evidence for what you’re supporting? It seems contradictory to me that on the one hand you want more differences or diversity, but on the other hand you want everyone to be Han.
And by the way, She people did exist in the Pearl River Delta region, particularly in areas around what would become Hong Kong. You might wanna read the following Wiki articles, granted Wikipedia may not be the greatest source out there, but still it gives you some general info.
Basically in the video the teacher is teaching She words to the students, for example “good morning” in She is “Buzuo” while in Mandarin it is “Zao Shang Hao” or “Zao An”.
This.
Also keep in mind the Chinese population was near equal, often greater than, the European one during that era.
About time this region gets some more content…
Not popular or profitable enough for the black suits. They think of what popular in China pop culture and 3K immediately popped up in their heads, smh.
They neede these civs packaged with a Tang Dynasty campaign. Wu Zetian, Tang Taizong and Yang Guifei and the An Lushan revolt. Talas and Chang’an in all its glory with the new Chinese architecture set. That would have been glorious!
Instead of one China campaign you got 3 - and a regional split of the Chinese that many seemed to have asked for (just not splitting along ethnic lines but along kingdoms)