The Old Yue language (, Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt cổ) is an

unclassified language An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding inf ...

, or group(s) of various languages, spoken in ancient southern China, and northern Vietnam circa 700 BCE or later. It can refer to Yue, which was spoken in the realm of Yue during the

Spring and Autumn period The Spring and Autumn period () was a period in History of China, Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou (256 BCE), characterized by the gradual erosion of royal power as local lords nominally subject t ...

, or to the different languages spoken by the

Baiyue The Baiyue, Hundred Yue, or simply Yue, were various ethnic groups who inhabited the regions of southern China and northern Vietnam during the 1st millennium BC and 1st millennium AD. They were known for their short hair, body tattoos, fine swo ...

. Possible languages spoken by them may have been of Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, Austronesian, Austroasiatic and other origins. Knowledge of Yue speech is limited to fragmentary references and possible loanwords in other languages, principally Chinese. The longest attestation is the ''

Song of the Yue Boatman The Song of the Yue Boatman () is a short song in an ancient language of southern China in the Yangtze River valley said to have been recorded around 528 BC. A transcription using Chinese characters, together with a Chinese version, is preser ...

'', a short song transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC and included, with a Chinese version, in the '' Garden of Stories'' compiled by Liu Xiang five centuries later. Native

Nanyue Nanyue ( zh, c=南越 or 南粵, p=Nányuè, cy=, j=Naam4 Jyut6, l=Southern Yue, , ), was an ancient kingdom founded in 204 BC by the Chinese general Zhao Tuo, whose family (known in Vietnamese as the Triệu dynasty) continued to rule until ...

people likely spoke Old Yue, while Han settlers and government officials spoke

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

. Some suggest that the descendants of the Nanyue spoke

Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

. Others suggest a language related to the modern

Zhuang people The Zhuang (; ; , , Sawndip: 佈獞) are a Tai-speaking ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Hunan provinces. They form one of the 56 ...

. It is plausible that the Yue spoke more than one language. Old Chinese in the region was likely much influenced by Yue speech (and vice versa), and many Old Yue loanwords in Chinese have been identified by modern scholars.

Classification theories

There is some disagreement about the languages the Yue spoke, with candidates drawn from the non-Sinitic language families still represented in areas of

southern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture. Extent The Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone between ...

to this day, which includes Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, and

; as Chinese, Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, and the Vietic branch of Austroasiatic have similar tone systems, syllable structure, grammatical features and lack of inflection, but these features are believed to have spread by means of diffusion across the

Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a sprachbund including languages of the Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien (or Miao–Yao), Kra–Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic families spoken in an area stretching from Thailand to China. Neighb ...

, rather than indicating common descent. *Scholars in China often assume that the Yue spoke an early form of Kra–Dai. According to Sagart (2008), this is far from self-evident, because the core of the Kra–Dai area geographically is located in

Hainan Hainan is an island provinces of China, province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally mean ...

and the China–Vietnam border region, which is beyond the extreme southern end of the Yue area. The linguist Wei Qingwen gave a rendering of the "

Song of the Yue boatman The Song of the Yue Boatman () is a short song in an ancient language of southern China in the Yangtze River valley said to have been recorded around 528 BC. A transcription using Chinese characters, together with a Chinese version, is preser ...

" in

Standard Zhuang Standard Zhuang ( autonym: , ; pre-1982 autonym: ; Sawndip: ; ) is the official standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. Its pronunciation is based on that of the Yongbei Zhuang dialect ...

. Zhengzhang Shangfang proposed an interpretation of the song in written Thai (dating from the late 13th century) as the closest available approximation to the original language, but his interpretation remains controversial. *

Peiros The Peiros (, formerly also ''Kamenitza'' and ''Achelous'') is a river in the central and the northwestern parts of Achaea, Greece. It is long. Geography The Peiros is the second longest river in Achaea, after Selinountas (river), Selinountas. I ...

(2011) shows with his analysis that the homeland of Austroasiatic is somewhere near the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

. He suggests southern Sichuan or slightly west from it, as the likely homeland of proto-Austroasiatic speakers before they migrated to other parts of China and then into Southeast Asia. He further suggests that the family must be as old as proto-Austronesian and proto-Sino-Tibetan or even older. The linguists Sagart (2011) and Bellwood (2013) support the theory of an origin of Austroasiatic along the Yangtze river in southern China. * Sagart (2008) suggests that the Old Yue language, together with the

proto-Austronesian language Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify ...

, was descended from the language or languages of the Tánshíshān‑Xītóu culture complex (modern-day

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

province of China), making the Old Yue language a

sister language In historical linguistics, sister languages are languages that are descended from a common ancestral language. Every language in a language family that descends from the same language as the others is a sister to them. A commonly given example is ...

to proto-Austronesian, which Sagart sees as the origin of the Kra–Dai languages. Behr (2009) also notes that the Chǔ dialect of Old Chinese was influenced by several substrata, predominantly Kra-Dai, but also possibly Austroasiatic, Austronesian and Hmong-Mien.Behr, Wolfgang (2009). "Dialects, diachrony, diglossia or all three? Tomb text glimpses into the language(s) of Chǔ", ''TTW-3, Zürich, 26.-29.VI.2009, "Genius loci"''.

Kra–Dai arguments

The proto-Kra–Dai language has been hypothesized to originate in the Lower Yangtze valleys. Ancient Chinese texts refer to non-Sinitic languages spoken across this substantial region and their speakers as ''"Yue"''. Although those languages are extinct, traces of their existence could be found in unearthed inscriptional materials, ancient Chinese historical texts and non-Han substrata in various Southern Chinese dialects. Thai, one of the

Tai languages The Tai, Zhuang–Tai, or Daic languages (Ahom language, Ahom: 𑜁𑜪𑜨 𑜄𑜩 or 𑜁𑜨𑜉𑜫 𑜄𑜩 ; ; or , ; , ) are a branch of the Kra–Dai languages, Kra–Dai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spo ...

and the most-spoken language in the Kra–Dai language family, has been used extensively in historical-comparative linguistics to identify the origins of language(s) spoken in the ancient region of South China. One of the very few direct records of non-Sinitic speech in pre-Qin and Han times having been preserved so far is the ''"

"'' (Yueren Ge 越人歌), which was transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC, and found in the 善说 Shanshuo chapter of the Shuoyuan 说苑 or 'Garden of Persuasions'. Willeam Meacham (1996) reports that Chinese linguists have shown strong evidence of Tai vestiges in former Yue areas: Lin (1990) found Tai elements in some Min dialects, Zhenzhang (1990) has proposed Tai etymologies and interpretations for certain place names in the former states of Wu and Yue, and Wei (1982) found similarities in the words, combinations and rhyming scheme between the "Song of the Yue Boatman" and the Kam–Tai languages. James R. Chamberlain (2016) proposes that the Kra-Dai language family was formed as early as the 12th century BCE in the middle of the Yangtze basin, coinciding roughly with the establishment of the Chu state and the beginning of the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

. Following the southward migrations of Kra and Hlai (Rei/Li) peoples around the 8th century BCE, the Yue (Be-Tai people) started to break away and move to the east coast in the present-day

Zhejiang province ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = ( Hangzhounese) ( Ningbonese) (Wenzhounese) , image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg , image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains , image_map = Zhejiang i ...

, in the 6th century BCE, forming the state of Yue and conquering the state of Wu shortly thereafter. According to Chamberlain, Yue people (Be-Tai) began to migrate southwards along the east coast of China to what are now Guangxi, Guizhou and northern Vietnam, after Yue was conquered by Chu around 333 BCE. There the Yue (Be-Tai) formed the polities Xi Ou, which became the Northern Tai and the Luo Yue, which became the Central-Southwestern Tai. However, Pittayaporn (2014), after examining layers of Chinese

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

s in proto-

Southwestern Tai The Southwestern Tai or Thai languages are a branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. Its languages include Central Thai (Siamese), Northern Thai (Lanna), Lao (including Isan), Shan and others. Classification The internal classificatio ...

and other historical evidence, proposes that the southwestward migration of southwestern Tai-speaking tribes from the modern Guangxi to the mainland of Southeast Asia must have taken place only sometime between the 8th–10th centuries CE, long after 44 CE, when Chinese sources last mentioned Luo Yue in the

Red River Delta The Red River Delta or Hong River Delta () is the flat low-lying plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries merging with the Thái Bình River in Northern Vietnam. ''Hồng'' (紅) is a Sino-Vietnamese word for "red" or "crimson". T ...

. File:Genesis of Daic languages and their relation with Austronesians.png, Proposed genesis of Daic languages and their relation with Austronesian languages ( Blench, 2018) File:Kra-Tai-Migration1.png, Kra-Dai (Tai-Kadai) migration route according to James R. Chamberlain (2016). File:Gerner Tai-Kadai migration route.png, Tai-Kadai migration route according to Matthias Gerner's ''Northeast to Southwest Hypothesis''.

Ancient textual evidence

In the early 1980s, Zhuang linguist, Wei Qingwen (韦庆稳), electrified the scholarly community in Guangxi by identifying the language in the ''"

"'' as a language ancestral to Zhuang. Wei used reconstructed

for the characters and discovered that the resulting vocabulary showed strong resemblance to modern Zhuang. Later, Zhengzhang Shangfang (1991) followed Wei’s insight but used Thai script for comparison, since this orthography dates from the 13th century and preserves archaisms relative to the modern pronunciation. Zhengzhang notes that 'evening, night, dark' bears the C tone in Wuming Zhuang ''xam^C2'' and ''ɣam^C2'' 'night'. The item ''raa'' normally means 'we inclusive' but in some places, e.g. Tai Lue and White Tai 'I'. However, Laurent Sagart criticizes Zhengzhang's interpretation as anachronistic, because however archaic that Thai script is, Thai language was only written 2000 years after the song had been recorded; even if the Proto-Kam-Tai might have emerged by 6th century BCE, its pronunciation would have been substantially different from Thai. The following is a simplified interpretation of the ''"Song of the Yue Boatman"'' by Zhengzhang Shangfang quoted by David Holm (2013) with Thai script and Chinese glosses being omitted:The upper row represents the original text, the next row the Old Chinese pronunciation, the third a transcription of written Thai, and the fourth line English glosses. Finally, there is Zhengzhang's English translation. Some scattered non-Sinitic words found in the two ancient Chinese fictional texts, the '' Mu Tianzi Zhuan'' ( zh, 穆天子傳) (4th c. B.C.) and the '' Yuejue shu'' ( zh, 越絕書) (1st c. A.D.), can be compared to lexical items in Kra-Dai languages. These two texts are only preserved in corrupt versions and share a rather convoluted editorial history. Wolfgang Behr (2002) makes an attempt to identify the origins of those words: *"吳謂善「伊」, 謂稻道「緩」, 號從中國, 名從主人。" “The Wú say ''yī'' for ‘good’ and ''huăn'' for ‘way’, i.e. in their titles they follow the central kingdoms, but in their names they follow their own lords.” 伊 ''yī'' < ʔjij < *^bq(l)ij ← Siamese ''dii^A1'', Longzhou ''dai¹'', Bo'ai ''nii¹'' Daiya ''li¹'', Sipsongpanna ''di¹'', Dehong ''li⁶'' < proto-Tai *ʔdɛi^A1 , Sui ''ʔdaai¹'', Kam ''laai¹'', Maonan ''ʔdaai¹'', Mak ''ʔdaai⁶'' < proto-Kam-Sui/proto-Kam-Tai *ʔdaai¹ 'good' , ,

proto-Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesia ...

*bait 緩 uăn< hwanX < *^awan ← Siamese ''hon^A1'', Bo'ai ''hɔn¹'', Dioi ''thon¹'' < proto-Tai *xron^A1, Sui ''khwən¹-i'', Kam ''khwən¹'', Maonan ''khun¹-i'', Mulam ''khwən¹-i'' < proto-Kam-Sui *khwən¹ 'road, way' , proto-Hlai *kuun¹ , ,

proto-Austronesian Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify in ...

*Zalan (Thurgood 1994:353) *yuè jué shū 越絕書 (The Book of Yuè Records), 1st c. A.D. 絕 ''jué'' < dzjwet < *^bdzot ← Siamese ''cod^D1'' 'to record, mark' (Zhengzhang Shangfang 1999:8) *"姑中山者越銅官之山也, 越人謂之銅, 「姑 ��」。" “The Middle mountains of ''Gū'' are the mountains of the Yuè’s bronze office, the Yuè people call them ‘Bronze ''gū ūú''.” 「姑 ��」 gūdú < ku=duwk < *^aka=^alok ← Siamese ''kʰau^A1'' 'horn', Daiya ''xau⁵'', Sipsongpanna ''xau¹'', Dehong ''xau¹'', Lü ''xău¹'', Dioi ''kaou¹'' 'mountain, hill' < proto-Tai *kʰau^A2; Siamese ''luuk^D2l'' 'classifier for mountains', Siamese ''kʰau^A1''-''luuk^D2l'' 'mountain' , , ''cf.'' OC 谷 ''gǔ'' < kuwk << *^ak-lok/luwk < *^akə-lok/yowk < *^blok 'valley' *"越人謂船爲「須盧」。" "... The Yuè people call a boat ''xūlú''. (‘beard’ & ‘cottage’)" 須 ''xū'' < sju < *^bs(n)o ? ← Siamese saʔ 'noun prefix' 盧 ''lú'' < lu < *^bra ← Siamese ''rɯa^A2'', Longzhou ''lɯɯ²'', Bo'ai ''luu²'', Daiya ''hə²'', Dehong ''hə²'' 'boat' < proto-Tai *drɯ ,o'' , Sui ''lwa¹''/''ʔda¹'', Kam ''lo¹''/''lwa¹'', Be ''zoa'' < proto-Kam-Sui *s-lwa(n)^A1 'boat' *" ��築吳市西城, 名曰「定錯」城。" " íuJiă (the king of Jīng 荆) built the western wall, it was called ''dìngcuò'' settle(d)' & 'grindstone'wall." 定 ''dìng'' < ''dengH'' < *^adeng-s ← Siamese ''diaaŋ^A1'', Daiya ''tʂhəŋ²'', Sipsongpanna ''tseŋ²'', Malay (Austronesian) ''dindiŋ²'', Tagalog ''diŋdiŋ²'' ''wall'' 錯 ''cuò'' < tshak < *^atshak ? ← Siamese ''tok^D1s'' 'to set→sunset→west' (''tawan-tok'' 'sun-set' = 'west'); Longzhou ''tuk⁷'', Bo'ai ''tɔk⁷'', Daiya ''tok⁷'', Sipsongpanna ''tok⁷'' < proto-Tai *tok^D1s ǀ Sui ''tok⁷'', Mak ''tok⁷'', Maonan ''tɔk'' < proto-Kam-Sui *tɔk^D1, Malay (Austronesian) suntuk ''running out of time''

Substrate in modern Chinese languages

Besides a limited number of lexical items left in Chinese historical texts, remnants of language(s) spoken by the ancient Yue can be found in non-Han substrata in Southern Chinese dialects, e.g.: Wu, Min,

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

, Yue, etc. Robert Bauer (1987) identifies twenty seven lexical items in Yue,

and Min varieties, which share Kra–Dai roots.Bauer, Robert S. (1987). 'Kadai loanwords in southern Chinese dialects', Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 32: 95–111. The following are some examples cited from Bauer (1987): *to beat, whip: Yue-Guangzhou ''faak^7a'' ← Wuming Zhuang ''fa:k⁸'', Siamese ''faat^D2L'', Longzhou ''faat'', Po-ai ''faat''. *to beat, pound: Yue-Guangzhou ''tap⁸'' ← Siamese ''thup⁴''/''top²'', Longzhou ''tup^D1'', Po-ai ''tup³''/''tɔp^D1'', Mak/Dong ''tap^D2'', Tai Nuea ''top⁵'', Sui-Lingam ''tjăp^D2'', Sui-Jungchiang ''tjăp^D2'', Sui-Pyo ''tjăp^D2'', T'en ''tjap^D2'', White Tai ''tup⁴'', Red Tai ''tup³'', Shan ''thup⁵'', Lao Nong Khai ''thip³'', Lue Moeng Yawng ''tup⁵'', Leiping-Zhuang ''thop⁵''/''top⁴'', Western Nung ''tup⁴'', Yay ''tup⁵'', Saek ''thap⁶'', Tai Lo ''thup³'', Tai Maw ''thup³'', Tai No ''top⁵'', Wuming Zhuang ''tup⁸'', Li-Jiamao ''tap⁸''. *to bite: Yue-Guangzhou ''khap⁸'' ← Siamese ''khop²'', Longzhou ''khoop⁵'', Po-ai ''hap³'', Ahom ''khup'', Shan ''khop⁴'', Lü ''khop'', White Tai ''khop²'', Nung ''khôp'', Hsi-lin ''hap^D2S'', Wuming-Zhuang ''hap⁸'', T'ien-pao ''hap'', Black Tai ''khop²'', Red Tai ''khop³'', Lao Nong Khai ''khop¹'', Western Nung ''khap⁶'', etc. *to burn: Yue-Guangzhou ''naat^7a'',

''nat⁸'' ← Wuming Zhuang ''na:t⁸'', Po-ai ''naat^D1L'' "hot". *child: Min-Chaozhou ''noŋ¹'' ''kiā³'' "child", Min-Suixi ''nuŋ³ kia³'', Mandarin-Chengdu ''nɑŋ¹ pɑ¹ kər¹'' "youngest sibling", Min-Fuzhou ''nauŋ⁶'' "young, immature" ← Siamese ''nɔɔŋ⁴'', Tai Lo ''lɔŋ³'', Tai Maw ''nɔŋ³'', Tai No ''nɔŋ³'' "younger sibling", Wuming Zhuang ''tak⁸ nu:ŋ⁴'', Longzhou ''no:ŋ⁴ ba:u⁵'', Buyi ''nuaŋ⁴'', Dai-Xishuangbanna ''nɔŋ⁴ tsa:i²'', Dai-Dehong ''lɔŋ⁴ tsa:i²'', etc. *correct, precisely, just now: Yue-Guangzhou ''ŋaam¹'' "correct", ''ŋaam¹ ŋaam¹'' "just now", Hakka-Meixian ''ŋam⁵ ŋam⁵'' "precisely", Hakka-Youding ''ŋaŋ¹ ŋaŋ¹'' "just right", Min-Suixi ''ŋam¹'' "fit", Min-Chaozhou ''ŋam¹'', Min-Hainan ''ŋam¹ ŋam¹'' "good" ← Wuming Zhuang ''ŋa:m¹'' "proper" / ''ŋa:m³'' "precisely, appropriate" / ''ŋa:m⁵'' "exactly", Longzhou ''ŋa:m⁵ vəi⁶''. *to cover (1): Yue-Guangzhou ''hom⁶''/''ham⁶'' ← Siamese ''hom²'', Longzhou ''hum⁵'', Po-ai ''hɔm^B1'', Lao ''hom'', Ahom ''hum'', Shan ''hom²'', Lü ''hum'', White Tai ''hum²'', Black Tai ''hoom²'', Red Tai ''hom³'', Nung ''hôm'', Tay ''hôm'', Tho ''hoom'', T'ien-pao ''ham'', Dioi ''hom'', Hsi-lin ''hɔm'', T'ien-chow ''hɔm'', Lao Nong Khai ''hom³'', Western Nung ''ham²'', etc. *to cover (2): Yue-Guangzhou ''khap⁷'', Yue-Yangjiang ''kap^7a'',

-Meixian ''khɛp⁷'', Min-Xiamen ''kaˀ⁷'', Min-Quanzhou ''kaˀ⁷'', Min-Zhangzhou ''kaˀ⁷'' "to cover" ← Wuming-Zhuang ''kop⁸'' "to cover", Li-Jiamao ''khɔp⁷'', Li-Baocheng ''khɔp⁷'', Li-Qiandui ''khop⁹'', Li-Tongshi ''khop⁷'' "to cover". *to lash, whip, thrash: Yue-Guangzhou ''fit⁷'' ← Wuming Zhuang ''fit⁸'', Li-Baoding ''fi:t⁷''. *monkey: Yue-Guangzhou ''ma⁴ lau¹'' ← Wuming Zhuang ''ma⁴'' ''lau²'', Mulao ''mə⁶ lau²''. *to slip off, fall off, lose: Yue-Guangzhou ''lat⁷'',

''lut⁷'',

-Yongding ''lut⁷'', Min-Dongshandao ''lut⁷'', Min-Suixi ''lak⁸'', Min-Chaozhou ''luk⁷'' ← Siamese ''lut^D1S'', Longzhou ''luut'', Po-ai ''loot'', Wiming-Zhuang ''lo:t⁷''. *to stamp foot, trample: Yue-Guangzhou ''tam⁶'',

''tem⁵'' ← Wuming Zhuang ''tam⁶'', Po-ai ''tam^B2'', Lao ''tham'', Lü ''tam'', Nung ''tam''. *stupid: Yue-Guangzhou ''ŋɔŋ⁶'', Hakka-Meixian ''ŋɔŋ⁵'', Hakka-Yongfing ''ŋɔŋ⁵'', Min-Dongshandao ''goŋ⁶'', Min-Suixi ''ŋɔŋ¹'', Min-Fuzhou ''ŋouŋ⁶'' ← Be-Lingao ''ŋən²'', Wuming Zhuang ''ŋu:ŋ⁶'', Li-Baoding ''ŋaŋ²'', Li-Zhongsha ''ŋaŋ²'', Li-Xifan ''ŋaŋ²'', Li-Yuanmen ''ŋaŋ⁴'', Li-Qiaodui ''ŋaŋ⁴'', Li-Tongshi ''ŋaŋ⁴'', Li-Baocheng ''ŋa:ŋ²'', Li-Jiamao ''ŋa:ŋ²''. *to tear, pinch, peel, nip: Yue-Guangzhou ''mit⁷'' "tear, break off, pinch, peel off with finger",

''met⁷'' "pluck, pull out, peel" ← Be-Lingao ''mit⁵'' "rip, tear", Longzhou ''bit^D1S'', Po-ai ''mit'', Nung ''bêt'', Tay ''bit'' "pick, pluck, nip off", Wuming Zhuang ''bit⁷'' "tear off, twist, peel, pinch, squeeze, press", Li-Tongshi ''mi:t⁷'', Li-Baoding ''mi:t⁷'' "pinch, squeeze, press".

= Substrate in Cantonese

= Yue-Hashimoto describes the

Yue Chinese Yue () is a branch of the Sinitic languages primarily spoken in Northern and southern China, Southern China, particularly in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi (collectively known as Liangguang). The term Cantonese is often used to refer ...

languages spoken in

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

as having a Tai influence. Robert Bauer (1996) points out twenty nine possible cognates between Cantonese spoken in

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

and Kra–Dai, of which seven cognates are confirmed to originate from Kra–Dai sources: *

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

''kɐj¹'' ''hɔ:ŋ²'' ← Wuming Zhuang ''kai⁵'' ''ha:ŋ⁶'' "young chicken which has not laid eggs" *

''ja:ŋ⁵'' ← Siamese ''jâ:ŋ'' "to step on, tread" *

''kɐm⁶'' ← Wuming Zhuang ''kam⁶'', Siamese ''kʰòm'', Be-Lingao ''xɔm⁴'' "to press down or suppress" *

''kɐp^7b'' ''na:³''The second syllable na:³ may correspond to Tai morpheme for 'field'. ← Wuming Zhuang ''kop⁷'', Siamese ''kòp'' "frog" *

''khɐp⁸'' ← Siamese ''kʰòp'' "to bite" *

''lɐm⁵'' ← Siamese ''lóm'', Maonan ''lam⁵'' "to collapse, to topple, to fall down (building)" *

''tɐm⁵'' ← Wuming Zhuang ''tam⁵'', Siamese ''tàm'' "to hang down, be low"

= Substrate in Wu Chinese

= Li Hui (2001) finds 126 Kra-Dai cognates in Maqiao Wu dialect spoken in the suburbs of

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

out of more than a thousand lexical items surveyed. According to the author, these cognates are likely traces of the Old Yue language. The two tables below show lexical comparisons between Maqiao Wu dialect and Kra-Dai languages quoted from Li Hui (2001). He notes that, in Wu dialect, final consonants such as -m, -ɯ, -i, ụ, etc don't exist, and therefore, -m in Maqiao dialect tends to become -ŋ or -n, or it's simply absent, and in some cases -m even becomes final glottal stop.

Austroasiatic arguments

Jerry Norman and Mei Tsu-lin presented evidence that at least some Yue spoke an Austroasiatic language: * A well-known loanword into Sino-Tibetan is k-la for

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is a large Felidae, cat and a member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Asia. It has a powerful, muscular body with a large head and paws, a long tail and orange fur with black, mostly vertical stripes. It is ...

(

Hanzi Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one ...

: 虎; Old Chinese (ZS): ''*qʰlaːʔ'' > Mandarin pinyin: ''hǔ'', Sino-Vietnamese ''hổ'') from

Proto-Austroasiatic Proto-Austroasiatic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austroasiatic languages. Proto-Mon–Khmer (i.e., all Austroasiatic branches except for Munda) has been reconstructed in Harry L. Shorto's ''Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary'', while a ...

*kalaʔ (compare Vietic ''*k-haːlʔ'' > ''kʰaːlʔ'' > Vietnamese ''khái'' and Muong ''khảl''). * The early Chinese name for the Yangtze (; EMC: ''kœ:ŋ''; OC: *''kroŋ''; Cantonese: "kong") was later extended to a general word for "river" in south China. Norman and Mei suggest that the word is cognate with Vietnamese ''sông'' (from *''krong'') and Mon ''kruŋ'' "river". They also provide evidence of an Austroasiatic substrate in the vocabulary of

Min Chinese Min ( zh, t=, s=闽语, p=Mǐnyǔ, poj=Bân-gú / Bân-gír / Bân-gí; Bàng-uâ-cê, BUC: ''Mìng-ngṳ̄'') is a broad group of Sinitic languages with about 75 million native speakers. These languages are spoken in Fujian province and Chaoshan ...

. For example: * *-dəŋ^A "shaman" may be compared with Vietnamese ''đồng'' (/ɗoŋ²/) "to shamanize, to communicate with spirits" and Mon doŋ "to dance (as if) under demonic possession". * *kiɑn^B 囝 "son" appears to be related to Vietnamese ''con'' (/kɔn/) and Mon kon "child". Norman and Mei's hypothesis has been criticized by

Laurent Sagart Laurent Sagart (; born 1951) is a senior researcher at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale (CRLAO – UMR 8563) unit of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Biography Born in Paris in 1951, he earned ...

, who demonstrates that many of the supposed loan words can be better explained as archaic Chinese words, or even loans from Austronesian languages; he also argues that the Vietic cradle must be located farther south in current north Vietnam. *Norman & Mei also compares Min verb "to know, to recognize" (

Proto-Min Proto-Min (pMǐn) is a comparative reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Min group of Chinese languages. Min varieties developed in the relative isolation of the Chinese province of Fujian and eastern Guangdong, and have since spread to ...

''*pat''; whence

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

Amoy Xiamen,), also known as Amoy ( ; from the Zhangzhou Hokkien pronunciation, zh, c=, s=, t=, p=, poj=Ē͘-mûi, historically romanized as Amoy, is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Stra ...

) to Vietnamese ''biết'', also meaning "to know, to recognize". However, Sagart contends that the Min & Vietnamese sense "to know, to recognize" is semantically extended from well-attested Chinese verb "to distinguish, discriminate, differentiate" ((Mandarin: ''bié''; MC: ; OC: ''*bred''); thus Sagart considers Vietnamese ''biết'' as a loanword from Chinese. *According to the ''

Shuowen Jiezi The ''Shuowen Jiezi'' is a Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen , during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). While prefigured by earlier reference works for Chinese characters like the ''Erya'' (), the ''Shuowen Jiezi'' contains the ...

'' (100 AD), "In Nanyue, the word for dog is (; EMC: ''nuw-ʂuw'')", possibly related to other Austroasiatic terms. ''Sōu'' is "hunt" in modern Chinese. However, in ''

'', the word for dog is also recorded as 獶獀 with its most probable pronunciation around 100 CE must have been ''*ou-sou'', which resembles proto-Austronesian *asu, *u‑asu 'dog' than it resembles the palatal‑initialed Austroasiatic monosyllable Vietnamese ''chó'', Old Mon ''clüw'', etc. *

Zheng Xuan Zheng Xuan (127– July 200), courtesy name Kangcheng (), was a Chinese philosopher, politician, and writer who lived towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty. He was born in Gaomi, Beihai Commandery (modern Weifang, Shandong), and was a ...

(127–200 AD) wrote that (Middle Chinese: , modern Mandarin Chinese ''zā'', modern Sino-Vietnamese: "trát") was the word used by the Yue people (越人) to mean "die". Norman and Mei reconstruct this word as OC *''tsət'' and relate it to Austroasiatic words with the same meaning, such as Vietnamese ''chết'' and Mon ''chɒt''. However, Laurent Sagart points out that is a well‑attested Chinese word also meaning "to die", which is overlooked by Norman and Mei. That this word occurred in the Old Yue language in Han times could be because the Old Yue language borrowed it from Chinese. Therefore, the resemblance of this Chinese word to an Austroasiatic word is probably accidental. * According to Sagart, the resemblance between the Min word *-dəŋ^A "shaman" or "spirit healer" and the Vietnamese term ''đồng'' is undoubtedly by chance. Moreover, Chamberlain (1998) posits that the Austroasiatic predecessor of the modern Vietnamese language originated in modern-day Bolikhamsai Province and Khammouane Province in

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

as well as parts of Nghệ An Province and

Quảng Bình Province Quảng Bình was formerly a southern coastal Provinces of Vietnam, province in the North Central Coast region, the Central Vietnam, Central of Việt Nam, Vietnam. It borders Hà Tĩnh province, Hà Tĩnh to the north, Quảng Trị province, ...

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

, rather than in the region north of the

.Chamberlain, J.R. 1998,
The origin of Sek: implications for Tai and Vietnamese history
, in The International Conference on Tai Studies, ed. S. Burusphat, Bangkok, Thailand, pp. 97-128. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University. However, Ferlus (2009) showed that the inventions of pestle, oar and a pan to cook sticky rice, which is the main characteristic of the Đông Sơn culture, correspond to the creation of new lexicons for these inventions in Northern Vietic (Việt–Mường) and Central Vietic ( Cuoi-Toum). The new vocabularies of these inventions were proven to be derivatives from original verbs rather than borrowed lexical items. The current distribution of Northern Vietic also correspond to the area of Đông Sơn culture. Thus, Ferlus concludes that the Northern Vietic (Viet-Muong) speakers are the "most direct heirs" of the Dongsonians, who have resided in Southern part of Red River Delta and North Central Vietnam since the 1st millennium BC. In addition, archaeogenetics demonstrated that before the Dong Son period, the Red River Delta's inhabitants were predominantly Austroasiatic: genetic data from Phùng Nguyên culture's burial site (dated to 1,800 BCE) at Mán Bạc (in present-day Ninh Bình Province,

) have close proximity to modern Austroasiatic speakers, while "mixed genetics" from Đông Sơn culture's Núi Nấp site showed affinity to "Dai from China, Tai-Kadai speakers from Thailand, and Austroasiatic speakers from Vietnam, including the Kinh"; these results indicated that significant contact happened between Tai speakers and Vietic speakers. Ye (2014) identified a few Austroasiatic loanwords in Ancient Chu dialect of Old Chinese.Ye, Xiaofeng () (2014)

(Austroasiatic elements in ancient Chu dialect). . 3: 28-36.

Writing system

There is no known evidence of a writing system among the Yue peoples of the

Lingnan Lingnan (; ) is a geographic area referring to the lands in the south of the Nanling Mountains. The region covers the modern China, Chinese subdivisions of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong & Macau and Northern Vietnam. Background The ar ...

region in pre-Qin times, and the Chinese conquest of the region is believed to have introduced writing to the area. However, Liang Tingwang, a professor from the Central University of Nationalities, said that the ancient Zhuang had their own proto-writing system but had to give it up because of the Qinshi Emperor's tough policy and to adopt the Han Chinese writing system, which ultimately developed into the old Zhuang demotic script alongside the classical Chinese writing system, during the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

(618–907).Huang, Bo (2017)
''Comprehensive Geographic Information Systems''
Elsevier, p. 162.

Notes

References

Sources

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