The Cantonese people (廣府人; 广府人; gwong fu jan; Gwóngfú Yàhn) or Yue people (粵人; 粤人; jyut jan; Yuht Yàhn), are a Han Chinesesubgroup originating from Guangzhou and its satellite cities and towns (such as Hong Kong and Macau).[2] In a more general sense "Cantonese people" can refer to any Han Chinese people originating from or residing in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi (collectively known as Liangguang), or it may refer to the inhabitants of Guangdong province alone.[3]
Historically centered around Guangzhou and the surrounding Pearl River Delta, the Cantonese people established the Cantonese language as the dominant one in Hong Kong and Macau during their 19th century migrations within the times of the British and Portuguese colonial eras respectively. Cantonese remains today as a majority language in Guangdong and Guangxi, despite the increasing influence of Mandarin. Speakers of other Yue Chinese dialects, such as the Taishanese people who speak Taishanese, may or may not be considered Cantonese. The Hakka and Teochew people who also reside in Guangdong are usually differentiated from the Cantonese as they speak non-Yue Chinese languages.
Photo of a Cantonese gentleman during the Qing eraMap of Liangguang
"Cantonese" has been generally used to describe all Chinese people from Guangdong since "Cantonese" is commonly treated as a synonym with "Guangdong" and the Cantonese language is treated as the sole language of the region. This is inaccurate as "Canton" itself technically only refers to the capital Guangzhou, and the Cantonese language specifically refers to only the Guangzhou dialect of the Yue Chinese languages. David Faure points out that there is no direct Chinese translation of the English term "Cantonese".[4] People living in Guangdong and Guangxi may speak other Yue dialects or dialects from other Chinese language groups such as Mandarin, Min, Hakka, and Pinghua.[5]
The English name "Canton" derived from PortugueseCantão[6] or Cidade de Cantão,[7] a muddling of dialectical pronunciations of "Guangdong"[8][9] (e.g., HakkaKóng-tûng). Although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city of Guangzhou, it was occasionally conflated with Guangdong by some authors.[10][12] Within Guangdong and Guangxi, Cantonese is considered the prestige dialect and is called baahk wá, [pàːkwǎː] (白話) which means "vernacular". It is also known as "Guangzhou speech" or Guangzhounese (廣州話, 广州话, Gwóngjāu wá).
Other Yue peoples are sometimes labelled as "Cantonese" such as the Taishanese people (四邑粵人; sei yāp yuht yàhn), even though Taishanese (台山話) has low intelligibility to Standard Cantonese. Some literature uses neutral terminology such as Guangdongese and Guangxiese to refer to people from these provinces without the cultural or linguistic affiliations to Cantonese.
Cantonese peoples are predominantly of mixed Han Chinese and Baiyue lineage[13][14][15] with various local genetic clusters suggesting regional language-based endogamy.[13] The Cantonese originate culturally from a very early and continual stream of Han colonists from the Central Plains since the Qin era. Mass migration of Han Chinese produced a demographic change in the south, leading to the absorption of Tai-speaking minority groups.[16]
Paternally, the Cantonese Han Chinese descend from Baiyue and Northern Han males. Maternally (Mtdna), the Cantonese Han Chinese descend from Baiyue women primarily.[17][18][19] As a whole, the Cantonese only show predominant more pronounced Han Chinese patriline ancestry.[13][14][15] This is in contrast to the Pinghua and Tanka population.[14][15]
Because the Cantonese possess a Baiyue component in their heritage, and so differ slightly from other Han Chinese groups in skin tone, build, stature[20] and a higher incidence of certain diseases such as nasopharyngeal cancer.[21]
Until the 19th century, Cantonese history was largely the history of Guangdong and Guangxi, collectively known as Liangguang or Guangnan.
Throughout history, there have been multiple migrations of Han people from the Central Plains into the region that is now Southeastern and Southern China.[22] The first Chinese presence in Guangdong can be traced to the conquest by the Qin general Zhao Tuo and his subsequent establishment of the Nanyue kingdom, a hybrid Han-Yue polity as an independent state.[23][24] There was a second wave of migration during the Han dynasty during the troubled reign of the usurper Wang Mang. However, it was only under much later dynasties such as the Jin dynasty, the Tang dynasty, and the Song dynasty, when major waves of Han Chinese began to migrate south into Guangdong and Guangxi, that the region acquired the cultural characteristics that last until the present day.
What is now Guangdong and later Guangxi, was first brought under Qin influence by a general named Zhao Tuo, who conquered the region in 214 BC[25] and later, after the collapse of the Qin empire, founded the independent kingdom of Nanyue in 204 BC.[26][27][28][29] Zhao Tuo's retinue included hundreds of thousands of predominantly male Qin conscripts, and he is recorded as petitioning the Qin Emperor for 30,000 wives from the Central Plains for his restless soldiers.[30] Following the collapse of central authority in the Qin Empire, the Han Chinese soldiers, conscripts, and laborers under Zhao Tuo's command were incorporated into the Nanyue kingdom[31] and ordered to mix with the local inhabitants.
Like the founder Zhao Tuo, the aristocratic elite and military class of the newly formed Nanyue state were of Central Plains origin and mediated the transmission of Han culture to the local inhabitants. Grave goods and burial pits show a significant and immediate cultural shift at the time of Nanyue's establishment, especially in larger tombs, which began to deploy Han Chinese features such as ramps and compartmentalized coffins, and to contain traditional Han Chinese drinking vessels such as the hu,he, and ding as well as incense burners such as the xun lu. Buildings began to feature architectural elements from the Central Plains, including covered galleries, drains, stone lintels, and columnar bases.[32] The Han aristocratic elite, however, did adopt features of the Bai Yue culture, including the use of feathered headdresses as represented on Nanyue cauldrons, in order to bolster their authority amongst the indigenous people in the new hybrid Han-Yue polity.
The Nanyue kingdom, which was led by a Han aristocracy and adopted Han bureaucratic structures,[33] and which adopted a policy of assimilation and fusion with the native Bai Yue, then went on to become the strongest state on the southern periphery of the Han, with many neighboring kingdoms declaring their allegiance to Nanyue rule. Zhao Tuo took the Han territory of Hunan and defeated the Han dynasty's first attack on Nanyue, later annexing the kingdom of Minyue in the east and conquering Âu Lạc, Northern Vietnam, in the west in 179 BC.[34]
The greatly expanded Nanyue kingdom included the territories of modern-day Guangdong, Guangxi and Northern Vietnam (Tonkin), with the capital situated at modern-day Guangzhou. The people of Liangguang remained autonomous until formally incorporated into the Han dynasty in 111 BC, following the Han–Nanyue War.
Incorporation into Han territory
Liangguang was incorporated into the Han dynasty in 111 BC, following the Han–Nanyue War. From this point on, it was directly administered by the Han Empire.
Han Empire
During the troubled period of Wang Mang's reign in the Han dynasty (206BC–220AD), there were influxes of Han Chinese migrants into Guangdong and Guangxi, western coast of Hainan, Annam (now Northern Vietnam) and Eastern Yunnan.[35]
4th-12th century AD
During the 4th–12th centuries, yet more waves of Han Chinese people from the central plains migrated and settled in the South of China. This gave rise to peoples, including the Cantonese themselves,[36] and the other dialect groups of Guangdong during the Tang dynasty including the Hakka and the Teochew.[37] Waves of migration and intermarriage meant that the indigenous populations of both Guangxi and Guangdong provinces were either assimilated or displaced, but some native groups like the Zhuangs remain.
One notable migration occurred in the aftermath of the deadly An Lushan rebellion in the Tang dynasty, which led to a massive southward migration by people from the Tang heartland into the Panyu area, causing a 75% increase in the population on household registers.[38] Unsurprisingly, the Cantonese often call themselves "people of Tang" (唐人; tòhng yàhn). This is because Han immigration and the intermarriage with and acculturation of indigenous tribes reached a critical mass during the Tang dynasty, creating a new local identity among the Liangguang peoples.[39] The origin of the Cantonese people is thus said to be Han people from the Central Plains who migrated to Guangdong and Guangxi in multiple successive waves of settlement while it was still inhabited by Baiyue peoples.[40]
Cantonese bazaar during Chinese New Year at the Grant Avenue, San Francisco, circa 1914. Names of shops are in Cantonese and there are four daily newspapers printed in the Cantonese language at that time, as there were already a significant number of Cantonese people who had been there for generations.
During the early 1800s, conflict occurred between Cantonese and Portuguese pirates in the form of the Ningpo massacre after the defeat of Portuguese pirates.[41] The First (1839–1842) and Second Opium Wars (1856–1860) led to the loss of China's control over Hong Kong and Kowloon, which were ceded to the British Empire. Macau also became a Portuguese settlement. Between 1855 and 1867, the Punti–Hakka Clan Wars caused further discord in Guangdong and Guangxi. The third plague pandemic of 1855 broke out in Yunnan and spread to the Liangguang region via Guangxi, killing thousands and spreading via water traffic to nearby Hong Kong and Macau.
The turmoil of the 19th century, followed by the political upheaval of the early 20th century, compelled many residents of Guangdong to migrate overseas in search of a better future. Up until the second half of the 20th century, the majority of overseas Chinese emigrated from two provinces of China; Guangdong and Fujian. As a result, there are today many Cantonese communities throughout the world, including in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Americas, the Caribbean and Western Europe, with Chinatowns commonly being established by Cantonese communities. There have been a large number of interracial marriages between Cantonese men and women from other nations (especially from Cuba, Peru, Mexico), as most of the Cantonese migrants were men. As a result, there are many Afro-Caribbeans and South American people of Cantonese descent including many Eurasians.[42]
Unlike the migrants from Fujian, who mostly settled in Southeast Asia, many Cantonese emigrants also migrated to the Western Hemisphere, particularly the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and Burma. Many Cantonese immigrants into the United States became railroad labourers, while many in South America were brought in as coolies. Cantonese immigrants in the United States and Australia participated in the California Gold Rush and the Australian gold rushes of 1854 onwards, while those in Hawaii found employment in sugarcane plantations as contract labourers. These early Cantonese immigrants variously faced hostility and a variety of discriminatory laws, including the prohibition of Chinese female immigrants. The relaxation of immigration laws after World War II allowed for subsequent waves of migration to the Western world from southeastern mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. As a result, Cantonese continues to be widely used by Chinese communities of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macau regional origin in the Western hemisphere, and has not been supplanted by the Mandarin-based Standard Chinese. A large proportion of the early migrants also came from the Siyi region of Guangdong and spoke Taishanese. The Taishanese variant is still spoken in American Chinese communities, by the older population as well as by more recent immigrants from Taishan, in Jiangmen, Guangdong.
Cantonese uprising against the Qing Empire in 1895 let to its naming as the "cradle of the Xinhai Revolution".[43][44][45] Revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen was born in Zhongshan, Guangdong.[46][47] Hong Kong was where he developed his thoughts of revolution and was the base of subsequent uprisings, as well as the first revolutionary newspaper.[48][49] Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary army was largely made up of Cantonese, and many of the early revolutionary leaders were also Cantonese.[50]
A Cantonese gentleman in Qing-era traditional attire, c. 1873–1874
Cantonese people and their culture are centered in Guangdong, Eastern Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macau.
Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, has been one of China's international trading ports since the Tang dynasty. During the 18th century, it became an important centre of the emerging trade between China and the Western world, as part of the Canton System. The privilege during this period made Guangzhou one of the top three cities in the world.[51] Operating from the Thirteen Factories located on the banks of the Pearl River outside Canton, merchants traded goods such as silk, porcelain ("fine china") and tea, allowing Guangzhou to become a prosperous city. Links to overseas contacts and beneficial tax reforms in the 1990s have also contributed to the city's ongoing growth. Guangzhou was named a global city in 2008. The migrant population from other provinces of China in Guangzhou was 40 percent of the city's total population in 2008. Most of them are rural migrants and they speak only standard Chinese.[52]
Hong Kong and Macau are two of the richest cities in the world in terms of GDP per capita and are autonomous SARs (Special Administrative Regions) that are under independent governance from China. Historically governed by the British and Portuguese empires respectively, colonial Hong Kong and Macau were increasingly populated by migrant influxes from mainland China, particularly the nearby Guangdong Province. For that reason, the culture of Hong Kong and Macau became a mixture of Cantonese and Western influences, sometimes described as "East meets West".
Hong Kong Island was first colonised by the British Empire in 1842 with a population of 7,450; however, it was in 1898 that Hong Kong became a British colony, when the British also colonised the New Territories (which constitute 86.2% of Hong Kong's modern territory). It was during this period that migrants from China entered, mainly speaking Cantonese, the prestige variety of Yue Chinese, as a common language. During the following century of British rule, Hong Kong grew into a hub of Cantonese culture and has remained as such since the handover in 1997.
Today Hong Kong is one of the world's leading financial centres and the Hong Kong dollar is the thirteenth most-traded currency in the world.
Macau natives are known as the Tanka people. A dialect similar to Shiqi, originating from Zhongshan in Guangdong, is also spoken in the region.
Parts of Macau were first loaned to the Portuguese by China as a trading centre in the 16th century, with the Portuguese required to administer the city under Chinese authority. In 1851 and 1864, the Portuguese Empire occupied the two nearest offshore islands Taipa and Coloane respectively and Macau officially became a colony of the Portuguese Empire in 1887. Macau was returned to China in 1999.
By 2002, Macau had become one of the world's richest cities[53] and by 2006, it had surpassed Las Vegas to become the world's biggest gambling centre.[54] Macau is also a world cultural heritage site due to its Portuguese colonial architecture.
The term "Cantonese" is used to refer to the native culture, language, and people who can trace their ancestral roots back to the city of Guangzhou. Their influence has spread across the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi.[55]
There are cultural, economic, political, generational and geographical differences in making "Cantonese-ness" in and beyond Guangdong and Guangxi, with the interacting dynamics of migration, education, social developments and cultural representations.[56]
The term "Cantonese language" is sometimes used to refer to the broader group of Yue languages and dialects spoken in Guangdong and Guangxi, although it is used more specifically to describe Gwóngjāu wah (廣州話), the prestige variant spoken in Guangzhou. Gwóngjāu wah is the main language used for education, literature and media in Hong Kong and Macau. It is still widely used in Guangzhou, despite the fact that a large proportion of the city's population is made up by migrant workers from elsewhere in China that speak non-Cantonese variants of Chinese and Standard Chinese.[57] Though in recent years it is slowly falling out of favour with the younger generation [58] prompting fears in Cantonese people that the language may die out. Cantonese language's erosion in Guangzhou is due to a mix of suppression of the language and the mass migration of non-Cantonese speaking people in to the area.
Because of its tradition of usage in music, cinema, literature and newspapers, this form of Cantonese is a cultural mark of identity that distinguishes Cantonese people from speakers of other varieties of Chinese, whose languages are prohibited to have strong influences under China's Standard Mandarin policy. The pronunciation and vocabulary of Cantonese has preserved many features of the official language of the Tang dynasty with elements of the ancient Yue language.[59]Written Cantonese is very common in manhua, books, articles, magazines, newspapers, online chat, instant messaging, internet blogs and social networking websites. Anime, cartoons and foreign films are also dubbed in Cantonese. Some videogames such as Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto III and Resident Evil 6 have substantial Cantonese dialogues.
Woerlou style of roof construction, characteristic of Cantonese houses
Building in Panyu, Guangdong
Building in Zhongshan, Guangdong
Chen Clan academy
Cantonese architecture or Lingnan architecture favors pale colors such as white and grey-green, demonstrates straight rather than curved roof ridges and the use of "woerlou or omega-shaped structures" at the ends, and employs open structures such as balconies, skylights and verandas to accommodate the tropical climate in the south.[60] Buildings are also generally taller than in the north. It also features narrow structures known as "cold alleys" to promote the increase of windspeed, and thus the cooling and ventilation of buildings.
The Hong Kong movie industry was the third-largest movie industry in the world (after Hollywood and Bollywood) for decades throughout the 20th century, with Cantonese-language films viewed and acclaimed around the world for its innovative style.
A statue on the Avenue of Stars, a tribute to Hong Kong Cantonese cinema
Cantonese popular culture through the medium Hong Kong cinema has been responsible for pioneering the development of new genres and styles and paving the path for the rest of Chinese cinema. These innovations include the development of action-comedy genre exemplified in movies such as the God of Gamblers, the pioneering of the comedy-horror genre seen in Mr Vampire, the popularization Chinese cultivation fantasy fiction genres as seen in cult classics and experimental movies rich in special effects such as Chinese Ghost Story and Zu Warriors from Magic Mountain, and leading the way for the use of complex choreography and stunts through Jackie Chan movies such as Police Story.
Cantonese cuisine is one of the "Great Eight Traditions" of Chinese cuisine, has become one of the most renowned types of cuisine around the world, characterized by its variety of cooking methods and use of fresh ingredients, particularly seafood.[61] One of the most famous examples of Cantonese cuisine is dim sum, a variety of small and light dishes such as har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings), siu mai (steamed pork dumplings) and cha siu bao (barbecued pork buns).
Dim Sum, a characteristic part of Cantonese cuisine
Har Gow Dim Sum
Century Egg, a fermented type of hardboiled egg
Roast duck, an important part of Cantonese cuisine
Sun Yat-sen, born in Zhongshan, Guangdong; Chinese revolutionary and founder of the Republic of China
Deng Shichang, admiral and one of the first modern naval officers in China in the late Qing dynasty
Tse Tsan-tai, early Chinese revolutionary of the late Qing dynasty
Kang Youwei was a Chinese scholar, noted calligrapher and prominent political thinker and reformer of the late Qing dynasty.
Liang Qichao was a Chinese scholar, journalist, philosopher and reformist who lived during the Qing dynasty and Republic of China.
Henry Lee Hau Shik, first Finance Minister of the Federation of Malaya and the only major leader of the independence movement not born in Malaya.
Jiang Guangnai, general and statesman in the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China who successfully defended Shanghai City from the Japanese invasion in the 28 January Incident of 1932
Stephen Chow, His mother is Cantonese but his grandfather is from Ningbo. He is actor and film director known for the comedy blockbusters Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle.
Lao Lishi, gold medal in women's 10 meter synchronised platform along with Li Ting.
Su Bingtian, sprinter. He is the reigning Asian champion over 100 metres, was a semi-finalist at the 2012 Summer Olympics and a finalist at the 2015 World Championships.
Liang Wenchong, highest ranked golfer from the People's Republic of China, the only Chinese golfer to have reached the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking.
Zeng Qiliang, the first medal of Chinese male swimmer in world championships.
^Chinese Overseas: Comparative Cultural Issues. Hong Kong University Press. pp. 92–93.
^Chinese Overseas: Comparative Cultural Issues. Hong Kong University Press. pp. 92–93.
^Tao Tao Liu; David Faure, eds. (1996). "Becoming Cantonese, the Ming Dynasty transition". Unity and Diversity_ Local Cultures and Identities in China. Hong Kong Univ Press. p. 37.
^The lexicographer only accepted Canton as a proper noun referring to the city, and considered usages with reference to the province as an “ellipsis”, see Yule & al.[6]
^A. Hamilton (1727) used Canton to refer to both the city and the province. But he used Canton for the city more frequently in the same work, especially when he wrote Canton without reference to “Quangtung”. See Hamilton (1727; pp.224-238) [11]
^ abcMcFadzean, A. J. S.; Todd, D. (1971). "Cooley's anaemia among the tanka of South China". Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 65 (1): 59–62. doi:10.1016/0035-9203(71)90185-4. PMID5092429.
^Jacques Gernet (31 May 1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge University Press. pp. 8–. ISBN978-0-521-49781-7. On the other hand, the diversity of the southern and south-eastern dialects, and also the archaic character of several of them, bears witness to the relative stability of the peoples established in these regions.
^Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, Section 112
^Wu, Chunming (2021), Wu, Chunming (ed.), "Southeastern Peripheries of Huaxia: The Historical-Cultural Interaction and Assimilation from Southern Man and Bai Yue of Mainland to Island Yi and Maritime Fan", The Prehistoric Maritime Frontier of Southeast China: Indigenous Bai Yue and Their Oceanic Dispersal, The Archaeology of Asia-Pacific Navigation, vol. 4, Singapore: Springer, pp. 25–58, doi:10.1007/978-981-16-4079-7_2, ISBN978-981-16-4079-7
^Globalization at the Crossroads, The Case of Southeast China during the pre- and early imperial period, Francis Allard, page 461-462
^Jacques Gernet (31 May 1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge University Press. pp. 126–. ISBN978-0-521-49781-7. At the time of the troubles which marked the reign of Wang Mang (9-23) and the first years of the Han restoration, Chinese emigration to Yunnan, Kwangtung and north and central Vietnam increased considerably.
^Zhidong Hao (2011). Macau History and Society (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 67. ISBN978-988-8028-54-2. Retrieved 4 November 2011. There was indeed a group of Portuguese who became pirates, called "Macau ruffians", or policemen who turned bad, along with "Manila-men" from the Philippines and escaped African slaves. Their fleet attacked "the Cantonese ships when they could get them at an advantage, and murdered their crews with circumstances of great atrocity."55 They were destroyed in Ningbo by a fleet of Chinese pirates with the support of the local Chinese government and other Europeans.
^Unity and diversity: local cultures and identities in China By David Faure [5]
^Xiao, Y. (2017). "Who needs Cantonese, who speaks? Whispers across mountains, delta, and waterfronts". Cultural Studies. 31 (4): 489–522. doi:10.1080/09502386.2016.1236394. S2CID163356492.
^Maher, Tod; Gill, Bob (2013). The Canadian Pro Football Encyclopedia: Every Player, Coach and Game, 1946–2012. Maher Sports Media. p. 141. ISBN978-0983513667.
^Robert Simon Jr. (28 October 2007). "Top 100 living geniuses". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
^[6]
"I am Cantonese. I can speak a bit of the dialect and also some Hokkien. I am a Raja Permaisuri Agong with Chinese parentage", said Tunku Azizah, who is the wife of Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah.
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Woerlou style of roof construction, characteristic of Cantonese houses
Building in Panyu, Guangdong
Building in Zhongshan, Guangdong
Chen Clan academy
Dim Sum, a characteristic part of Cantonese cuisine
Har Gow Dim Sum
Century Egg, a fermented type of hardboiled egg
Roast duck, an important part of Cantonese cuisine
Char Siu, a characteristic Cantonese dish
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