Yue (peoples)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yue (Traditional Chinese: 越, 粵, 鉞; Hanyu Pinyin: Yuè; Wade-Giles: Yüeh4; also seen as Yueh, Yuet, Việt; ancient pronunciation might be Ðvjεt) refers to ancient semi-Sinicized or non-Sinicized Chinese peoples of southern China, originally those along the eastern coastline of present-day Zhejiang province and Shanghai. In archaic Chinese, a number of characters (越, 粵, 鉞) were often used interchangeably to represent the same meaning.

1 Origins and ancient usage
2 Sinification and displacement
3 Legacy of the Yue
4 Yue-Ren-Ge (Song of the Yue Boatman)
5 Modern usage
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Origins and ancient usage

In ancient times, the Chinese referred to the peoples to their south collectively as the Yue. Historical texts often refer to the Hundred Yue tribes (Chinese: 百越; pinyin: bǎi yuè; Vietnamese: Bách Việt). Historian Luo Xianglin has suggested that these peoples shared a common ancestry with the Xia Dynasty. There is evidence that the Yue peoples held a common identity and are Daic. The "Treatise of Geography" in Han Shu notes: "In the seven or eight thousand miles from Jiaozhi (Vietnamese: Giao Chỉ - old Vietnam) to Kuaiji (southern Jiangsu or northern Zhejiang), the Hundred Yue are everywhere, each with their own clans." Just as the term Celt was used by the Greeks to describe what they perceived to be a broad cultural group, so the term Yue was a culturally relative term for the ancient Chinese. Also like "Celt", Yue is now used in a number of different ways. (see Modern usage below).

Ethnolinguists have suggested that the pronunciaton of Yue may be related to a type of hemp produced in what is now Zhejiang. The character itself is related to the character for "ceremonial axe" (鉞), usually considered a symbol of royal or imperial authority. A number of stone axes have been found in the area of Hangzhou, and there is evidence that the ceremonial axe was a southern invention.

Ancient texts mention a number of Yue peoples. Most of these names survived into early imperial times and can be roughly construed as cultural groupings:

Gou-Wu	句吳	Hmong-Mien	KeMan-sinolized
Yu-Yue	於越	Major Yue	Ke Ðac-Daic
Yang-Yue	揚越	Local Yue / Yangtze Yue[1]	Don Ðac-Daic
Gan-Yue	干越	Water Yue (now Kam and Sui[2])	Klam Ðac-Daic
Min-Yue	閩越	Snake Yue	Men Ðac-Daic
Ye-Lang	夜郎	Bamboo Yue(now Glao[3])	Yerong-Daic
Nan-Yue	南越	Southern Yue	Nam Ðac-Daic
Dong-Yue	東越	Eastern Yue	Son Ðac-Daic
Shan-Yue	山越	Mountain Yue	Loc Ðac-Daic
Luo-Yue	雒越	Mountain Yue (now Zhuang and Lao[4])	Kloc Ðac-Daic
Ou-Yue	甌越	Outer Yue	Pou Ðac-Daic

[edit] Sinification and displacement

From the Ninth century BC, two northern Yue peoples, the Gou-Wu(Hmong-Mien) and Yu-Yue(Daic), were increasingly influenced by their Chinese neighbours to their north. These two states were based in the areas of what is now southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang respectively. Their aristocratic elite learnt the written Chinese language, adopted Chinese political institutions and military technology. Traditional accounts attribute the cultural change to the Grand Earl of Wu (吳太伯), a Zhou prince who had fled to the south. The marshy lands of the south gave Gou-Wu and Yu-Yue unique characteristics. They did not engage in extensive agrarian agriculture, relying instead more heavily on aquaculture. Water transport was paramount in the south, so the two states became advanced in shipbuilding and developed riverine warfare technology. They were also known for their fine swords.

In the Spring and Autumn Period, the two states, now called Wu(Hmong-Mien) and Yue(Daic), were becoming increasingly involved in Chinese politics. In 512 BC, Wu launced a large expedition against the large state of Chu, based in the Middle Yangtze River. A similar campaign in 506 succeeded in sacking the Chu capital Ying. Also in that year, war broke out between Wu and Yue and continued with breaks for the next three decades. In 473 BC, the Yue king Goujian finally conquered Wu and was acknowledged by the northern states of Qi and Jin. In 333 BC, Yue was in turn conquered by Chu.

After the unification of China by Qin Shi Huang, it became incorporated into the Chinese empire. The Qin armies also advanced south along the Xiang River to modern Guangdong and set up commanderies along the main communication routes. Throughout the Han Dynasty period two groups of Yue were identified, that of the Nan-Yue in the far south, who lived mainly in the area of what is now Guangdong, Guangxi, and Vietnam; and that of the Min-Yue who lay to the southeast, centred on the Min River in modern Fujian.

Sinification of these peoples was brought about by a combination of imperial military power, regular settlement and Chinese refugees. The difficulty of logistics and the malarial climate in the south made the displacement and eventual sinification of the Yue peoples a slow process. When the Chinese came into contact with local Yue peoples, they often wrested control of territory from them or subjugated them by force. When a serious rebellion broke out in 40 AD by the Trung Sisters in what is now modern Vietnam, a force of some 10,000 imperial troops was dispatched under General Ma Yuan. Between 100 and 184 no less than seven outbreaks of violence took place, often calling for strong defensive action by the Chinese.

As Chinese migrants gradually increased, the Yue were gradually forced into poorer land on the hills and in the mountains. Unlike the nomadic peoples of Central Asia, such as the Xiongnu or the Xianbei, however, the Yue peoples never posed any serious threat to Chinese expansion or control. Sometimes they staged small scale raids or attacks on Chinese settlements - termed "rebellions" by traditional historians. The Chinese for their part regarded them as being highly uncivilised and prone to fight one another.

While most Yue peoples were eventually assimilated into Han Chinese culture, the Kam-Tai (Daic):Zhuang, Buyi, Dai, Sui(Shui), Kam(Dong), Hlai(Li), Mulam, Maonan, Ong-Be(Lingao), Thai, Lao, Shan and the Vietnamese people retained their ethnic identity. The Vietnamese people eventually broke free from Chinese rule in the 10th century.

[edit] Legacy of the Yue

The fall of the Han Dynasty and the succeeding period of division speeded up the process of sinification. Periods of instability and war in northern China, such as the Northern and Southern Dynasties and during the Song Dynasty led to mass migrations of Chinese. Intermarriage and cross-cultural dialogue has led to a mixture of Chinese and non-Chinese peoples in the south. By the Tang Dynasty, the term "Yue" had largely become a regional designation rather than a cultural one. A state in modern Zhejiang province during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, for example, called itself "Wu-Yue". Likewise, the "Viet" in "Vietnam" (literally, "south of Viet") is a cognate of the "Yue".

The Pronunciation Variance of Yue(Li,Hui 2002[5])

Ðvjεt→Ðvεt&Vjεt

Ðvεt→Ðεt(/Ðεc)→Ðait(/Daic)→Ðai→Dai/Tai/Thai/Ai(Ai-Sui[6]Ai-Cham[7])

Vjεt→Viet→Wiet→Juet→Jue(Yue)→Jei(BouYei[8])→Ja(Yerong[9])

The impact of Yue culture on Chinese culture has not been determined authoritatively but it is clear that it is significant. The languages of the ancient states of Wu(Hmong-Mien) and Yue(Daic) form the basis the modern Wu language^{[citation needed]} and to some extent the Min languages of Fujian. Many linguists today are convinced that the Wu dialects have a Tai-Kadai(Daic) language family substratum from phonological traits such as implosive initials to the large number of shared vocabulary (Li, Hui 2001), and possible Hmong-Mien substratum in Wu dialects have also been hypothesized (Ballard 1985). Although Shanghainese is Sinitic, suggestions of a non-Sinitic indigenous substratum can still be found in Shanghainese word formation and structure. The core basic vocabulary in Shanghainese is significantly different from Mandarin, with many words instead being cognates with Tai-Kadai(Daic) languages. Wu dialects in Shanghai's rural suburbs have as many as 100 cognates with Tai(Daic) languages within one thousand common words surveyed (Li, Hui 2001). Linguistic anthropologists have also determined that a number of Chinese words can be traced to ancient Yue words. An example is the word "lai" means "short fast stream or rapids" and jiang" (江), meaning river. Remnants of the Yue peoples and their culture can be seen in Daic (Kam-Tai) minorities in china.

[edit] Yue-Ren-Ge (Song of the Yue Boatman)

Language of the Yue. Yue-Ren-Ge(Song of the Yue Boatman), It is a song sung by a governess entertaining a young Yue Prince that was deciphered and believed to represent an early form of a Daic/Tai-Kadai language, transcribed into Chinese characters and 'rendered into Chu' (Chu shuo 楚说), i.e. into a poetic form of the Chuci 楚辞, by a native from Chu in 538 b.c. (Shuiyuan 11.13: 89; Wei 1981, Zheg-Zhang 1991).

Yue-Ren-Ge:

[Daic written in sinolect] 滥兮抃草？滥予昌冱？泽予昌州？州湛州焉，乎秦胥胥。缦予乎昭?澶秦踰渗。惿随河湖。

[Daic] Gaylam geg bjan tsor? Galam jag tsorn qor? Dxak jag tsorn dzor? Dzor tzan dzor gejan, Ha tzen ziagu ziagor. Morn jag ha tzor, Djan dxin dje zammor, Digor ziwa ga gugor.

[English word by word]Evening this is which? River where inside boat? This where at place? The prince kingdom see, Wish visit heart soul. Village which wish arrive? Very hope tour play. Child think self feel.

[English from Daic]Which evening is this? Where has our boat arrived along the river? Where does my heart go? When I see you prince, I always wish to touch your heart. That makes me distracted. I hope to go everywhere together with you. I feel I am like a child, can you feel it?

[Chu] 今夕何夕兮搴舟中流，今日何日兮得与王子同舟。蒙羞被好兮不訾诟耻。心几烦而不绝兮得知王子。山有木兮木有枝，心悦君兮君不知。

[English from Chu]Which night is it? Our boat goes in the river. What is the date? I go with the prince. I'm shy to say love and thinking of public feelings. Always distracted as I am with you, but you don't know. My heart is like that tree on the hill and branches on the tree. Can you feel me?

[edit] Modern usage

In modern Chinese, the characters of "越" and "粵" (both yuè) are differentiated. The former is used to refer to the original territory of the Yue Kingdom, the area of what is now northern Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, and Shanghai, especially the areas around Shaoxing and Ningbo. The opera of Zhejiang, for example, is called "Yue Opera" (yueju, 越劇). The first character "越" is also associated with Vietnam. The second character "粵" (yuè) is associated with the southern province of Guangdong. Yue language (粵語) is a subdivision of the Chinese language popularly called "Cantonese". Its standard form and regional dialects are spoken in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau and in many overseas Chinese communities around the world.