Re: Hakka story by Lee Meow Lock

["Dylan W.H. Sung" <mabr12@dial.pipex.com>]

Dear Lee Meow Lock,

I have found your article that you asked me to read at

http://merlion.singnet.com.sg/~yhlee/hakka.html

Below are a few comments which I'd like to make.

[Troops sent to W. Guangdong - 1st migration]
This bears some resemblance to some of the information that I was looking
into about Burma.  A Burmese wrote to me to say that he saw some
resemblance in Hakka (H) and Burmese (B) in the words five and fish, H. ng2
ng3, B. nga for both. It seems that Burmese comes under the classification
of Burmo-Tibetan which is also related remotely to Chinese. 

 An.Ch  English Burmese Hakka Cantonese Mandarin Japanese 
 ngwo   fish    nga     ng    yue       wu       go       
 nguo   five    nga     ng    ng        yu       gyo/go   

The 'ancient chinese' is from R.A.D Forrest's (The Chinese Language)
rendering of Bernhard Karlgren's Grammat Serica. The first explains much of
Karlgren's work in reconstructing the sounds of 'ancient Chinese', nowadays
refered to as Middle Chinese. Perhaps an expert in this field could comment
more. Though Japanese is not within the Chinese group of languages, it does
contain lots of borrowings of chinese sounds of the past.

Apparently, Burma had some contact with Chinese people of the Chinese Han
Dynasty. 

Paraphrased quote from "A History of Chinese Civilisation" by Jacque
Gernet , ASBN 0-521-42130-9 (1982) Cambridge University Press:

"The reason seems to be that there were some rebel tribes in China's
Western Yunnan province. An expeditions in 86 and 82 BC extended the
Chinese contacts into the west, near to Burma. The Shan Kingdom of Northern
Burma sent tribute to LuoYang (then capital) about 100 AD. Ebassies were 
then continued in 94, 97  and 120 AD. "

It is likely that Burmese has had longer contacts with the Chinese
language. In order to have any diplomatic intercourse at all, the Burmese
envoys or embassadors need may have had to learn Chinese for the diplomatic
missions to have been successful in China. From the first contacts onwards,
there would have been some two way traffic between the two regions.

Today there are many ethnic Chinese living in Burma, but I don't know if
they were any descendants of the expeditions 2000 years ago.

[Xiongnu]
Xiongnu are Huns. They formed were found in the nothern central borders of
the Wei Dynasty at the time of the Three Kingdoms.

[On Hakka as a language]

Researchers have said of my subdialect of Hakka, that it contains Min
influences. I would agree. The term young woman : ©h®Q 'gu neung' in
Cantonese, gu niang in Mandarin and in my dialect 'bu ngiong', the
pronunciation 'bu' is typically a Min influence.


[Yeh/Yue/Yueh]
As for Yue/Yeh/Yueh dialect, perhaps someone better versed than me can
shine some light on it. As far as I know, in the CunQiu period, there was a
small state of Wu (capital was near present day SuZhou (Soochow)/ Shanghai)
which was strong and influential. However, its neighbour Yue whose leader
was ¤Ä½î was able to overthrow the Wu king ¤Ò®t in 473 BC. It is said that
these Wu liked to tattoo themselves, and were distinctly non Chinese, and
even thought as barbarians, though the ruling class say they are in some
way related to Zhou (Chou) rulers. It is also thought that they assimilated
Chinese culture into their lives before they were wiped out. Not until
after Han times was the Yue region absorbed as part of China.  So, the
influences upon Hakka could have been obtained along the way down the
migratory route southward. 

[Han ? and Hakka migration]
As for not being 100% Han, I don't think there is a single chinese alive
who can prove that they are or aren't. There have been so much population
movement over the lifetime of China that making any such statements like
that is just to politicise the issue. The area which was originally the
birthplace of Chinese civilisation is small compared to the massive sprawl
we have seen in the past, and today. With a new dynastic domination, the
land is often redistributed and then peace reigns until land and taxes,
corruption and so forth causes strife, and then the collapse of another
dynasty. After each cycle, people will be induced or even coerced to move
so that this creates population movement whether there is conflict of Hakka
(or other people's) interest or not. 

[eyebrow theory]

Interesting to say the least. I can say however, that Chinese people from
the mainland seem different in their facial appearance (amongst other
things such as dress). That is, as far as I have experienced by my visits
to HK and the border region of HK SAR and Shenzhen. I am not sure if this
is due to a different cultural trait, or if it is influenced by geography
and living circumstances. 


Dylan.

PS, I am sending a copy of this to the Hakka Forum.