My Hypothesis Regarding Guangdong Ren Genetics

["C. Louie" <qingjing@sj.bigger.net>]

Hello ChunFat,

> Long time no mail, how do you do?

It's nice to hear from you. I'm doing O.K. spending my free time
wandering around the library looking for something interesting to
enlighten myself with.

> Please commnet if you have time. 
> Best regards,
> Lau Cunfat (LiuZinfad)

> Before that we were all Guangdongren, ethnic Han. 

I don't think the modern GuangDongRen should discount their ethnic-Yue
roots. I think that before the Tang Dynasty, the Yue Kingdom consisted
of GuangDong, GuangXi, AnNam (N.Vietnam), and perhaps HaiNan Island. I
remember you mentioned that there were approximately 1 million native
ethnic-Yue in GuangDong before the Tang Dynasty and that most of them
were slaughtered based on recorded history. I assume that Western
GuangDong has a very challenging topography (since I haven't been there
to survey the land) making it difficult for a Han army advancement on
land to slaughter most of the ethnic-Yue. I have a feeling that before
the slaughter, many of the ethnic-Yue found refuge among the pre-Tang
Dynasty ethnic-Zhuang community in GuangXi via the Xi (West) River,
ethnic-She in pockets of GuangDong and ethnic-Tonka along the coast of
GuangDong, ethnic-Nung of AnNam, and ethnic-Li of HaiNan. And when the
HanRen established GuangDong as a Tang colony, it is possible that
Western GuangDong was repopulated by the ethnic-Yue when it was safe to
come back as merchants and laborers. 

Assuming that the "schl-" initial is a native Yue pronunciation sound
suggests to me an intermarriage between the HanRen and YueRen. I
remember that you had mentioned that this sound also exists in PuTian
near FuJian and thought that maybe "schl-" initial could have been an
original sound of the HanRen that was lost in KeJia-hua and
GuangZhou-hua during their Tang-Sung Dynasty migration southward. I have
my doubts to that claim of sound loss. From what I learned, the SiYi
(SzeYup) district has an agricultural growing season for only 4 months
in a year which is probably true for much of Western GuangDong where tea
can't be grown; therefore, the local SiYiRen's livelihood depended as
being coastal sea merchants and so the easiest way to ship goods in and
out of SiYi would be it's river ports enroute to the Pacific Ocean. It
is possible that the population in PuTian, FuJian was a pre-Tang trading
colony of the ethnic-Yue of Western GuangDong because of the tea trade
since the reputation of FuJian tea was supposed to be the best in all of
China as well as being the closest source of production/distribution for
the Western GuangDong market. And so, the ethnic-Tonka could be the
decendants of the ethnic Yue traders of this particular trade route
bridging the pre-Tang Yue language of Western GuangDong and PuTian,
FuJian. And having evolved into a coastal/sea dwelling community, the
ethnic-Tonka could have avoided the Han slaughter of the native Yue by
fleeing to safety on boats to places such as HaiNan Island or just
living at sea on their sea vessels. So when it was politically safe to
migrate back to GuangDong, the ethnic-Tonka could have intermarried with
the Tang Dynasty HanRen resulting in the hybridizing of an identity we
now culturally accept as TangRen. As a result of trading and interaction
among Tang Dynasty GuangZhouRen and ChaoZhouRen since both communities
dominated city-port commerce, the modern ethnic-Tonka could have lost
the "schl-" sound during or after the transition of the Tang-Sung
Dynasties. Let's not forget that GuangDong did not become fully
incorporated into the Chinese empire until the Tang Dynasty therefore
the name TangRen would have been a non-controversial identity for those
ancient GuangDongRen who were not ethnically Han nor citizens of the Han
Court of China. 

Erstwhile, the surviving ethnic-She assuming they too are ethnic-Yue
decendents of the pre-Tang Dynasty may have hybridized with the Hakka
and Cantonese communities in GuangDong. And because of the Xi (West)
River as the trading route into ethnic-Zhuang territory, the genes of
the GuangZhouRen (as a result of being at the delta and commercial
center of this trade route) could have been reshuffled and infused with
the Yue decendents of those who fled to GuangXi Province during the
pre-Tang Dynasty slaughter of the ethnic-Yue tribe. Also, I would not
rule out the possibility that the ethnic-Zhuang are also direct
descendents of the pre-Tang Dynasty Yue tribe.

And since I don't have genetic data for comparative analysis to support
my position, I hypothesize that perhaps the common genes that link
Cantonese, West GuangDongRen, Hakka, Haklo, Hokkien, as part of a
greater TangRen family is based on our Yue ancestry just as equally or
with greater emphasis than our Han ancestry. Perhaps a different
perspective on gene analysis of comparing Hakka and Cantonese can be
made. We know that the Hakka took the east-southern route to GuangDong
via JiangXi and the Cantonese took the southern route to GuangDong via
JiangXi (both pre-Tang Dynasty Han groups originating from the river
basin from the Central Plains of China). Originally, I had thought that
the Western GuangDongRen (those with "schl-" in their active vernacular)
reached Western GuangDong via the river basin of HuNan Province but it
was very interesting when you told me that the grammar of SiYi-hua (i.e.
TaiShan-hua) resembles the grammar (unfamiliar to a speaker of Standard
Cantonese) of populations in JiangXi Province with the "schl-"
pronunciation absent. This Han population in their southern migration
must have reached Western GuangDong (by water via the Pearl River Delta
to the coastline) where they had to have intermarried with Han migrants
traveling south via the riverway of HuNan Province. Now if there is a
trace of any "schl-" sound in any HuNan dialects along the path of
southward migration, I will be convinced that "schl-" is an original
sound of the ancient ethnic-Han language. However, no one has revealed
any link linguistical link as of yet.

Another approach to analyze our common heritage is by comparing gene
sample of rural village population groups who neither identify as modern
GuangDongRen nor TangRen and who live along the Tang-Sung Dynasty
migration routes to GuangDong from JiangXi and HuNan. That may reveal
the ratio of Han to Yue genetic relationship among us fellow TangRen.

> Free migration between Hakka, Cantonese and Hoklo before 1600, or end
> of Ming dynasty, did not cause the people to feel that they changed their
> identity before the label was gotten much later. 

The ethnic-Yue identity should have been aborbed by all these groups by
that period. The ethnic-Yue genetic identity could have intermarried
into ethnic-Hoklo via the ethnic-Tonka as both of these groups depended
on the sea for their livelihood and may have made business/marriage
transactions at sea or on coastal islands including HaiNan. And let's
not forget the possibility of intermarriage with the ethnic-Li minority
who may also be ethnic-Yue descendents. The ethnic-Li live in both
HaiNan and GuangDong provinces thus suggesting another genetic bridge
between all of us TangRen.  

Yours sincerely,
Charles Louie