Yue and Cantonese

[Lau Chunfat <96981339r@polyu.edu.hk>]

Dear Dr. Li,

Thank you very much for your comments.

The term Hakka is often abused among us. You can see in Mr. Chung's message
that follows you, he interpret "Hakka" as anyone who came from the north
irrespective of the date in the pasty two thousand years. This means:
except for the aboringinal Yue people, all "Chinese" are Hakka!!! "Chinese"
means Cantonese, Min, Hakka and other Chinese dialects speakers. This is
even broad than the sense of what Luo Xianglin wanted to bring.

I do not agree that Guangdong is already densely populted before the
arrival of Chinese (Cantonese and Hakka speakers), here are figures quoted
from a historical census by Liang Fangzhong (1980) for the Guangdong Province:

Table 1
Year         AD2    AD140    AD464    AD742  AD820   AD980  1080  1180   1230
Population   242K   632K     212K     1.28M   67K    41.6K   2.6M  2.3M  2.0M

The figures shows that although Guangdong faced population blooms in
Eastern Han (AD140) and Middle Tang (AD742), it was NEVER densely populated
before the massive immigration at the beginning of the Song Dynasty
(AD980-1080). Note that it was strongly depopulated between Tang and Song
(AD820-980). The mass immigration from the north coincide with Luo's "Third
Wave". But one thing to remind is that these people concentrate themselves
in the Pearl River Delta, not Jiaying prefecture. From 980 to 1080,
Guangzhou's population rose from 8K to 64K, which is about one fourth of
the whole province. These people were definitely Chinese, not YUE. These
are also proved by their genealogical records. Even if you assume that ALL
the people left in Guangdong in AD980 are Yue (which is IMPOSSIBLE),
Chinese from the North are five times the aboringines in a matter of a
century. The case in Guangzhou is even more extreme. Therefore, it is
almost safe to say that the people in Guangdong at the beginning. For
Cantonese speaker (Guangzhou residents), their Chinese blood  should be
more than 87.5%. Although it is more difficult to calculate such figures
for Hakka speakers, Zhao et al's report is a very good reference (see
bleow) to show that Hakka and Cantonese are more or less the same in human
genetics.

If we cannot distinguish Cantonese from YUE, then we are not in a good
position to study Hakka. Please read the paper by Zhao et al, 1991 (Acta
genetica sinica, [Yichuan Xuebao], 18(2), 97-108). They showed that among
blood samples in 74 locations, Guangzhou is most similar to Meixian in the
immunoglobins, a reliable indicator of the relatedness.

Even if you don't like it, I would conclude that both Cantonese and Hakka
speakers are blood-related, but bloodily spearated. We were brothers of the
Tang tribe, but view each other as barbarians. The only different between
Cantonese and Hakka lies in the mentality: Cantonese emphasise that they
are master of Guangdong, but we are misled to think that our homes are in
the far north.

Don't view your Cantonese brothers as barbarians, they are not YUE, they
are as Chinese as you and me. Love your neighbour, teach your children that
we are the master of Eastern Guangdong, or a future Jiaying Province.
Claiming a separate province will end the dispute, otherwise we will be
force-assimilated. In 2200 there will be hardly any people speaking our
tongue. 

Liu Zinfad