Talk:Yue (peoples)

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[edit] Relationship to Vietnam?

Are the "Nan Yue" people mentioned here the Vietnamese? "Nan Yue" becomes "Nam Viet" in Vietnamese. Vietnamese people claim this is the old name for Vietnam. It would be good if someone familiar with Vietnamese and Chinese history could explain how Vietnam fits into all this. The Vietnamese are no doubt one of the many ethnicities the chinese called Yue. Carl Kenner 13:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The Vietnamese were but one of the countless Yue peoples spread over a huge geographic region stretching from Vietnam to Shanghai. Nanyue was an ancient kingdom founded by a former Chinese general named Zhao Tuo. The kingdom included much of southern China, including Guangxi, Guangdong, and perhaps parts of Yunnan. Later on, Zhao Tuo would expand his kingdom to include much of modern nothern Vietnam. So strictly speaking, Nam Viet isn't an old name for Vietnam as it included many non-Vietnamese territories and peoples.
The modern name of Vietnam does come from this sometime in the 18th century. Originally called Dai Viet, the leader of Vietnam asked the Chinese emperor Qianlong for permission to name his state Nam Viet ("southern Yue"). Qianlong instead changed the name ordering to Vietnam ("south of Yue").--Yuje 14:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
See the discussion about the Luoyue below. DHN 23:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yue (peoples) instead of Yue (people)

Perhaps this page should be moved to "Yue (peoples)" since the Yue were not a single group of people but were a collection of culturally heterogenous peoples who lived in various parts of southern China over a long period of time. --Yu Ninjie 00:47, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV needed

A lot of information was added by 194.206.179.4, but it's hardly neutral. I don't want to mass-revert everything, but it certainly needs to be NPOVized. --Yuje 01:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

I almost never say this, but most of this article is raw jingoism. - Gilgamesh 08:54, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Canton / Guangzhou is the Han capital?! Seriously, someone is completely delusional here... I'm beginning to have serious doubts about the contributions of the aforementioned user. Do you think we should revert and start over, checking each fact and reintroducing bit by bit? -- ran (talk) 16:49, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

I've appealed for comments on Wikipedia talk:China-related topics notice board. -- ran (talk) 17:14, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on the recent edits

In ancient times, what is known as China today consisted of many small states and principalities. The states at the border of the Continent are referred to as YUET (Cantonese) or YUE (Mandarin). Etymologically, this ideograph is a relative term which merely means "at the extreme" or "exceeding". Geographical designations which include this term would thus mean that the location was exceeding the existent geopolitical boundary that has been consolidated, or at the extreme of the known geopolitical boundary. "Yue-nan" (Mandarin), "Yuet-nam" (Cantonese), "Yiet-nam" (Minnan) i.e. "Vietnam" (Vietnamese) thus means "that which lies beyond / that which exceeds the South".

Needs to be cleaned up, but is relevent to the subject and can be added to the article.

To the land-locked Northern tribes (beifangren) who have never seen beyond the flat cold plains and lonely nomadic deserts, the warmer climes of the states in the South became increasingly seen as the exotic, the sensual, the sophisticated, the mysterious. It is in this way that they collectively referred to their neighboring tribes in the South - the YUE peoples or the Southerners (nanfangren).

Other articles include information on Chinese regional stereotypes, but I'm not sure how true these are (I suspect not).

The modern Yue Chinese however, are considered by many to be the purest genetic correlation to the Ancient Chinese because while in the North, Manchu invasions have brought about shifts in genetic mapping, through intermarriage, in the South, after the fall of the Song Chinese Dynasty, genetic mapping has been isolated from Manchus and Mongolians from the North because of the geographical obstacle posed by the Yangtze River. In many ways, Southern China was an isolated political entity for thousand of years until the invasion by the Europeans who came first as well-meaning missionaries but then later to pillage and rape. Until today, Chinese from South China do not refer themselves as Chinese - etymologically referring to the Ch'ing (Qing) dynasty ruling by the Manchus from the North. Southern Chinese refer themselves as the people of the Tang Dynasty or sometimes rarely as Hans. These two terms refer to ancient Chinese dynasties and many Southern Chinese continue to identify themselves by these empires.
These differences explain the different paradigms, cultural identities, and methods of industrialisation in China today, as evidenced by the development of Hong Kong into a global capital in the South and Beijing into a world-class capital.

This really doesn't have any relevence to the article, and isn't true, to boot. That Chinese married ancient Yue people would be counter to the claims of genetic purity. The rest is completely irrelevant to a discussion on Yue peoples.

Throughout the Han Dynasty period, due to their superior agricultural techniques, sophisticated social organization and advanced food storage and preservation techniques, such as drying, bottling and chemical preservation of fish, eggs, meats, the territorial expansions led by the Yue Chinese helped to expand the Ancient Empire even further, expanding the Ancient Chinese Empire to the limits of the Indochinese Peninsular, including that of the Nan-Yue in the far south (modern-day Vietnam means "far south" in ideographs), who lived mainly in the area of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Vietnam; and that of the Min-Yue who lay to the northeast, centred on the Min River in modern Fujian. The modern day Chinese population in Taiwan and Singapore comprise mainly of Chinese from this area, known as Minnan.

The next series of edits are also inaccurate. Guangdong wasn't the capital of the Qin or Han dynasties. Not sure about the claim of food technologies. That ancient Yue were Chinese or that they helped expand the Chinese empire is incorrect. The mention of the relations between Nanyue, Vietnam, Min-Yue is useful, however. The next couple of paragraphs are either irrelevent or bunk.

One of the modern day usage of this word, without direct link to the ancient usage, is to designate the Cantonese-speaking population , its civilisation, culture, identity and language. More often than not, it is now merely used to denote the linguistic grouping out of the various Chinese vernacular variants i.e. YUE is the Cantonese vernacular.

This happens to be true. Cantonese is called the Yue langauge, Cantonese opera is named Yue opera, Cantonese food is Yue food, and the abbreviation for Guangdong is Yue.

However, the Han Imperial Court uner Qin Shi Huang was also a brutal, vicious and ruthless Dynasty, sacrificing millions of Han Chinese lives in constructing the Great Wall of China. In addition, in expanding Southwards, when in contact with local peoples south of the Yue on the Continent, they often wrested control of territory from nomadic tribes or subjugated them by military might. The regime also became corrupt, heavily taxing the Yue population and oppressing its poor peasants. When a serious rebellion broke out in 40 AD by the Trung Sisters in modern-day 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 Imperial Court. Such oppression was more common on the Chinese Continent whenever the Emperor became corrupt and raised higher taxes.
I'm afraid the first sentence contains a factual error. The Han by virtue of being Post Qin, cannot be under Qin Shi Huang, if "uner" is a typo for "under". I also believe you must include which Han dynasty you mean, as it was interceeded by the Xin dynasty or interregnum. Dylanwhs 20:03, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)


This might be relevent as part of the history of the Yue region. However it needs to be cleaned up and incorporated into the text better. I frankly can't find anything else in edits worth redeeming. My opinion would be to revert, and then incorporate selected additions to the text. --Yuje 09:45, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Yep, agreed. -- ran (talk) 19:36, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Luoyue

Could someone tell me who the 駱越 (Luoyue) people are according to Chinese sources? Vietnamese sources hold that the Vietnamese people are the descendants of the Lạc Việt (駱越) and Âu Việt (瓯越) (hence An Duong Vuong's kingdom Âu Lạc), and people such as the Trung Sisters were from the Lạc clan. DHN 23:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hundred Yue

In his The Birth of Vietnam ISBN 0520074173 Keith Weller Taylor explains the name Hundred Yue as follows (p.14/15, names are in Wade-Giles):

  • In 333 B.C., Ch'u conquered Yüeh. Eighteen years later, the northern state of Ch'in conquered Shu. While a portion of the Shu ruling class eventually took refuge in Ch'ue, the Yüeh ruling class scattered southward along the coast, where it established many small kingdoms and principalities that became known to the Chinese as the Hundred Yüeh.
  • Four of these realms are known to history. The Chinese called the largest of them Nan Yüeh, 'Southern Yüeh'; it was centered on the mouth of the Hsi River in the vicinity of modern Canton. Second in size was Min Yüeh in Fu-chien. Eastern Ou, also called Yüeh of the Eastern Sea, was located in southern Che-chiang at modern Wen-chou (Yung-chia). Western Ou lay in the upper basin of the Hsi River in modern Kuang-hsi.

For this Keith Weller Taylor refers to: Jao Tsung-i, 'Wu Yüeh wen-hua' in: The Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 41, part 4 (1969) pp. 609-36.

So I was wondering:

  1. Should there be made a difference in the article between Yue (as a collective name for southern peoples in general) and Hundred Yue refering to states on Yue territory but founded by members of the ruling class of the state of Yue extinguished by Chu?
  2. Does Lo Hsiang-lin refer to Yue as a collective name of a people or does he refer to the Hundred Yue and so connecting the ruling family of the warring state Yue to the ancient Xia dynasty? Yue is a general name given by the Chinese to the people living in southern China. To me it seems unlikely those people connect themselves with an ancient Chinese dynasty. However it seems likely the ruling elite of the state of Yue did (and so its successor states did also).
    Guss2 17:21, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Both the Yue and the Chu were "kingdoms" under the "Son of Heaven" of the Zhou dynasty. They were very much symbolically connected with the Zhou dynasty. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Language

The article doesn't mention anything on the languages of the Yue. Did they speak Chinese languages or even another branch of Sino-tibetan or something entirely different?

Well, a little research show that they originally spoke Sino-tibetan, Kradai, Mon-Khmer and possibly Austronesian. You can check Joshua project for a list of ethnic minorities in China. Many people who were originally there left thousand of years ago, including most of the Mon-Khmer, Tai, Tibetan-Burmans and all of the Austronesian, so it is complicate to tell what languages they originally spoke. At times like this, they rely on linguistic studies from old chinese and the oracle bones script.

Classicrats 08:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IPA of what?

The opening line has an IPA " IPA: [Ðvjεt]; ". What language does this refer to? I'm removing it in the interim. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Transliterations of 'Yue'

Could we actually have a section about how the various transliterations of 'Yue' came about please. We also need some clear answers as to whether 'Viet' (as applied in English) is still a synonym of 'Yue'. Recently, someone at the talk page for Vietnamese people claimed that only Vietnamese people can be called 'Viet', a claim that appears to contradict the usage of the word in English language academia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.105.145.4 (talk) 11:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About the external links

The first link 'ANCIENT YUE SPOKEN LANGUAGE AND RICE CULTURE' is extremely offensive; it purports downright Sino-centric views. I urge all editors to seriously examine why it is there in the first place and to remove the link if appropriate. 122.105.146.168 (talk) 13:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Even if that may be, removing the link is in my opinion an act of censorship (see WP:CENSOR. It's better to point out the problem of sinocentrism with this website as an example than to omit it, because readers would not know there are "offensive" content out there, and when they fall upon it, how are they to make a distinction if the only way we handle these situations is by hiding it under the rug? Yellowtailshark (talk) 03:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the disputed link would in fact be a textbook example of Sinocentric views. However, I believe that it would be more appropriate to use the web page in question to illustrate the problems of Sinocentrism in an article that actually addresses that concept. A corollary of this is that links to such a website should not be placed in an article such as Yue (peoples) (which is really meant to describe, among related matters, who the Yue (or Viet) peoples really were). Therefore, I have removed the offending link once again.
Actually you don't need in a separate article but to include it as a section within this article. WP:NPOV suggests that we describe the conflict in information. The link is an essay published from a university. Even if there is bias, who is to say it is or is not "credible"? And it is likely there are far more sources that will tell of the Yue/Viet history similarly. I'm not going to go into a revert war with you over a link, but I have to advise that if you have a problem with certain sources, you should find other reliable sources to counteract the bias and describe the conflict within the article, for example, "Most Chinese sources say... but Western sources say..." Yellowtailshark (talk) 20:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
By the way, there was no need to revert the recent edits regarding the fate of the Yue/Viet peoples. The contents of the section in question is clearly meant to be about both Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese peoples. 122.105.144.183 (talk) 06:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
It says many of the ethnic groups have their own nation-states today. The region in question only has at most 3 or 4 countries. It just seemed a bit odd to say. Yellowtailshark (talk) 20:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)