What are the ages of each dialect?

[ala]

[Ian_Lee]

Ala:

According to Wikipedia, the original Sichuanese language that you listed in the language tree might have been extinct by Song's time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language

Most Chinese living in northern China, in Sichuan, and, actually, in a broad arc from the northeast (Manchuria) to the southwest (Yunnan), use various Mandarin dialects as their home language. (See the three regions colored yellow and brown in the map above.) The prevalence of Mandarin throughout northern China is largely the result of geography, namely the plains of north China. By contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have promoted linguistic diversity. The presence of Mandarin in Sichuan is largely due to a plague in the 12th century. This plague, which may have been related to the Black Death, depopulated the area, leading to later settlement from north China.

[ala]

Xiang is extinct? It's still spoken in Hunan.

[Ian_Lee]

Why would Yunnan, which is more geographically isolated than Guangdong and Fujian, rely on Mandarin dialect as its lingua franca?

Strange.

[ala]

Because those who were truly isolated, speak a non-Sinitic language still. And the Chinese who were able to get there, were Mandarin speakers from the north. If Yunnan were populated by Southern Chinese, then the influx of Mandarin-speakers would probably not make a huge impact on the Sinitic dialect already established; but Yunnan was populated with ethnic minorities. The already established Southern Chinese I guess were just happy being where they were.

[Ian_Lee]

There had been large scale resettlement into Yunnan from other provinces. But those were not Northern Chinese.

After Zhu Yuanzhang defeated the other uprisers and toppled the Yuan Dynasty, he ordered that the bastion of his adversary -- Zhang Shicheng (a salt smuggler and also a fierce contender of Zhu) -- be destroyed and the population moved into Yunnan to inflate the population base.

Zhang's bastion was Zhejiang. Tens of thousands of Zhejiangese households had been relocated to Yunnan in the late 14th Century.

But Zhejiangese spoke Wu dialect.

[ala]

There had been large scale resettlement into Yunnan from other provinces. But those were not Northern Chinese.

After Zhu Yuanzhang defeated the other uprisers and toppled the Yuan Dynasty' date=' he ordered that the bastion of his adversary -- Zhang Shicheng (a salt smuggler and also a fierce contender of Zhu) -- be destroyed and the population moved into Yunnan to inflate the population base.

Zhang's bastion was Zhejiang. Tens of thousands of Zhejiangese households had been relocated to Yunnan in the late 14th Century. But Zhejiangese spoke Wu dialect.[/quote']

Taiping Rebellion chaos? Mandarin speaking population settled there via Sichuan. Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan all speak the same style of Mandarin today.

[Altair]

Hi Ala,

This is a very interesting chart. It contains a bunch of surprises for me and leads to many questions.

First, does 周語 correspond to the 商代? What happened to 商語 and周代? Do the terms 西周 and 東周 together comprise the 周代 or do they refer only latter periods?

What are 燕語 (Yan4 or Yan1?) and 河北語? The chart seems to imply that these are not really part of 漢語 proper, but a sister language.

[shibo77]

It contains a bunch of surprises...

well, it's wrong....

-Shibo

[ala]

well, it's wrong....

No, it is generally right, such as that Hakka and Gan are closely related, and both closely related to Mandarin; Cantonese is closer to Mandarin in historical development than Wu and Min, but Cantonese was later more isolated than Wu. It's also correct in saying Wu and Old Xiang are from the same branch, because there are numerous and diverse historical documents confirming this. Xiang and Wu were originally mutually intelligible and spanned much of the Yangtze valley. These general patterns are accepted by nearly all contemporary Chinese linguists and historians.

It's "wrong" in that it leaves out the intimate relationship between Mandarin and Wu/Xiang (history's continuous communication, and mutual loaning), this is probably due to the design limitations of the diagram. Also, Min and Wu are probably more closely related than the diagram shows. And it is oversimplified by assuming Zhou as the common source, without considering non-Sinitic languages and Shang-Yin. The branching between Wu and Xiang probably occurred at a later period. Still, you can't just say "it's wrong." And to answer Altair's question, I have no idea what Yanyu or Hebei-hua is, Altaic? This diagram was compiled by Taiwan linguists and it doesn't serve as a measure of language intelligibility or degree of modern borrowing.

shibo77, maybe you can expand on why it is wrong...

[shibo77]

"西周Western Zhou", *1066BCE-771BCE

"东周(東周)Eastern Zhou" 770BCE-256BCE

(*either 1066BCE or 1057BCE or 1045BCE or 1027BCE)

but you can call then Tic Zhou and Tac Zhou if you want, it is a historical term to refer to two periods of the 周Zhou kingdom/hegemony in China. Zhou had a capital in their homeland, 丰Feng and sister city 镐Gao (both near modern 西安Xi'an). When they rose to power during the later periods of the 商Shang hegemony, they became the new hegemonial lord over China Proper. 丰Feng and 镐Gao renamed 镐京Gaojing. They then conquered the east, and built another capital at 洛Luo(near modern 洛阳Luoyang). 镐京Gaojing named 宗周ZongZhou in the west, 洛Luo named 成周ChengZhou in the east. 774BCE large-scale war between Zhou and the barbarians were fought. 771BCE, the barbarians' alliance sacked 宗周ZongZhou in the west. The Zhou court escaped to 成周ChengZhou in the east. Therefore, Western zhou and Eastern Zhou.

As you can see, these are very early dates, the 商Shang kingdom reigned as hegemonial lord over China Proper *1545BCE-*1066BCE (*approximate dates). 商语ShangYu is something I know nothing about. The first confirmed writings in China/East Asia was from this period.

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It is obviously a joke. At best 1/3 is correct. The time periods are mostly misaligned, and the languages do not correspond to the rise and fall of a dynasty!!

Starting from the present dialects to "Zhou".

Yue is second-only the relative of Guan. Cantonese is close to Mandarin???

It shows Xiang as the farthest relative to Guan???

What happened to the Jin, and the Ping dialectal groups?

How did 齐Qi in Shandong became 闽Min???

I agree 闽Min was influenced from 中原Zhongyuan.

What is 巴蜀BaShu? 巴Ba and 蜀Shu are two regions occupying roughly the Sichuan Basin, the two are termed together to refer to that area. How did 巴蜀BaShu become 蜀Shu? I see the change to 蜀Shu in the 西晋Western Jin dynasty. Are they trying to say 蜀汉ShuHan??? Non Chinese people became Chinese??? More outrageous, how did 巴蜀BaShu become 粤Yue???? Are they trying to say 粤Yue are not of Chinese Proper?

交州Jiaozhou Yu? 交州有"语"吗?? What is that doing in the 汉Han Dynasty?

河北Hebei Yu??? Is this the degree of ignorance "linguists" in Taiwan think of northern China???? What is that doing in the 西晋Western Jin dynasty?

What is 秦晋Qinjin Yu? How did "巴+蜀Ba&Shu Yu" develop out of 秦QinYu?? It is almost geographically impossible for those days even to travel there from China Proper, how did the language spin-out of Qin??

I thought Ba and Shu existed as separate regions/kingdoms as early as the 商Shang hegemony. I suppose they didn't have a language until 秦Qin??? They were all 哑"巴"??

晋JinYu became extinct? The 晋Jin Dukedom collapsed but a country may fall, but do you mean they killed off all the citizens who spoke 晋Jin??

How did 齐QiYu branch off 秦QinYu on the other side of the then China Proper? What happened to 魏WeiYu and 中山ZhongshanYu. There were many more dialectal groups/languages then.

Saying 燕YanYu is of another branch, possibly Altaic, is that suggesting ancestry to Korean?? This is similar to saying 粤Yue came from "巴蜀BaShu". Only vice versa. Sure one may say border languages had much influence from non-Sino-Tibetan languages(Altaic, , Austronesian, Uralic), but saying that they are non-Sino-Tibetan languages is really off the point.

周ZhouYu is the common ancestor??? Before 221BCE, China had all different kinds of languages, spoken and written. One needed interpreters to go from one country to another. The 周Zhou Princedom was merely the hegemonial lord, the which surrounding nations crowned as 天子Son of Heaven. Other than that, they are as different as Spain is to Russia. If 秦Qin had not unified China then, they would be called separate languages using different, albeit similar scripts. Much of the differences were lost when 赢政Ying Zheng made those reforms. If there be the first common language in China Proper, it would be from 秦Qin. Along with the 小篆Smaller Seal Script.

These are just my analysis of the mistakes of the chart, but the chart has more faults than facts.

-Shibo

[ala]

Yue is second-only the relative of Guan. Cantonese is close to Mandarin??? It shows Xiang as the farthest relative to Guan???

What happened to the Jin' date=' the Huainan, and the Ping dialectal groups? [/quote']

Huainan area was originally Wu speakers. Even today, the vocabulary and word order is roughly the same as Wu speakers. It is classified as Mandarin because it has lost Wu's characteristic voicing distinctions and extensive tone sandhi. The loss of distinctive characteristics of Wu may be due to several factors. For example, massacres as recent as during the Taiping Rebellion severely decreased the Wu-speaking population in the 皖南 area, replacing them with Mandarin speaking settlers from the north. These Mandarin speakers' vocabulary since has become strongly influenced by surrounding Wu and Hui speakers. Similar events happened for the replacement of the Xiang dialect with Mandarin in the Sichuan area (plague, war, famine).

Old Xiang (limited to remote areas today, certainly not Changsha dialect's New Xiang) is closely related to Wu, same source distinct from Mandarin and Cantonese. Old Xiang indeed branched away from Guan quite early. Your doubt is unsubstantiated. I can provide sources if you wish.

No, Cantonese today is not close to Mandarin, in fact, intelligibility-wise its one of the farthest from Mandarin. But that diagram has nothing to do with language intelligibility. Wu, Xiang, Min have a lot in common that are not found in the other Chinese dialects including Cantonese. Wu, Xiang, and Min are also documented in history as older independent dialects than Cantonese, Ping, Gan, Hakka, Mandarin.

Regarding Jinyu, the independence of Jinyu from Mandarin is still debatable. Its main characteristic is in keeping Rusheng. but very few "Jin“ speakers actually still have the Rusheng. Jinyu independence will allow for greater funding in Shanxi's linguistic departments. Not much support outside of Shanxi.

[shibo77]

I made a mistake about Huainan, sorry!

Jin is usually regarded as a separate branch. I don't know about the debates concerning that. I would think the difference is greater than that of 吴Wu and 湘Xiang. These are the existing tones:

官:北京

1 2 3 4

阴 平 上 去 (all)

阳 平(2A)(3A)(全1B,次3A)

晋:太原

1 2 3 4

A阴 平 上 去 入

B阳 (全1A,次3A) (3A) (3A) 入

晋:平顺(书读)

1 2 3 4

A阴 平 上 去 入

B阳 平(3B) 去 入

Simply from the existing tones, it is a great difference. They do pronounce the 入Ru Sheng, but it is difficult to distinguish because in 太原, 阴入4A is a short light pitch, and 阳入 sounds almost like Beijing's 阴平1A.

晋Jin speakers have trouble with 阳平Beijing's 2A because it does not exist in Jin, (combined into level or falling pitches).

Some linguists in Beijing would say that Jin is one of the oldest dialectal groups. Matching 闽Min. 晋Jin-闽Min, 吴Wu, 粤Yue, 官Guan.

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What is 老湘Old Xiang... 老乡 ?

I would think the 湘Xiang drew into this language tree would be the 湘:长沙Xiang of Changsha. 湘Xiang is closely related to 吴Wu. But the 楚Chu ancestry. Is 楚Chu Chinese? 楚Chu branching off 吴Wu corresponding to 周 era sounds like a nice theory, but I would highly doubt that 楚Chu and 吴Wu were Chinese, and that they were both of the same relation. These two countries didn't gain vassal status until well into 东周Eastern Zhou era, and that was mainly because they had "Sinicised" enough to be considered worthy by the 周Zhou court.

楚Chu can be seen as a speech "Sinicised" enough to be considered Chinese. The speech it "Sinicised" with would be it's neighbour's 吴Wu or the language of the court of 周Zhou and 秦Qin, I guess.

I didn't mention intelligibility. This language tree, being a language tree, relation is shown naturally. If two languages branched farther and farther away from each other, they should end up on two opposite sides of the tree. It suggests languages such as 粤Yue, 客家Kejia having the same ancestor with 北Bei in 秦Qin, and 闽Min in 齐Qi. Just simply think of it, 齐Qi of the 周Zhou era as the ancestor of 秦Qin, 北Bei, 粤Yue, 客家Kejia, 闽Min...

晋Jin is not even included, it became extinct...?

I don't even want to talk about 燕Yan and 河北HebeiYu.

If 巴Ba and 蜀Shu (never vassal states, never even considered Chinese) are within the China Proper framework, why shouldn't 燕Yan(one of the original 16 vassals)?

China, neither the people, nor the language was united before 221BCE. It should be that the dialects/languages merged together instead of branched off. A ton of languages from the different states through the Shang and Zhou hegemonies, ending in one Qin standard instituted by 赢政.

All in all, I don't think Sinologists have reached the point to be able to tackle the dialectal group/languages of the 周Zhou period yet. Much less phonology, and comparison between them. Most would agree that anything before «敦煌切韵»601CE is simply guesswork and intuition.

-Shibo