Distinctly Cantonese-speaking culture in China?

[fortyseven]

Interesting thread. Smaug the author is Michener. That was a good book. Texas by the same author is good as well. I liked Poland less. I haven't read any of his other "Country" books.

What if Southern China was ruled by the Miao?

 

[Doeth]

Half of China speaks Cantonese? Even in Taiwan, they don't.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=40486

Check that thread...

 

[aware of emptiness]

Aren't Chinese dialects just variations on a single unified script? To make themselves distinct they'd have to see themselves develop as separate languages, not just dialects.

 

[Smaug]

Interesting thread. Smaug the author is Michener. That was a good book. Texas by the same author is good as well. I liked Poland less. I haven't read any of his other "Country" books.

What if Southern China was ruled by the Miao?

For what its worth, I highly suggest, "The Source", and, "The Covenant", though Hawaii might be my favorite. None of his books claims to be research material, but he has a knack for fleshing out the people at the times and place he's writing about, rather than following history books ver batum. For what its worth, I've ended up reading almost everything but Space.......Its really good stuff IMO.

 

[Hermanubis]

Interesting thread

Query: How long into the past can we say that Cantonese has existed as a language? That is to say, how early can our POD be? (Probably later then the origin of written Chinese, I’d assume.)

To disrupt Cantonese cultural unity with the rest of China surly what must be done is to make the written form of the language as distinct as the spoken- is there any feasible way to do this?

(Though, the idea of a Western Power attempting to clam the Dragon throne is interesting, if implausible. Much more divided China? Maybe earlier POD, with competing Mongolian, Tibetan, Manchurian, and Native Dynasties in the North and Center, with large European colony in the south? )

 

[WhatIsAUserName]

Perhaps a map of a balkanized China would be nice:



Ignore the "Province, Autonomous Municipality, claimed by PRC, administered by India" and that stuff. It was a hasty job.

EDIT: Err, what I think a balkanized China would look like.

 

[Flocculencio]

For what its worth, I highly suggest, "The Source", and, "The Covenant", though Hawaii might be my favorite. None of his books claims to be research material, but he has a knack for fleshing out the people at the times and place he's writing about, rather than following history books ver batum. For what its worth, I've ended up reading almost everything but Space.......Its really good stuff IMO.

Actually Michener's books are generally very good sources for basic research material- he researched them exhaustively and generally has a section in the front detailing exactly what he's made up in each chapter.

 

[Hendryk]

When speculating about a balkanized China, one must keep in mind that, unless the POD is way back in ancient history, the overwhelming majority of the population in the traditional Chinese heartland is going to be Han. And the idea that the Chinese could become culturally influenced by neighboring cultures goes against historical evidence, which shows that on the contrary it's neighboring cultures that end up influenced, sometimes to the point of marginalization (see the Manchus), by the Chinese one.

As for *Cantonese developing its own script, that might happen if one butterflies away Qin Shihuangdi, who among other achievements unified written Chinese into a single script. But the fact that Chinese script remained homogeneous throughout the Sinosphere even when China was divided shows that no matter what happens afterwards, every Chinese speaker will use "standard" Chinese as a writing system no matter what dialect he or she may happen to speak.

 

[aware of emptiness]

How about the POD being that Chinese develops into an alphabetic/phonetic script instead of keeping the pictographic script.
Then each dialect could be seen developing as its own language and harder to unify.

 

[Hendryk]

How about the POD being that Chinese develops into an alphabetic/phonetic script instead of keeping the pictographic script.
Then each dialect could be seen developing as its own language and harder to unify.

In fact, if China had for some reason developed an alphabetic script (earlier contact with Mesopotamian civilizations perhaps?), the result would have been the gradual suppression of local dialects. It's the very existence of a non-phonetic writing system that has made it possible for them to survive in oral form to the present day.

 

[NapoleonXIV]

For what its worth, I highly suggest, "The Source", and, "The Covenant", though Hawaii might be my favorite. None of his books claims to be research material, but he has a knack for fleshing out the people at the times and place he's writing about, rather than following history books ver batum. For what its worth, I've ended up reading almost everything but Space.......Its really good stuff IMO.

Don't forget "Chesapeake". Its the most American, and the easiest to follow IMO.

 

[Susano]

When speculating about a balkanized China, one must keep in mind that, unless the POD is way back in ancient history, the overwhelming majority of the population in the traditional Chinese heartland is going to be Han.

Ah, but that was the initial idea of this thread:

Not so much China splitting up (though that would be a secondary effect), but what if the Han as an ethnicity broke up along its lingual borders?

 

[abas]

This reminds me of a book I read a while back. "Hawaii", by Mischener(?). Great book. But at one point, it made reference to a sort of ongoing dislike between the Hakka and another group (sorry, can't remember the name).

But it implied a sincere dislike between Hill People(Hakka), and low landers(?).

Anyone else know anything about this? It got me to look into China a bit more, and I was amazed at the diversity there, esp. in the South.

Hakka are medieval immigrants from the North and thear language more similar to medieval Hans then nowadays ones. Still there two distinct groups of them in distinct provinces.