The Old Yue language is an unclassified language or set of languages spoken in the state of Yue during the Eastern Zhou dynasty. It may also refer broadly to the languages spoken by Yue peoples in any of the Yue polities in southern China and northern Vietnam c. 700 BCE â c. 100 BCE.
Knowledge of Yue speech is limited to fragmentary references and possible loanwords in Sinitic languages. The longest attestation is the Song of the Yue Boatman, a short song transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC and included, with a Chinese translation, in the Garden of Stories compiled by Liu Xiang five centuries later. Scholars disagree about which languages the Yue spoke, and draw candidates from the non-Sinitic language families still represented in areas of southern China.
Candidates for the Old Yue language include KraâÂÂDai, HmongâÂÂMien, and Austroasiatic languages. Chinese, KraâÂÂDai, HmongâÂÂMien, and the Vietic branch of Austroasiatic have similar tone systems, syllable structure, grammatical features and lack of inflection, but these features are believed to have spread by means of diffusion across the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, rather than indicating common descent.
Behr (2009) also notes that the ChÃÂ dialect of Old Chinese was influenced by several substrata, predominantly Kra-Dai, but also possibly Austroasiatic, Austronesian and Hmong-Mien.
The proto-KraâÂÂDai language has been hypothesized to originate in the Lower Yangtze valleys. Ancient Chinese texts refer to non-Sinitic languages spoken across this substantial region and their speakers as "Yue". Although those languages are extinct, traces of their existence could be found in unearthed inscriptional materials, ancient Chinese historical texts and non-Han substrata in various Southern Chinese dialects. Thai, one of the Tai languages and the most-spoken language in the KraâÂÂDai language family, has been used extensively in historical-comparative linguistics to identify the origins of language(s) spoken in the ancient region of South China. One of the very few direct records of non-Sinitic speech in pre-Qin and Han times having been preserved so far is the "Song of the Yue Boatman" (Yueren Ge è¶Â人æÂÂ), which was transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC, and found in the Ã¥ÂÂ说 Shanshuo chapter of the Shuoyuan 说è or 'Garden of Persuasions'.
Willeam Meacham (1996) reports that Chinese linguists have shown strong evidence of Tai vestiges in former Yue areas: Lin (1990) found Tai elements in some Min dialects, Zhenzhang (1990) has proposed Tai etymologies and interpretations for certain place names in the former states of Wu and Yue, and Wei (1982) found similarities in the words, combinations and rhyming scheme between the "Song of the Yue Boatman" and the KamâÂÂTai languages.
James R. Chamberlain (2016) proposes that the Kra-Dai language family was formed as early as the 12th century BCE in the middle of the Yangtze basin, coinciding roughly with the establishment of the Chu state and the beginning of the Zhou dynasty. Following the southward migrations of Kra and Hlai (Rei/Li) peoples around the 8th century BCE, the Yue (Be-Tai people) started to break away and move to the east coast in the present-day Zhejiang province, in the 6th century BCE, forming the state of Yue and conquering the state of Wu shortly thereafter. According to Chamberlain, Yue people (Be-Tai) began to migrate southwards along the east coast of China to what are now Guangxi, Guizhou and northern Vietnam, after Yue was conquered by Chu around 333 BCE. There the Yue (Be-Tai) formed the polities Xi Ou, which became the Northern Tai and the Luo Yue, which became the Central-Southwestern Tai. However, Pittayaporn (2014), after examining layers of Chinese loanwords in proto-Southwestern Tai and other historical evidence, proposes that the southwestward migration of southwestern Tai-speaking tribes from the modern Guangxi to the mainland of Southeast Asia must have taken place only sometime between the 8thâÂÂ10th centuries CE, long after 44 CE, when Chinese sources last mentioned Luo Yue in the Red River Delta.
In the early 1980s, Zhuang linguist, Wei Qingwen (é¦åºÂ稳), electrified the scholarly community in Guangxi by identifying the language in the "Song of the Yue Boatman" as a language ancestral to Zhuang. Wei used reconstructed Old Chinese for the characters and discovered that the resulting vocabulary showed strong resemblance to modern Zhuang. Later, Zhengzhang Shangfang (1991) followed WeiâÂÂs insight but used Thai script for comparison, since this orthography dates from the 13th century and preserves archaisms relative to the modern pronunciation. Zhengzhang notes that 'evening, night, dark' bears the C tone in Wuming Zhuang xam<sup>C2</sup> and ãam<sup>C2</sup> 'night'. The item raa normally means 'we inclusive' but in some places, e.g. Tai Lue and White Tai 'I'. However, Laurent Sagart criticizes Zhengzhang's interpretation as anachronistic, because however archaic that Thai script is, Thai language was only written 2000 years after the song had been recorded; even if the Proto-Kam-Tai might have emerged by 6th century BCE, its pronunciation would have been substantially different from Thai. The following is a simplified interpretation of the "Song of the Yue Boatman" by Zhengzhang Shangfang quoted by David Holm (2013) with Thai script and Chinese glosses being omitted:
Some scattered non-Sinitic words found in the two ancient Chinese fictional texts, the Mu Tianzi Zhuan () (4th c. B.C.) and the Yuejue shu () (1st c. A.D.), can be compared to lexical items in Kra-Dai languages. These two texts are only preserved in corrupt versions and share a rather convoluted editorial history. Wolfgang Behr (2002) makes an attempt to identify the origins of those words:
âÂÂThe Wú say yë for âÂÂgoodâ and huÃÂn for âÂÂwayâÂÂ, i.e. in their titles they follow the central kingdoms, but in their names they follow their own lords.âÂÂ
ä¼ yë < ÃÂjij < *<sup>b</sup>q(l)ij â Siamese dii<sup>A1</sup>, Longzhou dai<sup>1</sup>, Bo'ai nii<sup>1</sup> Daiya li<sup>1</sup>, Sipsongpanna di<sup>1</sup>, Dehong li<sup>6</sup> < proto-Tai *ÃÂdÃÂi<sup>A1</sup> | Sui ÃÂdaai<sup>1</sup>, Kam laai<sup>1</sup>, Maonan ÃÂdaai<sup>1</sup>, Mak ÃÂdaai<sup>6</sup> < proto-Kam-Sui/proto-Kam-Tai *ÃÂdaai<sup>1</sup> 'good' || proto-Malayo-Polynesian *bait
ç·© [huÃÂn] < hwanX < *<sup>a</sup>wan â Siamese hon<sup>A1</sup>, Bo'ai hÃÂn<sup>1</sup>, Dioi thon<sup>1</sup> < proto-Tai *xron<sup>A1</sup>| Sui khwÃÂn<sup>1</sup>-i, Kam khwÃÂn<sup>1</sup>, Maonan khun<sup>1</sup>-i, Mulam khwÃÂn<sup>1</sup>-i < proto-Kam-Sui *khwÃÂn<sup>1</sup> 'road, way' | proto-Hlai *kuun<sup>1</sup> || proto-Austronesian *Zalan (Thurgood 1994:353)
çµ jué < dzjwet < *<sup>b</sup>dzot â Siamese cod<sup>D1</sup> 'to record, mark' (Zhengzhang Shangfang 1999:8)
âÂÂThe Middle mountains of Gà « are the mountains of the YuèâÂÂs bronze office, the Yuè people call them âÂÂBronze gà «[gà «]dú.âÂÂ
ãÂÂå§Â[æ²½]çÂÂã gà «dú < ku=duwk < *<sup>a</sup>ka=<sup>a</sup>lok
â Siamese kðau<sup>A1</sup> 'horn', Daiya xau<sup>5</sup>, Sipsongpanna xau<sup>1</sup>, Dehong xau<sup>1</sup>, Lü xÃÂu<sup>1</sup>, Dioi kaou<sup>1</sup> 'mountain, hill' < proto-Tai *kðau<sup>A2</sup>; Siamese luuk<sup>D2l</sup> 'classifier for mountains', Siamese kðau<sup>A1</sup>-luuk<sup>D2l</sup> 'mountain' || cf. OC è°· gà< kuwk << *<sup>a</sup>k-lok/luwk < *<sup>a</sup>kÃÂ-lok/yowk < *<sup>b</sup>lok 'valley'
"... The Yuè people call a boat xà «lú. (âÂÂbeardâ & âÂÂcottageâÂÂ)"
é  xà « < sju < *<sup>b</sup>s(n)o
? â Siamese saà'noun prefix'
ç§ lú < lu < *<sup>b</sup>ra
â Siamese rïa<sup>A2</sup>, Longzhou lïï<sup>2</sup>, Bo'ai luu<sup>2</sup>, Daiya hÃÂ<sup>2</sup>, Dehong hÃÂ<sup>2</sup> 'boat' < proto-Tai *drï[a,o] | Sui lwa<sup>1</sup>/ÃÂda<sup>1</sup>, Kam lo<sup>1</sup>/lwa<sup>1</sup>, Be zoa < proto-Kam-Sui *s-lwa(n)<sup>A1</sup> 'boat'
"[LÃÂu] Jià(the king of Jëng èÂÂ) built the western wall, it was called dìngcuò ['settle(d)' & 'grindstone'] wall."
宠dìng < dengH < *<sup>a</sup>deng-s
â Siamese diaaà Â<sup>A1</sup>, Daiya tÃÂhÃÂà Â<sup>2</sup>, Sipsongpanna tseà Â<sup>2</sup>, Malay (Austronesian) dindià Â<sup>2</sup>, Tagalog dià Âdià Â<sup>2</sup> wall
é¯ cuò < tshak < *<sup>a</sup>tshak
? â Siamese tok<sup>D1s</sup> 'to setâÂÂsunsetâÂÂwest' (tawan-tok 'sun-set' = 'west'); Longzhou tuk<sup>7</sup>, Bo'ai tÃÂk<sup>7</sup>, Daiya tok<sup>7</sup>, Sipsongpanna tok<sup>7</sup> < proto-Tai *tok<sup>D1s</sup> àSui tok<sup>7</sup>, Mak tok<sup>7</sup>, Maonan tÃÂk < proto-Kam-Sui *tÃÂk<sup>D1</sup>, Malay (Austronesian) suntuk running out of time
Besides a limited number of lexical items left in Chinese historical texts, remnants of language(s) spoken by the ancient Yue can be found in non-Han substrata in Southern Chinese dialects, e.g.: Wu, Min, Hakka, Yue, etc. Robert Bauer (1987) identifies twenty seven lexical items in Yue, Hakka and Min varieties, which share KraâÂÂDai roots. The following are some examples cited from Bauer (1987):
Yue-Hashimoto describes the Yue Chinese languages spoken in Guangdong as having a Tai influence. Robert Bauer (1996) points out twenty nine possible cognates between Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou and KraâÂÂDai, of which seven cognates are confirmed to originate from KraâÂÂDai sources:
Li Hui (2001) finds 126 Kra-Dai cognates in Maqiao Wu dialect spoken in the suburbs of Shanghai out of more than a thousand lexical items surveyed. According to the author, these cognates are likely traces of the Old Yue language. The two tables below show lexical comparisons between Maqiao Wu dialect and Kra-Dai languages quoted from Li Hui (2001). He notes that, in Wu dialect, final consonants such as -m, -ï, -i, ụ, etc don't exist, and therefore, -m in Maqiao dialect tends to become -à  or -n, or it's simply absent, and in some cases -m even becomes final glottal stop.
Jerry Norman and Mei Tsu-lin presented evidence that at least some Yue spoke an Austroasiatic language:
They also provide evidence of an Austroasiatic substrate in the vocabulary of Min Chinese. For example:
Norman and Mei's hypothesis has been criticized by Laurent Sagart, who demonstrates that many of the supposed loan words can be better explained as archaic Chinese words, or even loans from Austronesian languages; he also argues that the Vietic cradle must be located farther south in current north Vietnam.
Moreover, Chamberlain (1998) posits that the Austroasiatic predecessor of the modern Vietnamese language originated in modern-day Bolikhamsai Province and Khammouane Province in Laos as well as parts of Nghá» An Province and Quảng Bình Province in Vietnam, rather than in the region north of the Red River Delta. However, Ferlus (2009) showed that the inventions of pestle, oar and a pan to cook sticky rice, which is the main characteristic of the ÃÂông Sán culture, correspond to the creation of new lexicons for these inventions in Northern Vietic (Viá»ÂtâÂÂMðá»Âng) and Central Vietic (Cuoi-Toum). The new vocabularies of these inventions were proven to be derivatives from original verbs rather than borrowed lexical items. The current distribution of Northern Vietic also correspond to the area of ÃÂông Sán culture. Thus, Ferlus concludes that the Northern Vietic (Viet-Muong) speakers are the "most direct heirs" of the Dongsonians, who have resided in Southern part of Red River Delta and North Central Vietnam since the 1st millennium BC. In addition, archaeogenetics demonstrated that before the Dong Son period, the Red River Delta's inhabitants were predominantly Austroasiatic: genetic data from Phùng Nguyên culture's burial site (dated to 1,800 BCE) at Mán Bạc (in present-day Ninh Bình Province, Vietnam) have close proximity to modern Austroasiatic speakers, while "mixed genetics" from ÃÂông Sán culture's Núi Nấp site showed affinity to "Dai from China, Tai-Kadai speakers from Thailand, and Austroasiatic speakers from Vietnam, including the Kinh"; these results indicated that significant contact happened between Tai speakers and Vietic speakers.
Ye (2014) identified a few Austroasiatic loanwords in Ancient Chu dialect of Old Chinese.
There is no known evidence of a writing system among the Yue peoples of the Lingnan region in pre-Qin times, and the Chinese conquest of the region is believed to have introduced writing to the area. However, Liang Tingwang, a professor from the Central University of Nationalities, said that the ancient Zhuang had their own proto-writing system but had to give it up because of the Qinshi Emperor's tough policy and to adopt the Han Chinese writing system, which ultimately developed into the old Zhuang demotic script alongside the classical Chinese writing system, during the Tang dynasty (618âÂÂ907).