Ethnic origin of Seiyap Part 1

on January 01, 2018

Introduction

This article illustrates the true origin of Seiyap (四邑) aka Siyi people. There are quite a lot of misconceptions regarding their origin which will be clarified in this article. They have a different origin than the Cantonese (Guangfu), Hokkien and Hakka people.

There is a part 2 to this article in this blog.

Homeland

The current homeland of the Seiyap people is in a region along coastal Guangdong to the west of the Cantonese (Guangfu) people.

Map of linguistic regions in Guangdong

Original homeland

There were two batches of Han Chinese who formed the Seiyap people.

First batch

Nan-Xiong (aka Nam-Hung in Cantonese) (南雄) is situated in northern Guangdong bordering Jiangxi province. The people living there were Southern Gan speakers who migrated from Jiangxi province sometime during Song dynasty (960-1271 AD).

In 1272 AD (Southern Song dynasty), there was a large influx of ninety seven families who escaped from Zhu Ji (珠璣) lane in Nam-Hung to Seiyap region.

Migration path from Jiangxi to Nam-Hung to Seiyap

The reason was that the Song emperor decreed all the villagers to be killed because an evil official lied to the Song emperor that the villagers plotted a rebellion. This is related to a complex history regarding the Song emperor's concubine Hu Fei (胡妃) who escaped to this village earlier.

Statue of Hu Fei

Second batch

After the Mongols attacked Kaifeng in Henan which was the original capital of Northern Song dynasty, the Song court fled to Hangzhou (杭州) in Zhejiang province and ruled central and southern China from this new capital for more than 100 years (1127-1276 AD). This period was called Southern Song (南宋) dynasty.

The Mongols attacked Hangzhou in early 1276 AD but some royal members of the Song dynasty still remained in Fuzhou city in Fujian province.

When the Mongols conquered Fujian in late 1276 AD, around 200,000 Southern Song army personnel accompanied the last two Song dynasty emperors to Guangdong province.

They finally reached Yashan 崖山 (south of Xinhui county) in 1278 AD by sailing along the coastal cities. The Song court decided to set up a training camp there.

Migration route in orange color

The Mongol army caught up with them and attacked them in 1279 AD. During the final naval battle of Yamen (崖門), huge casualties were inflicted on the Song army.

The loyal minister Lu XiuFu (陸秀夫) decided to jump into the sea together with the last Song dynasty emperor to protect the royal family's honor.

Statue of Minister Lu Xiufu who drowned with the little Song emperor

The Song royal family's distant relatives formed some villages called Zhao villages (趙家村) in Xinhui (新會) county which is near the battle site. Zhao was the surname of the Song dynasty emperors.

Seiyap language

The Zhao descendants together with the influx of the villagers of Nanxiong/Nam-Hung represent the largest wave to this particular region and became the Seiyap people today.

The dialects spoken in both batches contain linguistic elements mainly from the late Middle Chinese spoken during the Song dynasty in northern China.

Comparison of numbers 1 to 10

Since this region was sparsely populated during the Southern Song dynasty, these Han Chinese immigrants didn't need to abandon their original Chinese dialect and adopt the more established Goulou and Guangfu languages like in other regions of Guangdong.

The Seiyap language (四邑片) developed and spread in the four counties of Taishan (台山), Kaiping (開平), Enping (恩平) and Xinhui (新會). Taishanese dialect is the prestige dialect of Seiyap language.

Immigration to North America

Seiyap people were the first Han Chinese to immigrate to Chinatowns across North America from mid 19th to early 20th century especially during the California Gold Rush where they work mainly in the gold mines. San Francisco was nicknamed gold mountain (金山) by American Chinese as a result of this.

Eighty percent of the first wave of Chinese immigrants to North America came from the Seiyap region. Thus, Taishanese dialect became the first lingua franca in Chinatowns across North America before being replaced by Cantonese in the late 20th century.

Chinese celebration in New York city's Chinatown

Classification of Seiyap language

In the current Chinese languages classification, Seiyap is classified as a Yue Chinese language. However, Seiyap language is not mutually intelligible to any of the more established Yue Chinese languages.

The similarities between Seiyap and Guangfu are due to both languages being descendants of Middle Chinese which shared many common vocabulary.

Differences with other Yue Chinese languages

There's no long and short vowel distinction characteristic of Yue Chinese languages eg. Saam 三 and Sam 心 in Cantonese.
There doesn't seem to be any Tai-Kadai words that are typically found in Yue Chinese languages.

English	Taishanese	Cantonese	Tai
This	khɔi	nei	nii

It is interesting to note that regions where the Song army were stationed in Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi during the Song dynasty has ɬ initial consonant where other Chinese languages have s initial consonant.

English	Chinese	Taishanese	Cantonese
small	細	ɬai	sai
three	三	ɬam	saam

Similarities with Southern Gan languages

The Seiyap language has many similarities with Southern Gan (贛) languages because central Jiangxi received many Southern Song dynasty immigrants from northern China.

Taishanese has a lot of shared Southern Gan cognate words.

English	Taishanese	Southern Gan	Cantonese
head hair	頭毛 hau mo	頭毛 hau mo	頭髮 thau faat
to eat rice	喫飯 hek fan	喫飯 hek fan	食飯 sik faan
hungry	肚肌 u ki	?	肚餓 thou ngo
to take a bath	洗身 ɬai sin	?	沖涼 chung leong

Taishanese women call their husband's mother as 'On Yan' (安人) which is the respectful form used in Song dynasty's government officials family.
Taishanese initial consonant shift (from 'th' to 'h') is also a Southern Gan language unique linguistic feature.

English	Chinese	Cantonese	Taishanese
head	頭	thau	hau
look at	睇	thai	hai
platform	台	thoi	hoi

Similarities with Middle Chinese

Since Cantonese (Eastern Yue), Southern Gan and Hakka languages are all descendants of Middle Chinese, there are some similarities between these languages.

However, the vastly different language characteristics of Seiyap showed that Seiyap language didn't descend from either Guangfu or Goulou Yue languages. Thus, Seiyap isn't a dialect of Cantonese as commonly thought.

Reclassification
In light of its different origin to the Yue Chinese languages, more research needs to be done to determine whether Seiyap language is actually a Southern Gan descendant language rather than a Yue Chinese language since it doesn't have the typical Tai language characteristic of Yue Chinese languages such as short and long vowel distinction which is unique to Yue Chinese languages.

Unfortunately, some Chinese languages do get categorized haphazardly in the past and a few remain so today.

Conclusion

Seiyap people are Han Chinese who came from northern China to Guangdong province mostly during the Southern Song dynasty. They came much later than the Nanyue Chinese and the Cantonese.

They are not immigrants from Fujian which was only a temporary sanctuary for the little Song emperors to protect them from the invading Mongols.

Neither are they Southern Hakka immigrants, who migrated mainly to Meizhou region in Guangdong via a different route during the Southern Song dynasty. However, they could be Northern Hakka who also migrated to Nam-Hung during that time. Northern Hakka language shares closer linguistic features with Southern Gan language than Southern Hakka.

Sources

https://kknews.cc/history/2a43jg.html
https://kknews.cc/history/gvpozl.html
https://kknews.cc/zh-hk/history/an6qmzg.html
A guide to Taishan dialect. Author: Hashimoto, Anne Yue
http://taishanesetalk.blogspot.com/2011/11/sea-battle-of-yamen.html
From the Mongols to the Ming dynasty, pgs.17-19. Author: Hing Ming Hung
Diversity in Sinitic Languages. Author: Hilary M. Chappell.
Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown. By Arnold Genthe, John Kuo Wei Tchen

Comments

Unknown4 Jan 2018, 13:54:00
Wow! This is great. Reading this article, brought a bit of tears to my eyes. Many years ago, my father told me that our ancestors came from Nam Hung which he did not know where that was. He learned this Nam Hung as a child growing up in Kaiping (Hoiping) and it did not register with him where Nam Hung is located. Now, in this article, you wrote "NanXiong" which is the mandarin prounciation of "Nam Hung". When that sinked in my mind, it literally brought a couple of tears to my eyes. It was like I finally was beginning to begin to understand our family history. Thank you, Mr. Wong for your research and posting. If you need someone to do some research in this area, I am willing to volunteer my time. Thank you. Allen Ng
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Unknown16 Jan 2018, 16:30:00
Mr. Wong,

Like my oldest brother, Allen Ng, I also want to thank you for the research you've accomplished about the Seiyep people. It does stir an interest in me to work with him and you as possible to further this endeavor to discover more of our roots. I look forward to future efforts by all!

Brian Ng
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princesspaulina9929 Apr 2021, 08:50:00
Hi! Here is the romanization for "hungry" in Taishanese. It's this: u55 gi33. (The first number represent the tones and the last/second number after each syllable is the ending tone change. It was romanized using simplified IPA.) Also here is the romanization for "to take a shower" in Taishanese. It's this: fa33 sa55 (Again, the first number represent the initial tone and the last/second number after each syllable is the ending tone change. It was romanized using simplified IPA.) This link is where I found the Taishanese romanizations: https://www.stephen-li.com/TaishaneseVocabulary/Taishanese.html
It is a dictionary with audio, pronunciation guide, and you can search up words by Chinese characters (in written Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taishanese) as well as English words. Hope this is helpful :)
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ken4 Oct 2021, 00:42:00
Hello, thanks very much for the fine and informative article. We noticed another correction needed. The English word "head" in one of the tables seems to have been incorrectly copied from a later table. The Chinese word is the one usually meaning "small".
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Bg Lee17 Oct 2021, 11:20:00
I'm so glad I found yr article. My late father kept mentioning about "seiyap" and "four district" during his last days. My brother and I simply hd no ideas where there is in China. I'd been searching this myself each time whenever I thought about it and the languages in diagram really the same as thought to me when young. My understanding of China and my language in Chinese is very basic.
My late father came to Malaya, Kuala Lumpur when he was 12, and his sister,
my aunt, 9yrs. My father passed on 2 years ago at 96.
Just want to tell you how much I appreciate your writing and so it seems this solve the longing of wanting to know where my father actually came from and the history behinds it.

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slugyellow30 Jan 2022, 11:47:00
This makes sense based on what I know of my ancestral immigration patterns. Shandong => Jiangxi => Guangdong
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