Baiyue

In Chinese, the character Yue has been historically associated with the peoples of Southern China, especially those along the coastline. In archaic Chinese, a number of characters (越, 粵, 鉞) were often used interchangeably to represent the same meaning.

In ancient times, the Chinese referred to the peoples to their south collectively as the Yue. Historical texts often refer to the "Hundred Yue" tribes. There is little evidence, however, that the Yue peoples held any common identity. The "Treatise of Geography" in Han Shu notes: "In the seven or eight thousand miles from Jiaozhi (northern Vietnam) to Kuaiji (southern Jiangsu or northern Zhejiang), the Hundred Yue are everywhere, each with their own clans." Just as the term Celt was used by the Greeks to describe what they perceived to be a broad cultural group, so the term Yue was a culturally relative term for the ancient Chinese. Also like "Celt", Yue is now used in a number of different ways. (see Modern usage below).

Ethnololinguists have suggested that the pronunciaton of Yue may be related to a type of hemp produced in the kingdom of Yuyue. The character itself is related to the character for "ceremonial axe" (鉞), usually considered a symbol of royal or imperial authority. A number of stone axes have been found in the area of Hangzhou, and there is evidence that the ceremonial axe was a southern invention.

Ancient texts mention a number of Yue peoples, including the Gou Wu (句吳), Yang Yue (揚越), Min Yue (閩越), Nan Yue (南越), Dong Yue (東越), Shan Yue (山越), Luo Yue (駱越) and Ou Yue (甌越). Most of these names survived into early imperial times and can be roughly construed as cultural groupings.

• • The state of Yue, a state in modern northern Zhejiang province during the Spring and Autumn Period
  • Wuyue, a state in modern Zhejiang province during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period
  • Vietnam. The "viet-" in the word is cognate to this Chinese word.

Modern usage

In modern Chinese, the characters of "越" and "粵" are differiented. The former is used to refer to the area of northern Zhejiang, especially the areas around Shaoxing and Ningbo. The theatre of Zhejiang, for example, is called "Yue Opera" (越劇). The second character "粵" is associated with the southern province of Guangdong and is commonly used as an abbreviation. Yue language (粵語) is a subdivision of the Chinese language popularly called "Cantonese". Its standard form and regional dialects are spoken in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong, Macau and in many overseas Chinese communities around the world.