Huàzhōu

The Huàzhōu are the people of the old Hua prefecture in south-western Guangdong, around Huazhou and its Shilong seat on the Jian River, bordering Guangxi. Their dialect, with the speech of neighbouring Wuchuan, forms the Wu-Hua branch of Yue Chinese, distinctive in western Guangdong.

Its ancient voiceless initials have become implosive voiced stops, while old voiced initials now read unaspirated voiceless, a three-way split in the labial and dental series that sets it apart from Guangzhou Cantonese.

The region was first organized as Guanghua county in the Three Kingdoms era, and in 980 the Song renamed Bian prefecture Hua zhou, after the transforming dragon of its Shilong seat, with Shilong and Wuchuan counties under it; the Yuan made it a route and the Ming converted it into Hua prefecture in 1368, before it was reduced to a county under Gaozhou commandery.