Yuèhǎi

The Yuèhǎi are Yue Chinese of the Pearl River Delta around Guangzhou; their speech is the main branch of Yue, whose Guangzhou dialect is the prestige form, Cantonese. Their Lingnan homeland south of the Nanling was Baiyue territory until the Qin conquest of 214 BC brought Han migrants via the Lingqu Canal; after Qin fell it became the kingdom of Nanyue, absorbed by the Han in 111 BC.

Refugee waves after the Han, Tang and Song collapses blended northern speech with the indigenous Tai-related vernacular, yielding a language conservative in Middle Chinese final consonants and tones. From 917 to 971 the delta was the Southern Han heartland; by 660 Guangzhou was China's largest port, trading as far as Arabia, and under the Southern Song became Lingnan's cultural centre, home to Nanyin ballads and Cantonese opera.

Maritime bans ended. In 1715 the British East India Company opened a chamber of commerce in Guangzhou, tying Yuehai merchants to the Canton trade.