Sichuanese people

Last updated
Sichuanese people
四川人 / 川人 / 川渝人
Tai Yang Shen Niao Jin Shi Golden Sun Bird.png
The Golden Sun Bird, a rediscovered artifact of the Ba–Shu culture, believed to be a totem of the ancient Shu people, [1] and the emblem of Chengdu since 2011. [2]
Regions with significant populations
Mainland China Sichuan
Chongqing
Taiwan As part of Mainlander population
Languages
Historically Ba–Shu Chinese, also known as Old Sichuanese.
Presently Sichuanese dialects of Southwestern Mandarin.
Religion
Traditionally Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Chinese folk religion, but also Christianity (see Christianity in Sichuan) and Islam (see Islam in Sichuan)
Related ethnic groups
other Han Chinese, Yi people, Tujia people, Qiang people

The Sichuanese people [lower-alpha 1] are a Han Chinese subgroup comprising most of the population of China's Sichuan province and the Chongqing municipality.

Contents

History

Mission archeologique, Chine, 1914; 1.jpg
Mission archeologique, Chine, 1914; 3.jpg
Sichuanese people in a Taoist religious procession. Reliefs from the Taoist Temple of Saints Erzhu  [ zh ] and Yang Xiong (Temple of West Mountain), Mianyang, 7th–10th century. Photographs by Victor Segalen, mission archéologique en Chine, 1914.

Beginning from the 9th century BC, Shu (on the Chengdu Plain) and Ba (which had its first capital at Enshi City in Hubei and controlled part of the Han Valley) emerged as cultural and administrative centers where two rival kingdoms were established. Although eventually the Qin dynasty destroyed the kingdoms of Shu and Ba, the Qin government accelerated the technological and agricultural advancements of Sichuan making it comparable to that of the Yellow River Valley. The now-extinct Ba–Shu language was derived from Qin-era settlers and represents the earliest documented division from Middle Chinese.

South Sichuan was also inhabited by the Dai people who formed the serfs class. They were later thoroughly sinicized, adopting the local language of speech. Large numbers of foreigner merchant families from Sogdia, Persia and other countries immigrated to Sichuan.

During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the population of Sichuan, Chongqing had been reduced due to immigration, deportation and flight of refugees fleeing war and plague, new or returning settlers from modern Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong and Jiangxi, replacing the earlier spoken language with different languages they adopted from the former regions to form a new standard language off communication. [3] [4] [5]

The cult for supernatural forces and entities is a long-established tradition among the Sichuanese people, tracing its roots back to the ancient BaShu era. Taoism played a major role since the late antiquity with the emergence of the Way of the Celestial Master movement. [6] The cultural characteristics of the Sichuanese people were described in the 2014 book All about Sichuan as "a 'heretical biography' that deviated from Confucian orthodoxy, a free-spirited cultural group that opposed, despised and subverted Confucian ethics and imperial autocracy." [7]

Recent history

Many migrant workers from rural Sichuan have migrated to other parts of the country, where they often face discrimination in employment, housing etc. [8] This is due to China's household registration policy and other parts of people from midwest China face the same problem.

Language

Locations of present-day Sichuanese speakers. Sichuanese in China.png
Locations of present-day Sichuanese speakers.

The Sichuanese once spoke their own variety of spoken Chinese called Ba–Shu Chinese, or Old Sichuanese before it became extinct during the Ming dynasty. Now most of them speak Sichuanese Mandarin. The Minjiang dialects are thought by some linguists to be a bona fide descendant of Old Sichuanese due to many characteristics of Ba–Shu Chinese phonology and vocabulary being found in the dialects, [9] but there is no conclusive evidence whether Minjiang dialects are derived from Old Sichuanese or Southwestern Mandarin.

Cuisine

Sichuan is well known for its spicy cuisine and use of Sichuan peppers due to its more arid climate.

Notable people

Well known Sichuanese people are such as:

See also

Notes

  1. Chinese :四川人; pinyin :Sìchuān rén or 川渝人; Chuānyú rén, sometimes shortened to 川人; Sichuanese Pinyin: Si4cuan1ren2; former romanization: Szechwanese people

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sichuan</span> Province of China

Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu; its population stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai to the northwest, Gansu to the north, Shaanxi to the northeast, Chongqing to the east, Guizhou to the southeast, Yunnan to the south, and Tibet to the west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mianyang</span> Prefecture-level city in Sichuan, Peoples Republic of China

Mianyang is the second largest prefecture-level city of Sichuan province in Southwestern China. Located in north-central Sichuan covering an area of 20,281 square kilometres (7,831 sq mi) consisting of Jiangyou, a county-level city, five counties, and three urban districts. Its total population was 4,868,243 people at the 2020 Chinese census, of whom 2,232,865 live in its built-up area made of three urban districts.

The Di (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade–Giles: Ti1; < Eastern Han Chinese *tei < Old Chinese (B-S): *tˤij) were an ancient ethnic group that lived in western China, and are best known as one of the non-Han Chinese peoples known as the Five Barbarians that seized power in northern China during the Sixteen Kingdoms period. This ethnic group should not be confused with the earlier Dí (狄), which refers to unrelated nomadic peoples in northern China during the earlier Zhou dynasty. The Di are thought to have been of proto-Tibetan origin, though there is a widespread belief among Chinese scholars that the Di spoke a Turkic language. The Ba-Di (巴氐) were a branch of the Di that intermixed with another ethnic group known as the Cong people (賨).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shu (kingdom)</span> Ancient kingdom in modern-day Sichuan

Shu (Chinese: 蜀; Sichuanese Pinyin: Su2; former romanization: Shuh), also known as Ancient Shu (Chinese: 古蜀) in historiography, was an ancient kingdom in what is now Sichuan Province. It was based on the Chengdu Plain, in the western Sichuan basin with some extension northeast to the upper Han River valley. To the east was the Ba tribal confederation. Further east down the Han and Yangtze rivers was the State of Chu. To the north over the Qinling Mountains was the State of Qin. To the west and south were tribal peoples of little military power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zhang Xianzhong</span> Chinese peasant leader and ruler in Sichuan (1606–1647)

Zhang Xianzhong, courtesy name Bingwu (秉吾), art name Jingxuan (敬軒), was a Chinese peasant leader who led a peasant rebellion from Yan'an wei, Shaanxi during the Ming-Qing transition. He conquered Sichuan in 1644, and named himself king and later emperor of the Xi dynasty. His rule in Sichuan was brief, and he was killed by the invading Qing army. He is commonly associated with the massacres in Sichuan that depopulated the region. However, the extent of his killings is disputed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sichuanese dialects</span> Branch of the Mandarin Chinese language family

Sichuanese or Szechwanese (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; Sichuanese Pinyin: Si4cuan1hua4; pinyin: Sìchuānhuà; Wade–Giles: Szŭ4-ch'uan1-hua4), also called Sichuanese/Szechwanese Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 四川官话; traditional Chinese: 四川官話; pinyin: Sìchuān Guānhuà), is a branch of Southwestern Mandarin spoken mainly in Sichuan and Chongqing, which was part of Sichuan Province until 1997, and the adjacent regions of their neighboring provinces, such as Hubei, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan and Shaanxi. Although "Sichuanese" is often synonymous with the Chengdu-Chongqing dialect, there is still a great amount of diversity among the Sichuanese dialects, some of which are mutually unintelligible with each other. In addition, because Sichuanese is the lingua franca in Sichuan, Chongqing and part of Tibet, it is also used by many Tibetan, Yi, Qiang and other ethnic minority groups as a second language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southwestern Mandarin</span> A primary branch of Mandarin Chinese

Southwestern Mandarin, also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin, is a Mandarin Chinese dialect spoken in much of Southwestern China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the northern part of Guangxi and some southern parts of Shaanxi and Gansu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bo people (China)</span>

The Bo people are an ancient extinct people from the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces of Southwestern China. They are famous for their hanging coffins. They were one of the various now extinct peoples from Southern China known collectively in Chinese records as the Baipu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jiange County</span> County in Sichuan, China

Jiange County is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of Guangyuan city. The history of Jiange County as a county division goes back around 1700 years. The county has historically been a junction between the north and south of Western China, through the Jianmen Pass. It is a popular tourist destination in Sichuan.

Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these linguistic doublets often typify a dialect group. Literary readings are usually used in loanwords, names, literary works, and in formal settings, while colloquial/vernacular readings are usually used in everyday vernacular speech.

Sichuanese Pinyin (Si4cuan1hua4 Pin1yin1; simplified Chinese: 四川话拼音; traditional Chinese: 四川話拼音; pinyin: Sìchuānhuà pīnyīn), is a romanization system specifically designed for the Chengdu dialect of Sichuanese. It is mostly used in selected Sichuanese dictionaries, such as the Sichuan Dialect Dictionary, Sichuan Dialect's Vocabulary Explanation, and the Chengdu Dialect Dictionary. Sichuanese Pinyin is based on Hanyu Pinyin, the only Chinese romanization system officially instructed within the People's Republic of China, for convenience amongst users. However, Hanyu Pinyin is unable to match the phonology of Sichuanese with complete precision, especially in the case for the Minjiang dialect, as there are many differences between Sichuanese and Standard Chinese in phonology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minjiang dialect</span> Dialect of Sichuanese Chinese

The Minjiang dialect is a branch of Sichuanese, spoken mainly in the Min River (Mínjiāng) valley or along the Yangtze in the southern and western parts of the Sichuan Basin in China. There is also a language island of the Minjiang dialect located in the center of the Sichuan Basin covering several counties, including all of Xichong, Yanting, and Shehong Counties, and part of Jiange, Cangxi, Nanbu, Langzhong and Bazhong. The Minjiang dialect is also referred to as the Nanlu dialect by some scholars.

Ba–Shu Chinese (Chinese: 巴蜀語; pinyin: Bāshǔyǔ; Wade–Giles: Ba1 Shu33; Sichuanese Pinyin: Ba¹su²yu³; IPA:[pa˥su˨˩y˥˧]), or simply Shu Chinese (Chinese: 蜀語), also known as Old Sichuanese, is an extinct Chinese language formerly spoken in what is now Sichuan and Chongqing, China.

The Leshan dialect (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Lèshānhuà; Sichuanese Standard Chinese: No2san1hua4; local pronunciation:[nʊʔ355xuɑ224]) is the Sichuanese dialect of the city of Leshan and is a variety of Minjiang. It preserves old southern (Ba-Shu) features lost in other Sichuanese dialects and is very different from the dialects of most other cities in the province of Sichuan, which are more typically Mandarin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chengdu-Chongqing dialect</span> Variety of Mandarin Chinese

Chengdu-Chongqing dialect or Cheng–Yu is the most widely used branch of Southwestern Mandarin, with about 90 million speakers. It is named after Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan, and Chongqing, which was split from Sichuan in 1997. It is spoken mainly in northern and eastern Sichuan, the northeastern part of the Chengdu Plain, several cities or counties in southwestern Sichuan, southern Shaanxi and western Hubei.

Sichuanese characters (Chinese: 四川方言字; Sichuanese Pinyin: Si4cuan1 Fang1yan2zi4; pinyin: Sìchuān Fāngyánzì) are those Chinese characters used only in written Sichuanese. Sichuanese characters are often created as ideogrammatic compound characters (会意字) or phono-semantic compound characters (形声字).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shu school</span>

The Shu School of Qin Music (蜀派古琴) refers to the modern guqin regional performance style tradition and lineage begun in the mid-19th century by its founder, Zhang Kongshan. The "Shu" name derives from the main base of operations at the time, namely the Sichuan region of China. Today, the Shu School has many branches and lineages, most of which trace their foundation to Zhang Kongshan, though the term is equally applied to Sichuan-based players in general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ba–Shu culture</span> Culture of Sichuan and nearby parts of China

Ba-Shu culture refers to a regional culture centered around Sichuan province and Chongqing city, also encompassing parts of Yunnan, Guizhou and neighboring regions which speak Southwestern Mandarin. Historically centered around the Yangtze River, it emerged as an amalgamation of the cultures of the Shu and Ba kingdoms after their conquest by the Qin Dynasty. The discovery of the Shu site of Sanxingdui in 1986 and Jinsha in 2001 places the Ba-Shu culture's age at nearly four millenia old; consequently, it is widely considered to be one of the cradles of Chinese civilisation and culture.

Hu Zhaoxi was a Chinese historian who specialized in the history of Sichuan and the history of the Song dynasty. He was a professor at Sichuan University, where he served as Dean of the Graduate School, Director of the Sichuan University Library, and President of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Gospel Church is a Protestant church situated on Dabei Upper Street, in the county-level city of Guanghan, Deyang, Sichuan Province. Founded in 1902, it was formerly an Anglican church in the West Szechwan Diocese of the Church in China. It has been subjected to the control of the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Church since 1954. In 2003, a new church was built on Shuyuan Street, and renamed Grace Church.

References

  1. Li, Hsing-jung; Fêng, Ming-i; Yü, Chih-yung (1 November 2014). 導遊實訓課程 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Taipei: E-culture. p. 331. ISBN   9789865650346.
  2. Agafonov, Arthur; Rasskazova, Elena (2 June 2019). "Homeland of Pepper and Panda: Yin and Yang of the Chinese Hinterland". eastrussia.ru. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  3. James B. Parsons (1957). "The Culmination of a Chinese Peasant Rebellion: Chang Hsien-chung in Szechwan, 1644–46". The Journal of Asian Studies. 16 (3): 387–400. doi:10.2307/2941233. JSTOR   2941233.
  4. Yingcong Dai (2009). The Sichuan Frontier and Tibet: Imperial Strategy in the Early Qing. University of Washington Press. pp. 16–. ISBN   978-0-295-98952-5.
  5. Entenmann, Robert Eric (1982). Migration and settlement in Sichuan, 1644-1796. Harvard University.
  6. Yuan, Tingdong (1998). "第七章 宗教" [Chapter VII: Religion]. 巴蜀文化志[Cultural History of Ba–Shu] (in Simplified Chinese). Shanghai: Shanghai People's Press. pp. 241–250. ISBN   7-208-02269-0.
  7. Li, Zhongdong; Tan, Yibo (2014). 天下四川 [All about Sichuan] (in Simplified Chinese). Beijing: China Tourism Press. ISBN   9787503248948.
  8. Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing
  9. 试论宋代巴蜀方言与现代四川方言的关系》">刘晓南(2009年第8卷第6期),《试论宋代巴蜀方言与现代四川方言的关系——兼谈文献考证的一个重要功用:追寻失落的方言》,语言科学