What caused Fujian to be it's own thing? The language they speak is also extra distinct from the other chinese languages, being descended from old chinese rather than middle chinese. They also spread outward from China by sea rather than inland and are like the Ionian Greeks in that regard, both colonizing distant regions. Today the vast majority of SEA chinks are hokkiens and Taiwan is also hokkiens, from fujian.I would have thought that they absorbed lots of substrate baiyue for their language but apparently the baiyue in the region got genocided by Emperor Wu of Han in 111 BC and the land was only populated later on by han chinese refugees.
>>18466286A better file but smaller