Talk:Han Chinese

DNA section biased

The text in the DNA analyis is misleading

"Despite this, tests comparing the genetic profiles of northern Han, southern Han and southern natives determined that haplogroups O1b-M110, O2a1-M88 and O3d-M7, which are prevalent in southern natives, were only observed in some southern Hans (4% on average), but not in northern Hans. "

This would imply the paternal contribution of southern natives is only 4% when this is far from the truth. Y-DNA O1 (all subclades) is very common in (and perhaps more associated with) Dai populations. It is also very common in southern Chinese. Y-DNA O-P201 is very common in southern natives and is very common in Guangdong. There are many subclades of Y-DNA O1, O2 and O3 shared by both Dai and Han alike.

References

Summary

Main article: List of political parties in China

The number of speakers derived from statistics or estimates (2019) and were rounded:

Number	People	Subgroups	Main Area	Population
1	Cantonese people	Taishanese people, Hongkongers, Macau people, Macanese people	Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong, Macau	120,000,000
2	Hakka people	Ngái people	Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan	120,000,000
3	Min people	Fuzhou people, Hoklo people, Hoklo Taiwanese, Putian people, Teochew people	Fujian, Hainan, Southern Zhejiang, Guangdong	115,000,000
4	Shandong people		Shandong Province	100,000,000
5	Sichuanese people		Sichuan Province, Chongqing Municipality	100,000,000
6	Wu people	Shanghainese people, Ningbonese people, Wenzhou people	Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian	90,000,000
7	Hebei people		Hebei Province	75,000,000
8	Jianghuai people	Subei people	Jiangsu Province, Anhui Province	75,000,000
9	Gan people		Jiangxi, Eastern Hunan	60,000,000
10	Hunanese people		Hunan, Northeastern Guangxi	40,000,000
11	Taiwanese people		Taiwan, Southeast Asia	25,000,000
12	Tanka people	Fuzhou Tanka	Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan	5,000,000
13	Hainan people		Hainan, Southeast Asia	5,000,000
14	Chuanqing people		Guizhou	700,000
15	Gaoshan people		Yunnan, Guizhou	400,000
16	Waxiang people		Hunan	400,000
17	Tunbao people		Guizhou, Anshun	300,000
18	Hui'an people		Quanzhou, Fujian, China	50,000

References

France

Is there a reason why the Han population of France is not given? It's generally considered to be Europe's largest. 2600:1702:6D0:5160:316F:B23D:69E:485D (talk) 17:14, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Past/Modern Chinese Phrasing

"Within the course of the Warring States period led to the emergence of the early discernible consciousness of the Zhou-era Chinese referring to themselves as being Huaxia (literally, "the beautiful grandeur"), which was distinctively used to adumbrate a "civilized" culture in contrast to what were perceived as "barbaric" towards the adjacent and adjoining vicinities bordering the Zhou Kingdoms that were inhabited by different non-Han Chinese peoples around them."

The issue here is that we all view these people as Chinese now, because they live in the nation of China. However, during this time period (as inferred by the article and what little knowledge I have about it from elsewhere) this country mostly contained Han/Huaxian/Hua Ren people, with minor exceptions (as most countries have when they have limited immigrant populations). This ethnic-nation viewed the other nations (ethnic-based or diverse) around them as being barbaric. From the description here it sounds like we're considering this country to be the basis of ancient China, with all the other countries around them that eventually became modern China to be..."kind of ancient China, but not really, because they hadn't merged with the Huaxia nation yet". Thus, we have the relatively normal-but-weird-when-you-think-about-it-phrasing, "ancient non-Han Chinese people." What I'm trying to say is that China doesn't exist yet, because it's called Huaxia...and also several other nations that surrounded them and several others that surrounded those. We're acknowledging the Hua Ren people here as more Chinese than the others which eventually merged/colonized them (depending on the history, which I currently do not know of well) while still recognizing all of the other nations as Chinese. But China doesn't exist yet.

Would it be alright to re-phase this (and the surrounding text) in a way where we acknowledge that they're all Chinese now, but in the past they were not considered to be Chinese, and they didn't acknowledge them to be Huaxin, but in a different way than what's been written? These are completely different cultures and ethnic groups at this point in time, and while their bias is worth remarking upon, it's also important to distinguish that these people aren't really Chinese yet and thus it makes sense that they would see these other countries as non-Chinese. It's no different than the United States with Canada and Mexico or the UK with Ireland, Germany, France, Norway, etc. Just because they're nearby doesn't make them the same people, and perhaps one day the United States will take over Canada and Mexico or the E.U will become one nation and bring Great Britain back. It makes perfect sense for us in our time to view these people as not a part of our country when they are not currently, in our point of time. Also, I don't know how to re-word this, perhaps as evident by my long descriptions trying to describe it. That's part of why I'm asking you. Wacape (talk) 00:28, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

You seem to be tripped up with the specific label rather than what underlying phenomenon the label is assigned to. None of these groups considered themselves to be "China", because "China" is an English form of a word of slightly contested origin, but ultimately an exonym. The specific label doesn't matter because there's no break in continuity. The Huaxia people didn't take a year-long break from having a society, and then come back as Han Chinese in the 100s BC. "Huaxia" is generally considered to be contiguous with "Han Chinese" for our purposes, which are limited—these are incomplete models that intentionally pick and choose details for the purpose of coherent historiography, that meanwhile don't create new inaccuracies. The reason we make a distinction is partly due to which specific terms people thought of themselves in, but also because it would be unacceptable anachronistic to just use "Han" the whole time, or even more unacceptable to start calling Han "Huaxia" now, even though they call themselves "Han".
The further back you go, the more societies and cultures have evolved (of course, the degree to which you can differentiate and identify distinct societies and cultures at all must always be kept in mind, per above), and the more you have to clearly identify what the core connective throughline is in order to consider one of these categories to be coherent.
Also, you may be conflating past and present categories of ethnicity and nationality. I hope that makes sense. Remsense留 04:58, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@Remsense Yeah I agree, so like if we use Anglo-Saxons becoming English people as an example, the change (distinction) occurred because of the Norman invasion led by William the Conquer in 1066 and the subsequent mixing of Normans and Anglo-Saxon peoples (at least I think that's why) and they formed a new identity which is also an ethnicity known as the English. But in terms of China and Han Chinese people I don't think major intermixing occurred so that most the population was intermixed with another ethnic group unlike the example I just said with the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans. Alexysun (talk) 21:09, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Wacape Pinging you too. Alexysun (talk) 21:10, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

On an unrelated note, In my thinking the reason why the Han Chinese didn't split off into different ethnic groups like in Europe was because the lack of an alphabet, so even though pronunciation became different with the different dialects, the characters were still the same so a common identity was still there, but in Europe, the words changed with the pronunciation changes so there was no longer a shared language. Am I wrong? Alexysun (talk) 21:18, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

There's absolutely more complexity and reciprocity to it, but as far as I understand non-phonetic writing absolutely enabled shared institutions and bureaucracy of a kind phonetic writing couldn't in the premodern world.

With that said, I would be cautious of over-indexing how special the Chinese case is here, as every literary culture had something like this—it's just their official/literary languages (e.g. Latin, Sanskrit, Classical Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Ancient Greek, Ge'ez...) didn't last as long as the 20th century in (most!) cases before being replaced with the vernacular. Remsense诉 21:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Using the term "China" or "Chinese" isn't predicated on an original Chinese nation's existence. The Japanese/Koreans and other peoples had their own terms to refer to Chinese people even while multiple states ruled territory in modern China. It's a category that for all intents and purposes fulfills the same function as "Huaxia" or any other arbitrary term. Taking this line of thinking to its ultimate conclusion would mean questioning things like whether or not Confucius was actually Chinese because he existed prior to a single Chinese nation state. I don't think this is useful or productive to continue thinking about. Qiushufang (talk) 05:18, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

汉人

@Remsense You used the logic that we don't say English people, we just say English, but using that logic wouldn't we just say 汉 because 汉族translates to "Han ethnic group" and we don't say "English ethnic group" in English. So if you want to talk about it using English conventions then it would just be 汉 and you can be the judge of whether that makes sense or not. I mean I don't object to it just being 汉. Alexysun (talk) 21:22, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense Oh and also you're wrong because it is called "English people" as the article title and the infobox title. Check the English people article. Alexysun (talk) 21:25, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Right, it doesn't say "The English people, also known as the English". Remsense诉 21:30, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense Exactly, so that's why I put 汉人(means Han people) in the infobox. Now I get that there is a point that you don't translate to Chinese something that is only used in English, but the thing is that 汉人 is actually very commonly used in Chinese so that point is null. Alexysun (talk) 21:42, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

It's just not really lexically distinct. The fact we're including it as its own "variant" is just a bit misleading to an audience that doesn't speak any Chinese. There's this sense on Wikipedia where we have to list every single way sources inflect a given term if enough of them do it, and it's simply not that useful when we do that if the terms aren't actually different. Remsense诉 21:29, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Right, so it's two sets of two characters that mean the exact same thing. Your point seems to be that since they mean the exact same thing then pick one. I agree with that. And my argument now is that actually 汉人 might be more commonly used than 汉族 in Chinese and we should just replace 汉族 in the infobox with 汉人. Alexysun (talk) 21:45, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense Okay nevermind, you're right because the Chinese article uses 汉族. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that saying 汉人 in Chinese is completely valid too, but in English referring to the English people as the English ethnic group sounds weird and thus is not mentioned like that. Alexysun (talk) 21:51, 10 July 2024 (UTC)