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90-656: Mauritians of Chinese origin , also known as Sino-Mauritians or Chinese Mauritians , are Mauritians who trace their ethnic ancestry to China . Like members of other communities on the island, some of the earliest Chinese in Mauritius arrived involuntarily, having been " shanghaied " from Sumatra in the 1740s to work in Mauritius in a scheme hatched by the French admiral Charles Hector, Comte d'Estaing ; however, they soon went on strike to protest their kidnapping. The authorities responded by deporting them back to Sumatra. In

180-499: A humanism of diversity . Subsequent to a Constitutional amendment in 1982, there is no need for Mauritians to reveal their ethnic identities for the purpose of population census. Official statistics on ethnicity are not available. The 1972 census was the last one to measure ethnicity. Statistics Mauritius compiles data on religious affiliation every ten years during census. The Mauritian diaspora consists of Mauritian emigrants and their descendants in various countries around

270-814: A queue . When they walked on streets however, they would wear European shoes and large umbrellas; the wealthy Chinese merchants would carry leather bags. The picture of Ahime Choisanne stored in the Kwan Tee Pagoda in Les Salines shows him wearing formal official uniform of the Qing dynasty (Mandarin robe with buzi , Qing guanmao , chaozhu ). Nowadays, Sino-Mauritians mainly wear Western-style clothing in their daily lives. Sino-Mauritian cuisine includes both Chinese cuisine and localization of Chinese cuisine. Sino-Mauritians also follow and/or have maintained some Chinese food traditions and customs. For example,

360-541: A Chinese spouse. The earliest migrants were largely Cantonese -speaking; but, later, Hakka -speakers from Meixian, further east in Canton (modern-day Guangdong), came to dominate numerically; as in other overseas Chinese communities, rivalry between Hakka and Cantonese became a common feature of the society. The Hakka-Cantonese tensions led to the resettlement of many Cantonese in Reunion Island and Madagascar . By

450-576: A fourth tone category, the entering tone 入 ; rù , because the stops were distributed in the same way as the corresponding final nasals. While northern and central varieties have lost some of the Middle Chinese final consonants, they are retained by most southern Chinese varieties, though sometimes affected by sound shifts. They are most faithfully preserved in Yue dialects. Final stops have disappeared entirely in most Mandarin dialects, including

540-473: A last name during the immigration process. Therefore, when a baby is born in Mauritius (second generation), he is registered with the surname of his father and therefore inherit a three-syllables surname; this pattern of surname is later followed by the subsequent generations. The variation in Sino-Mauritian surname spelling is mostly due to the pronunciation of Chinese names into Latin script. Throughout

630-563: A sense of familiarity; but the major reason is related to the tolerance of the Catholic church who allowed Chinese converts to continue their ancestor worship as it was considered a cultural practice instead of a religious practice. Many Hakka converted due to social pressure and interactions with the Catholic communities; e.g. Catholic neighbours would convince them to convert. Converting to Catholicism also allowed them to send their children to Catholic schools. The rate of conversion speeded up in

720-810: A series of voiced initials, but voicing has been lost in Yue and most other modern Chinese varieties apart from Wu and Old Xiang . In the Guangfu, Siyi and Gao–Yang subgroups, these initials have yielded aspirated consonants in the level and rising tones, and unaspirated consonants in the departing and entering tones. These initials are uniformly unaspirated in Gou–Lou varieties and uniformly aspirated in Wu–Hua. In many Yue varieties, including Cantonese, Middle Chinese /kʰ/ has become [h] or [f] in most words; in Taishanese, /tʰ/ has also changed to [h] , for example, in

810-576: A whole. To avoid confusion, academic texts may refer to the larger branch as "Yue", following the pinyin system based on Standard Chinese , and either restrict "Cantonese" to the Guangzhou variety, or avoid the term altogether, distinguishing Yue from its Guangzhou dialect. People from Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Cantonese immigrants abroad, generally refer to their language as 廣東話 ; Gwóngdūngwá ; 'Guangdong speech' [kʷɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː] . In Guangdong and Guangxi, people also use

900-689: A written language. In the 1990 census, roughly one-third of Sino-Mauritians stated Mauritian Creole as both their ancestral and currently spoken language. The other two-thirds indicated some form of Chinese as their ancestral language although only fewer than one-quarter of census respondents who identified Chinese as their ancestral language also indicated it as the language spoken in the home. Few Sino-Mauritian youth speak Chinese; those who do use it primarily for communication with elderly relatives, especially those who did not attend school and thus had little exposure to English or French. None use it to communicate with their siblings or cousins. Among those members of

990-467: Is a variety displaying features of both Cantonese and Hakka, spoken by 3,000–5,500 people in Dapeng, Shenzhen. The Guangzhou (Canton) dialect of Yuehai , usually called "Cantonese", is the prestige dialect of Guangdong province and social standard of Yue. It is the most widely spoken dialect of Yue and is an official language of Hong Kong and of Macau, alongside English and Portuguese respectively. It

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1080-449: Is also the medium of instruction in schools. The place of local Cantonese language and culture remains contentious. In 2010, a controversial proposal to switch some programming on Guangzhou local television from Cantonese to Mandarin was abandoned following widespread backlash accompanied by public protests . Yue languages are spoken in the southern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, an area long dominated culturally and economically by

1170-969: Is also the most widespread Sinitic language in Guangxi , spoken by slightly more than a half of its Han population. The other half is almost equally divided between the Southwestern Mandarin , Hakka, and Pinghua ; there is also a considerable Xiang -speaking population and a small Hokkien -speaking minority. Yue Chinese is spoken by 35% of the total population of Guangxi, being one of the two largest languages in that province, along with Zhuang . In China, as of 2004, 60% of all Yue speakers lived in Guangdong, 28.3% lived in Guangxi, and 11.6% lived in Hong Kong. In Yuan Jiahua 's 1962 dialect manual, Yue dialects were divided into five groups: In

1260-671: Is consumed all over the island by people of all backgrounds. Fried noodles is one of the most popular dishes. Mauritians from all ethnic origin and background also enjoy the various vegetables and meat balls (Niouk Yen, Sow Mai, Van Yen, Fee Yen) which originate from the Hakka cuisine in Meixian. In a 2001 Business Magazine survey, 10 of the 50 largest companies were Chinese owned. Most Sino-Mauritian youth are at least trilingual: they use Mauritian Creole and French orally, while English—the language of administration and education—remains primarily

1350-427: Is described in contemporary dictionaries as having four tones , where the fourth category, the entering tone, consists of syllables with final stops. Many modern Chinese varieties contain traces of a split of each of these four tones into two registers, an upper or yīn register from voiceless initials and a lower or yáng register from voiced initials. Most Mandarin dialects retain the register distinction only in

1440-405: Is facing numerous challenges, including deculturalization and the loss of ancestral values; with the young Sino-Mauritians losing their Chinese identity. Some Chinese legends and stories continue to persist and to be transmitted in the Sino-Mauritian community due to their associations with the major festivals in which they partake in. Chinese legends and stories which continue to persist within

1530-671: Is often used to refer to the whole branch, but linguists prefer to reserve the name Cantonese for the variety used in Guangzhou (Canton), Wuzhou (Ngchow), Hong Kong and Macau , which is the prestige dialect of the group. Taishanese , from the coastal area of Jiangmen (Kongmoon) located southwest of Guangzhou, was the language of most of the 19th-century emigrants from Guangdong to Southeast Asia and North America. Most later migrants have been speakers of Cantonese. Yue varieties are not mutually intelligible with other varieties of Chinese , and they are not mutually intelligible within

1620-436: Is reflected in historical Mandarin romanizations, such as "Peking" for Beijing, "Kiangsi" for Jiangxi , and "Tientsin" for Tianjin . Some Yue speakers, such as many Hong Kong Cantonese speakers born after World War II, merge /n/ with /l/ , but Taishanese and most other Yue varieties preserve the distinction. Younger Cantonese speakers also tend not to distinguish between /ŋ/ and the zero initial, though this distinction

1710-447: Is retained in most Yue dialects. Yue varieties retain the initial /m/ in words where Late Middle Chinese shows a shift to a labiodental consonant, realized in most Northern varieties of Chinese as [w] . Nasals can be independent syllables in Yue words, e.g. Cantonese 五 ; ńgh ; 'five', and 唔 ; m̀h ; 'not', although Middle Chinese did not have syllables of this type. In most Yue varieties (except for Tengxian ),

1800-535: Is still followed and holds an important place within the Sino-Mauritian community. Sino-Mauritian, like all Mauritians regardless of their origins, celebrates on the Gregorian calendar-based New Year's Eve and New Year (1 January). They also follow some Traditional Chinese festival and holidays: The majority of the Sino-Mauritians are Catholics, a result of conversions during the colonial era. During

1890-606: Is the lingua franca of not only Guangdong, but also many overseas Cantonese emigrants, though in many areas abroad it is numerically second to the Taishanese dialect of Yue. By law, Standard Chinese , based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, is taught nearly universally as a supplement to local languages such as Cantonese. In Guangzhou, much of the distinctively Yue vocabulary have been replaced with Cantonese pronunciations of corresponding Standard Chinese terms. Cantonese

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1980-532: Is the de facto official language of Hong Kong (along with English) and Macau (along with Portuguese), though legally the official language is just "Chinese". It is the oral language of instruction in Chinese schools in Hong Kong and Macau, and is used extensively in Cantonese-speaking households. Cantonese-language media (Hong Kong films, television serials, and Cantopop ), which exist in isolation from

2070-570: The Language Atlas of China , some varieties spoken in western Guangxi formerly classified as Yue are placed in a separate Pinghua group. The remaining Yue dialects are divided into seven groups. Three groups are found in the watershed of the Pearl River : The remaining four groups are found in coastal areas: Anne Yue-Hashimoto has proposed an alternative classification based on a wider sampling of features: The Dapeng dialect

2160-661: The Bobai dialect , have also split the lower entering tone. While most Chinese varieties form compounds consisting of a qualifier followed by a qualified element, Yue dialects may use the reverse order. For example, the Standard Chinese, and widely used Cantonese word for "guest" is 客人 ; kèrén ; 'guest-person', but the same morphemes may be reversed in Cantonese [jɐn ha:k] versus Taishanese [ŋin hak] , and Tengxian [jən hɪk] . This has been hypothesized to be

2250-675: The Chinese Commercial Gazette and returned to Mauritius. He left Mauritius again in 1952 to work for a Chinese paper in India, but a position at the China Times enticed him back. Originally a four-page paper, the China Times later expanded to eight full-colour pages. The Mirror (镜报) was established in 1976. It is published on a weekly basis every Saturday. At its peak, they had a staff of eight people. Their editor-in-chief, Mr. Ng Kee Siong (黄基松), began his career at

2340-616: The Chinese Commercial Paper in 1942 at the age of 25. After 18 years there, the paper was forced to shut down. He and a team of fellow journalists founded a paper to replace it, the New Chinese Commercial Paper . It was while working there that he met Chu Vee Tow and William Lau, who would help him to establish The Mirror . Another editor and journalist, Mr. Poon Yune Lioung POON YOW TSE (冯云龙), who studied foreign languages at Tsinghua University ,

2430-543: The Chinese Daily News , Too Wai Man (杜蔚文), even received death threats. The China Times (formerly 中国时报; now 华侨时报) was founded in 1953. The editor-in-chief, Long Siong Ah Keng (吴隆祥), was born in 1921 in Mauritius; at age 11, he followed his parents back to their ancestral village in Meixian , Guangdong , where he graduated from high school and went on to Guangxi University . After graduation, he signed on with

2520-860: The Hundred Yue (or Baiyue ). Large-scale Han Chinese migration to the area began after the Qin conquest of the region in 214 BC. Successive waves of immigration followed at times of upheaval in Northern and Central China, such as the collapse of the Han , Tang and Song dynasties. The most popular route was via the Xiang River , which the Qin had connected to the Li River by the Lingqu Canal , and then into

2610-619: The Tai languages formerly spoken widely in the area and still spoken by people such as the Zhuang and Dong . The port city of Guangzhou lies in the middle of Pearl River Delta , with access to the interior via the Xi, Bei, and Dong rivers, which all converge at the delta. It has been the economic centre of the Lingnan region since Qin times, when it was an important shipbuilding centre. By 660, it

2700-580: The 1780s, thousands of voluntary Chinese migrants (estimated to be more than 3,000) set sail for Port Louis from Guangzhou on board British, French, and Danish ships; they found employment as blacksmiths, carpenters, cobblers, and tailors, and quickly formed a small Chinatown , the camp des Chinois , in Port Louis. Even after the British takeover of the island, migration continued unabated. The first wave of migration from China to Mauritius occurred in

2790-597: The 1880s, despite the continuous influx of immigrants, Mauritius' Chinese population declined; Chinese traders, legally unable to purchase land in Mauritius, instead brought their relatives from China over to Mauritius. After training them for a few years to give them a handle on the business and to introduce them to life in a Western-ruled colonial society, the traders sent those relatives on their way, with capital and letters of introduction, to establish businesses in neighbouring countries. For example, between 1888 and 1898, nearly 1,800 Chinese departed from Port Louis with ports on

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2880-456: The African mainland—largely Port Elizabeth and Durban —as their destinations. In the late 19th to early 20th century , Chinese men in Mauritius married Indian women due to both a lack of Chinese women and the higher numbers of Indian women on the island. From the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, a third wave of Chinese migrants came to Mauritius. This time, most of them were Hakka Chinese from

2970-528: The Beijing dialect, have a third sibilant series, formed through a merger of palatalized alveolar sibilants and velars, but this is a recent innovation, which has not affected Yue and other Chinese varieties. For example, 晶 , 精 , 經 and 京 are all pronounced as jīng in Mandarin, but in Cantonese the first pair is pronounced jīng , while the second pair is pronounced gīng . The earlier pronunciation

3060-511: The Beijing-based standard, with the syllables distributed across the other tones. For example, the characters 裔 , 屹 , 藝 , 憶 , 譯 , 懿 , 肄 , 翳 , 邑 , and 佚 are all pronounced yì in Mandarin, but they are all distinct in Yue: in Cantonese, yeuih , ngaht , ngaih , yīk , yihk , yi , yih , ai , yāp , and yaht , respectively. Similarly, in Mandarin dialects

3150-413: The Cantonese and Namshun (南顺) in Mauritius. By the 1860s, shops run by Sino-Mauritians could be found all over the island. Some members of the colonial government thought that further migration should be prohibited, but Governor John Pope Hennessy , recognizing the role that Sino-Mauritians played in providing cheap goods to less well-off members of society, resisted the restrictionists' lobbying. During

3240-421: The Chinese immigrants and their descendants. Chinese Societies and clan associations continue to exist in present-day Mauritius. Sino-Mauritians may have a European name (usually a French name) as their first name. The surname of Sino-Mauritians are typically composed of 2 or 3 syllables-long instead of being one-syllable long as found in typical Chinese surname ; this is the result of surname alternation during

3330-504: The Chinese migrants who came to Mauritius were known to be "clanish" in nature. The 3 main Chinese subgroups (Fukien, Namshun, and Hakka) in Mauritius each had their own recognized leaders. Recognized leaders during that period were: Hahime Choisanne (Fukien), Affan Tank Wen (Cantonese). Most Chinese immigrants who came to Mauritius during the colonial period easily rebuilt their clan network in Mauritius; these clan networks came to function as mutual aid societies and social centres for

3420-542: The Christian Sino-Mauritian families. Nowadays, Sino-Mauritians (even Catholic Sino-Mauritian ) still follow some form of Chinese-related religions (which include Taoist and Chinese Folk religions ); a minority of Sino-Mauritians follow Buddhism ; they also follow Confucianism . Typically, some syncretism occurred, incorporating elements of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and traditional ancestor worship. Sino-Mauritian Christians, especially members of

3510-519: The Creole and Indian communities in order to build their own families or buy land under the name of their spouses. In 1829, the British brought a group of Chinese migrants to work on sugar plantations; harsh working conditions the Chinese migrants to start a failed revolt. Between 1840 and 1843 alone, 3,000 Chinese contract workers arrived on the island. By 1846, it is estimated that an influx of 50 Chinese migrants came to Mauritius per year. By mid-century,

3600-594: The Franco-Mauritians and their Creole allies to the Indo-Mauritians. The meeting of a mosaic of people from Europe, India, Africa and China began a process of hybridisation and intercultural frictions and dialogues, which poet Khal Torabully has termed "coolitude". This social reality is a major reference for identity opened to otherness and is widely used in Mauritius where it represents

3690-654: The Mauritian demographic census despite being a subgroup of the Sino-Mauritian community. The Sino-creoles community in Mauritius can include: Historically, most Sino-Mauritians became businesspeople, with a once "virtual monopoly" on retail trade. In per capita terms, after the Franco-Mauritian population, they form the second-wealthiest group on the island. They own restaurants, retail and wholesale shops, and import-and-export firms. Chinese restaurants have greatly influenced Mauritian culture , and Chinese food

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3780-430: The Middle Chinese final /m/ has merged with /n/ , but the distinction is maintained in southern varieties of Chinese such as Hakka , Min and Yue. For example, Cantonese has 譚 ; taahm and 壇 ; tàahn versus Mandarin tán , 鹽 ; yìhm and 言 ; yìhn versus Mandarin yán , 添 ; tìm and 天 ; tìn versus Mandarin tiān , and 含 ; hàhm and 寒 ; hòhn versus Mandarin hán . Middle Chinese

3870-1061: The Nam Shun Society (Namshun Fooy Koon; 南顺会馆) in Port Louis. The Nam Shun society is an association for the Sino-Mauritians whose ancestors mainly originated from Nam Hoi ( Nanhai district ) and Shun Tak ( Shunde ). Sino-Mauritians who trace their ancestors from province Fujian in China, are known as 'Fokien', 'Fukien' or 'Hokkien' people in Mauritius; this is in reference of the ancestral province location. Due to their intermarriage with other ethnic groups (mostly creole and Indian), people who are born with mixed ancestral are perceived as "Sino-creoles"; Sino-creoles, however, are often proud of their ancestors and perceived themselves as Chinese. Nowadays, most Sino-Mauritians living in Mauritius are Hakka (客家) who can trace their ancestry back to Meixian , Guangdong province. The Sino-creoles are typically categorized as " General population" in

3960-414: The Sino-Mauritian community, include: Sino-Mauritians continue to perform some traditional Chinese dances, like the dragon dance. The lion dance and dragon dance holds an important place in the Sino-Mauritian culture. Chinese martial arts are practiced within the Sino-Mauritian community and are no more exclusive to their community in Mauritius. Some of these martial arts are: During the colonial period,

4050-716: The Sino-Mauritian community. The Chinese Middle School also faced the problem of falling student numbers, as more Sino-Mauritians sent their children to mainstream schools, and in the 1970s stopped their weekday classes, retaining only a weekend section. However, their student numbers began to experience some revival in the mid-1980s; in the 1990s, they established a weekday pre-school section. Most of their teachers are local Sino-Mauritians, though some are expatriates from mainland China. Four Chinese-language newspapers continued to be published in Mauritius as of 2014. A monthly news magazine also began publication in 2005. The newspapers are printed in Port Louis, but not widely distributed outside

4140-593: The Tang dynasty collapsed, much of the area became part of the state of Southern Han , one of the longest-lived states of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms , between 917 and 971. Large waves of Chinese migration throughout succeeding Chinese dynasties assimilated huge numbers of Yue aborigines, with the result that today's Southern Han Chinese Yue-speaking population is descended from both groups. The colloquial layers of Yue varieties contain elements influenced by

4230-456: The Yue family either. They are among the most conservative varieties with regard to the final consonants and tonal categories of Middle Chinese , but have lost several distinctions in the initial consonants and medial glides that other Chinese varieties have retained. "Cantonese" is prototypically used in English to refer to the variety of Yue in Guangzhou, but it is also to refer to Yue as

4320-512: The administrative process of the past Chinese immigration system to Mauritius, often happened through the stop over in Hong Kong during the Colonial period. Most Sino-Mauritians use the full Chinese name, which includes the Chinese surname (姓; xing ) and Chinese first name (名字, mingzi ), of their (patrilineal), of their Chinese immigrant ancestor (i.e. the first generation Chinese immigrant who arrived to Mauritius) who had his full name turned into

4410-612: The altar. On Chinese New Year , descendants of the deceased can practice the ancestral rites before the Ancestral tablets as a sign of respect. Mauritians Mauritian Creoles trace their origins to the plantation owners and slaves who were brought to work the sugar fields. When slavery was abolished on 1 February 1835, an attempt was made to secure a cheap source of adaptable labour for intensive sugar plantations in Mauritius. Indentured labour began with Indian, Chinese, Malay, African and Malagasy labourers, but ultimately, it

4500-517: The city by hilly terrain. One of these coastal languages, Taishanese, is the most common Yue variety among overseas communities. Yue varieties are not totally mutually intelligible with one another. Yue Chinese is the most widely spoken local language in Guangdong . Its native speakers constitute around a half (47%) of its population. The other half is equally divided between Hakka and Min Chinese , mostly Teochew , but also Leizhounese . Yue

4590-494: The city of Guangzhou at the delta of the Pearl River . Cantonese, also spoken in Hong Kong and Macau, is the prestige variety of Yue. The influence of Guangzhou has spread westward along the Pearl River system, so that, for example, the speech of the city of Wuzhou some 190 km (120 mi) upstream in Guangxi is much more similar to that of Guangzhou than dialects of coastal districts that are closer but separated from

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4680-419: The city. The Chinese Commercial Gazette (华侨商报) was once the largest and most influential Chinese-language newspaper in Mauritius. It stopped publishing in the 1960s, and merged with the China Times . The Chinese Daily News (中华日报) is a pro- Kuomintang newspaper. It was founded in 1932. The rivalry between Beijing-friendly and Taipei-friendly newspapers reached its peak in the 1950s; then-editor-in-chief of

4770-403: The colonial era, some of the earliest converts to Catholicism were Chinese men who married with Christian Creole women. In this form of interethnic marriage, boys born of Chinese men could be baptized but they would still follow the traditions of their fathers; however, daughters were usually raised as Catholics. Therefore, some Chinese had to convert to Catholicism in order to marry. However, until

4860-408: The community who do continue to speak Hakka , wide divergence with Meixian Hakka has developed in terms of vocabulary and phonology. Other of varieties of Chinese spoken in Mauritius aside Hakka are: Hokkien , Cantonese , and Standard Mandarin . Two Chinese-medium middle schools were established in the first half of the 20th century. The Chinese Middle School (华文学校, later called 新华中学 and then 新华学校)

4950-587: The completion of their work contract; these Chinese women married Sino-Mauritian men and settled with their families in Mauritius. However, the local Sino-Mauritian community in Mauritius declined in numbers as some decided to immigrate to Canada, the US, and Australia. Sino-Mauritians who trace their Cantonese ancestors from the province of Guandong are known as the "Namshun" (南顺) or "Cantonese" in Mauritius. Sino-Mauritian of Cantonese origins in Mauritius have their own separate associations, societies, and events; for example,

5040-462: The construction of more pagodas.By 1980s, 66% of the Sino-Mauritians were Catholic and a small amount converted to Protestantism. Nowadays, a majority of Sino-Mauritians also identify as Catholic Christians. Other Sino-Mauritians are Protestant. Despite their identifying as Catholics, there is however a long tradition of religious parallelism among the Sino-Mauritian families, and as such, elements of Chinese religions still continue to exist even among

5130-509: The early 1800s, the Chinese migrants who came to Mauritius were mainly Hokkien from Xiamen (Amoy) in Southern Fujian province. Most of these migrants from Fujian were merchants and therefore according to the law they were not allowed to bring their families with them, were not allowed to buy lands unless they abandoned their Chinese citizenship and adopted British citizenship; therefore, this led to many intermarriages with women of

5220-458: The early 20th century; it is estimated that 17% of the Chinese were Christians in 1911 and by 1921, 28% of the Chinese and Sino-Mauritians in the country had become Christians.From the 1940s to 1960s, there were also many Catholic missionaries who worked on converting the Chinese and Sino-Mauritians to Catholicism, leading to a significant impact on the increase in the conversion speed. From the 1950s and onwards, Chinese religions re-emerged leading to

5310-467: The end of the 19th century, more than 92% of the Chinese were still following their traditional Chinese religions. Other reasons leading to the increase in Christianity of conversion were the social benefits of being Catholics; local schools also introduced Roman Catholic faith to their students; there were also many similarities in rites shared between Chinese religions and Catholicism which gave them

5400-572: The end of the 19th century, the Hakkas became the dominant group outnumbering the Cantonese and Fukienese together. By 1901, the Sino-Mauritian population had shrunk to 3,515 individuals, among them 2,585 being business owners. The 1921 census in Mauritius counted that Indian women there had a total of 148 children fathered by Chinese men. These Chinese were mostly traders. Until the 1930s, Chinese migrants continued to arrive in Port Louis , but with

5490-511: The establishment of the People's Republic of China ; nearly all Chinese migration from China was stopped. During this period, Hakka women from Taiwan arrived in Mauritius to marry the local Hakka Chinese men in Mauritius. Until 1997, investors and merchants from Hong Kong were encouraged to come to Mauritius to start their own trading business but only few people from Hong Kong permanently migrated to Mauritius. Sino-Mauritians continued to maintain

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5580-475: The garment factories. After the 1980s, China reopened up to the world and migration from China to Mauritius slowly restarted and therefore, the old marriage network of the Hakka was re-established, allowing Hakka women from Meixian to marry the local Hakka Sino-Mauritians. Simultaneously, Chinese women migrant workers who came to work in textile factories came from all regions of China and some of them decided to remain in Mauritius instead of returning to China after

5670-764: The god of wealth, also the god of war and the righteous and the benefactor) is an important deity for Sino-Mauritians, especially for those working in the business field. In Chinese Pagodas, altars can also be found for Guan Yin , the Goddess Mazu (also known as Tin Hao; the goddess of the sea and the protector of sailors), the God Choy Sun (the God of Good Fortune). The goddess Mazu is usually prayed by Sino-Mauritians to seek for protection for their relatives who travel abroad and to wish for their safe and good return home. For

5760-486: The immigration process, some Chinese migrants had their first name turned into their surname while others had their Chinese nicknames (e.g. in the form of " Ah-given name ") turned into their surname. Sino-Mauritians who lacks their forefather's xing in their surname rely on oral transmission from generations to generations to be aware of their ancestral surname. In the 19th century, Chinese men living in Mauritius working as shopkeepers wore shanku and braided their hair in

5850-549: The key-point in the trade of indentured labourers, as thousands of Indians set forth from Calcutta or Karikal ; not only did they modify the social, political and economic physiognomies of the island, but some also went farther, to the West Indies . Indo-Mauritians are descended from Indian immigrants who arrived in the 19th century via the Aapravasi Ghat in order to work as indentured labourers after slavery

5940-460: The level tone, yielding the first and second tones of the standard language (corresponding to the first and fourth tones in Cantonese), but have merged several of the other categories. Most Yue dialects have retained all eight categories, with a further split of the upper entering tone conditioned by vowel length, as also found in neighbouring Tai dialects. A few dialects spoken in Guangxi, such as

6030-541: The most common Yue variety in these areas. It is only partially understood by speakers of Cantonese. Yue varieties are among the most conservative of Chinese varieties regarding the final consonants and tonal categories of Middle Chinese , so that the rhymes of Tang poetry are clearer in Yue dialects than elsewhere. However they have lost several distinctions in the initial consonants and medial vowels that other Chinese varieties have retained. In addition to aspirated and unaspirated voiceless initials, Middle Chinese had

6120-631: The nation. Their ancestors and more recent migrants are now known as Mauritian Australians . Aboriginal people from islands south of the continent likewise settled in Australia. Yue Chinese Yue ( Cantonese pronunciation: [jyːt̚˨] ) is a branch of the Sinitic languages primarily spoken in Southern China , particularly in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi (collectively known as Liangguang ). The term Cantonese

6210-524: The native name of the dialect, "Hoisan". In Siyi and eastern Gao–Yang, Middle Chinese /s/ has become a voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ] . Most Yue varieties have merged the Middle Chinese retroflex sibilants with the alveolar sibilants, in contrast with Mandarin dialects , which have generally maintained the distinction. For example, the words 將 ; jiāng and 張 ; zhāng are distinguished in Mandarin, but in modern Cantonese they are both pronounced as jēung . Many Mandarin varieties, including

6300-409: The older generations, sometimes retain certain traditions from Buddhism. Catholics Sino-Mauritians still frequent Chinese pagodas. The Catholic Church of Mauritius also recognise the dual religion system practice by the Sino-Mauritians to preserve their distinct traditions, including ancestral worship which remains a significant aspect of their everyday life. In the present day, Guan Di (Kwan Tee;

6390-607: The one-month-old celebration of a Sino-Mauritian baby, the parents and the grandparents of the child make offerings to the Yudi (god of Heaven) and to Guan Yin. Pagodas also shelter ancestral cult altars and ancestral tablets. Following Chinese tradition, religious services are typically conducted one week after death at the Pagoda and the ancestral tablet of the deceased with his name written in Chinese characters will be deposited behind

6480-423: The other regions of China, local identity, and the non-Mandarin speaking Cantonese diaspora in Hong Kong and abroad give the language a unique identity. Colloquial Hong Kong Cantonese often incorporates English words due to historical British influences. Most wuxia films from Canton are filmed originally in Cantonese and then dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin, English, or both. When the Chinese government removed

6570-512: The personal ethnic networks connecting them to relatives in greater China , which would play an important role in the 1980s, with the rise of the export-processing zones . Foreign investors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the factories they built in the EPZs, helped Mauritius to become the third-largest exporter of woollen knitwear in the world. Along with the investors came a new influx of Chinese migrant workers , who signed on for three-year stints in

6660-509: The prohibition on emigration in the mid-19th century, many people from rural areas in the coastal regions of Fujian and Guangdong emigrated to Southeast Asia and North America. Until the late 20th century, the vast majority of Chinese immigrants to North America came from the Siyi ('four counties') to the southwest of Guangzhou. The speech of this region, particularly the Taishan dialect, is thus

6750-687: The region of Meixian (梅县; commonly known as Moyen in Hakka). There were numerous reasons for their arrival in Mauritius, including their desire to escape starvation or seek fortune. During that period of time, Chinese women were allowed to come in Mauritius and contributed to an increase growth of the Chinese community; moreover, the Hakka were reluctant to marry with other ethnic communities and started organizing marriage with Chinese women back home to maintain their community's blood purity, some women even became known as "marriage breakers" as they attempted to break mixed marriage of Chinese men to make them remarry

6840-702: The rounded medial /w/ has merged with the following vowel to form a monophthong , except after velar initials. In most analyses velars followed by /w/ are treated as labio-velars . Most Yue varieties have retained the Middle Chinese palatal medial, but in Cantonese it has also been lost to monophthongization, yielding a variety of vowels. Middle Chinese syllables could end with glides /j/ or /w/ , nasals /m/ , /n/ or /ŋ/ , or stops /p/ , /t/ or /k/ . Syllables with vocalic or nasal endings could occur with one of three tonal contours, called 平 ; 'level', 上 ; 'rising', or 去 ; 'departing'. Syllables with final stops were traditionally treated as

6930-401: The strain on the local economy's ability to absorb them, many found that Mauritius would only be their first stop; they went on to the African mainland (especially South Africa ), as well as to Madagascar , Réunion , and Seychelles . After World War II, immigration from China largely came to an end. Between the 1950s and 1980s, there was a considerable reduction of contacts with China due to

7020-532: The terms 粵語 ; Yuhtyúh ; 'Yue language' [jỳt jy̬ː] and 白話 ; baahkwá (plain/colloquial speech) [pàːk wǎː] ; for example, the expression 南寧白話 ; Nàahmnìhng baahkwá means 'Nanning colloquial speech'. The area of China south of the Nanling Mountains , known as the Lingnan (roughly modern Guangxi and Guangdong), was originally home to peoples known to the Chinese as

7110-471: The territory was ceded to Britain in 1842. As a result, Hong Kong Cantonese , the most widely spoken language in Hong Kong and Macau, is an offshoot of the Guangzhou dialect. The popularity of Cantonese-language media, Cantopop and the Cinema of Hong Kong has since led to substantial exposure of Cantonese to China and the rest of Asia. On the mainland, the national policy is to promote Standard Chinese, which

7200-416: The total resident Chinese population reached five thousand. A second wave of migration from China mainly came from the city of Guangzhou (Canton). In the mid-1800s, they mainly came from the district of Shunde . Some of them were coolies who passed through Hong Kong and came to Mauritius to work through the British colonial network, while others were merchants and craftsmen. These migrants were known as

7290-538: The tradition of Chinese red eggs which are shared with family members. It is also customary for Sino-Mauritians to eat fried noodles on birthday celebrations. Despite being one of the smallest community in Mauritius, Sino-Mauritian cuisine is the most present in the restaurants throughout the island. Some Sino-Mauritian still refer to the Tung Shing (Chinese almanac) to find auspicious dates and time for diverse events in their lives, including: The Chinese zodiac

7380-693: The valley of the Xi Jiang . A secondary route followed the Gan River and then the Bei Jiang into eastern Guangdong. Yue-speakers were later joined by Hakka speakers following the North River route, and Min speakers arriving by sea. After the fall of Qin, the Lingnan area was part of the independent state of Nanyue for about a century, before being incorporated into the Han empire in 111 BC. After

7470-403: The world, mainly Great Britain ( United Kingdom ), Australia , New Zealand, Canada, France, Ireland and Belgium. Given the island's importance for international shipping routes and limited opportunities locally, Mauritian Creole people settled internationally before some of these countries were founded as nations. For example, Mauritians settled on the continent of Australia before federation of

7560-419: Was India which supplied the much needed labourers to Mauritius, mainly sugar cane workers. This period of intensive use of Indian labour took place during British rule , with many brutal episodes and a long struggle by the indentured for respect. The term applied to the indentured during this period, and which has since become a derogatory term for Mauritians of Asian descent, was coolie . The island soon became

7650-570: Was abolished in 1835. Included in the Indo-Mauritian community are Hindus (48.5% of the Mauritian population) and Muslims (17.2%) from the Indian subcontinent. The Franco-Mauritian elite controlled nearly all of the large sugar estates and was active in business and banking. As the Indian population became numerically dominant after independence from British rule and the voting franchise was extended, political and economic power shifted from

7740-586: Was also a small amount of vernacular literature, written with Chinese characters extended with a number of non-traditional characters for Cantonese words. Guangzhou became the centre of rapidly expanding foreign trade after the maritime ban was lifted, with the British East India Company establishing a chamber of commerce in the city in 1715. The ancestors of most of the Han Chinese population of Hong Kong came from Guangzhou after

7830-596: Was also solicited to lend a hand. The paper is printed by Dawn Printing, which is currently run by Ng Kee Siong's son David. Most of The Mirror' s readers are in their forties or older; it has subscribers not just in Mauritius, but Réunion, Madagascar, Canada, China, Australia and Hong Kong as well. The paper's local readership has been boosted slightly by guest workers from China, but the circulation barely exceeded 1,000 copies in 2001. By 2006, that number had fallen to seven hundred. In 2010, The Mirror stopped publication. Hua Sheng Bao (华声报), also referred to as Sinonews ,

7920-431: Was established on 10 November 1912 as a primary school; in 1941, they expanded to include a lower middle school. Their student population exceeded 1,000. The Chung-Hwa Middle School (中华中学), established by Kuomintang cadres on 20 October 1941, grew to enroll 500 students, but by the end of the 1950s, that had shrunk to just 300; they stopped classes entirely in the 1960s, although their alumni association remains prominent in

8010-404: Was founded in 2005. With regards to its editorial line, it is a supporter of Chinese unification . It began as a daily newspaper solely in Chinese, but then changed to an eight-page format, including one page each of English and French news. It mostly prints Xinhua newswire reports, with the last page devoted to local news. Nowadays, the Sino-Mauritians is a minority community in Mauritius which

8100-502: Was the largest port in China, part of a trade network stretching as far as Arabia. During the Southern Song , it also became the cultural centre of the region. Like many other Chinese varieties it developed a distinct literary layer associated with the local tradition of reading the classics. The Guangzhou dialect (Cantonese) was used in the popular Yuèōu , Mùyú and Nányīn folksong genres, as well as Cantonese opera . There

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