The Cantonese people () or Yue people (), are a Yue-speaking Han Chinese subgroup originating from or residing in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi (collectively known as Liangguang), in Southern Mainland China. Although more accurately, "Cantonese" refers only to Han Chinese with roots from Guangzhou and its satellite cities and towns, rather than simply and generally referring to the people of the Liangguang region. Historically centered and predominant in the Pearl River Basin shared between Guangdong and Guangxi, the Cantonese people are also responsible for establishing their native language's usage in Hong Kong and Macau during their 19th century migrations within the times of the British and Portuguese colonial eras respectively. Cantonese remains today as a majority language in Guangdong and Guangxi, despite the increasing influence of Mandarin. Taishanese people may also be considered Cantonese but speak a distinct variety of Yue Chinese, Taishanese. Terminology "Cantonese" has been generally used to describe all Chinese people from Guangdong since "Cantonese" is commonly treated as a synonym with "Guangdong" and the Cantonese language is treated as the sole language of the region. This is inaccurate as "Canton" itself technically only refers to Guangdong's capital Guangzhou and the Cantonese language specifically refers to only the Guangzhou dialect of the Yue Chinese languages. David Faure points out that there is no direct Chinese translation of the English term "Cantonese". The English name "Canton" derived from Portuguese or , a muddling of dialectical pronunciations of "Guangdong" (e.g., Hakka Kóng-tûng). Although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city of Guangzhou, it was occasionally conflated with Guangdong by some authors. Within Guangdong and Guangxi, Cantonese is considered the prestige dialect and is called baahk wá, () which means "vernacular". In historical times, it was known as "Guangzhou speech" or Guangzhounese (廣州話, 广州话, Gwóngjāu wá). Other Yue peoples are sometimes labelled as "Cantonese" such as the Taishanese people (), even though Taishanese () has low intelligibility to Standard Cantonese. Some literature uses neutral terminology such as Guangdongese and Guangxiese to refer to people from these provinces without the cultural or linguistic affiliations to Cantonese. History Pre-19th century: History of Liangguang Until the 19th century, Cantonese history was largely the history of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. What is now Guangdong and later Guangxi, was first brought under Qin influence by a general named Zhao Tuo, who later founded the kingdom of Nanyue in 204 BC. The