  == Middle Chinese Influence ==  I was wondering what is the V+ and the V- in Middle Chinese mean or where it came from.  I have done research on Minnan hua and they don't seem to always map to Cantonese in a few tones, perhaps they are confused by the different tones.  In some ways, I think Vietnamese is even closer to Cantonese than Minnan in terms of tones.  It almost maps to each one exactly.  The 2nd tone in Cantonese usually has the ? accent in Vietnamese and the 5th tone always have the ~ tone on top of the vowel.  Also, Vietnamese preserved some of the NG initials that seem to be dropped from Cantonese, eg.  ren2 (mandarin) ->  jan4(cantonese), but it has the ng inital in Hakka, Toisanese, and Vietnamese.  Cantonese doesn't distinguish between teacher/lion and poem. hakka/viet su  (sai in minnan i think) teacher/lion and   si  poem  But there's closer tongue curling relationship between Vietnamese and Mandarin.  (Possible tongue curling in older Chinese?  or Manchu influence?) shi  goes to th, su and all si go to t or s  zh goes to  chi, tr z  goes to t or ty  chi goes to xi, tr, si   (no real pattern) c   usually t  but some exceptions to tu or thu  Also, it seems that most (if not all) 2nd tone x, zhi, z initials in Mandarin has a hard ending (-k -p -t) in Cantonese.  The hard endings -k -p -t is an element from older Chinese.  -h also in Minnan.