Hahmbahlaahng: allAncient Han language, dialects of northern China, and foreign languages collude to form Cantonese. The word hahmbahlaahng came from the spoken language of northern China during the Yuan dynasty. While "hahp" means all, "bala" is an empty morpheme, a sound without meaning tacked onto the end of an adjective. What happens to our identity when we, like the Cantonese dialect, come from multiple origins? Best-selling novelist Lisa See's lineage holds both Chinese and Caucasian … [Read more...]