Laurent Sagart
The modern term "Yue" (; Early Middle Chinese: "Wuat") comes from Old Chinese "*ɢʷat" (William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart 2014). It was first written using the pictograph "戉" for an axe (a homophone), in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty ( BC), and later as "越". At that time it referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang. In the early 8th century BC, a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the "Yángyuè", a term later used for peoples further south. Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC "Yue" referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people.