Hakka language

Hakka
客家語/客家语/客家話/客家话
Hak-kâ-fa/Hak-kâ-va (Hakka/Kejia) written in Chinese characters
Native to	China, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan (due to presence of Taiwanese community in Tokyo-Yokohama Metropolitan Area), Singapore, Indonesia, Mauritius, Suriname, South Africa, India, Vietnam and other countries where Hakka Chinese-speaking migrants have settled.
Region	in China: Eastern Guangdong province; adjoining regions of Fujian and Jiangxi provinces
Ethnicity	Hakka people (Han Chinese)
Native speakers	30 million (2007)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Hakka
Writing system	hanzi, romanization
Official status
Official language in	none (legislative bills have been proposed for it to be one of the "national languages" in the Republic of China)
Recognised minority language in	one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the ROC; government sponsors Hakka-language television station to preserve language
Language codes
ISO 639-3	hak
Glottolog	hakk1236

Hakka
Traditional Chinese	客家話
Simplified Chinese	客家话
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Kèjiāhuà Gan Romanization Khak-ka-ua Hakka Romanization Hak-kâ-fa IPA :[hak1-ka44-va53] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization haak gā wá Jyutping haak3 gaa1 waa2 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Kheh-oē (客話)

Hakka is a dialect of the Chinese language spoken mainly in southern China by the Hakka people and their descendants now living in East and Southeast Asia and countries around the world.

Further reading

• The Hakka Dialect. A Linguistic Study of its Phonology, Syntax and Lexicon, by Mantaro J. Hashimoto. (Cambridge University Press, 1973).