Hakka Chinese

Hakka languages (Chinese: 客 家 話 ; pinyin: Kèjiāhuà,

Chinese: 客語 ; pinyin: Kèyǔ, Hak-kâ-va) form a language
Hakka
group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka 客家話
people throughout Southern China and Taiwan and Hak-kâ-va / Hak-kâ-fa
throughout the diaspora areas of East Asia, Southeast Asia
and in overseas Chinese communities around the world.

Due to its primary usage in scattered isolated regions where

communication is limited to the local area, Hakka has
developed numerous varieties or dialects, spoken in different
provinces, such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian,
Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi and Guizhou, as well as in Taiwan,
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Hakka is not
mutually intelligible with Yue, Wu, Southern Min, Mandarin
or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few
mutually unintelligible varieties. It is most closely related to China, Taiwan
Native to
Gan and is sometimes classified as a variety of Gan, with a
few northern Hakka varieties even being partially mutually Region Mainland China:
intelligible with southern Gan. There is also a possibility that Guangdong,
adjoining
the similarities are just a result of shared areal features.[5]
regions of
Taiwan (where Hakka is the native language of a significant Fujian, Jiangxi,
minority of the island's residents) is a center for the study and Southern Hunan
and the midwest
preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist
of Sichuan
between the Taiwanese Hakka dialects and Mainland China's
Hong Kong:
Hakka dialects; even in Taiwan, two major local varieties of
New Territories
Hakka exist. and Malaysia
(older
The Meixian dialect (Moiyen) of northeast Guangdong in
generations
China has been taken as the "standard" dialect by the since younger
People's Republic of China. The Guangdong Provincial Hakkas mostly
Education Department created an official romanization of speak
Moiyen in 1960, one of four languages receiving this status in Cantonese due
Guangdong. to language
shift and social
assimilation)

Contents Ethnicity Hakka

Native speakers 47.8
Etymology million (2007)[1]
History Language family Sino-Tibetan
Early history
Sinitic
Linguistic development
Hakka
Phonology
Writing system Written Chinese
Dialects Latin (Pha̍k-fa-
sṳ)
Vocabulary Official status
Writing systems Official language in  Taiwan [a]
Chinese script  Taiwan (a
Recognised minority
Latin script language in statutory
Media language for
public
See also transportation;[3]
Notes government
sponsor of
References
Hakka-language
Further reading television
station)
Language codes
Etymology ISO 639-3 hak

The name of the Hakka people who are the predominant Glottolog hakk1236 (htt
original native speakers of the variety literally means "guest p://glottolo
families" or "guest people": Hak (Mandarin: kè) means g.org/resourc
"guest", and ka (Mandarin: jiā) means "family". Among e/languoid/i
themselves, Hakka people variously called their language d/hakk1236)
Hak-ka-fa (-va), Hak-fa (-va), Tu-gong-dung-fa (-va), literally Linguasphere 79-AAA-g >
"Native Guangdong language", and Ngai-fa (-va), "My/our 79-AAA-ga
(+
language". In Tonggu County, Jiangxi province, people call 79-AAA-gb
their language Huai-yuan-fa. transition to
79-AAA-h)

History

Early history

It is commonly believed that Hakka people have their origins

in several episodes of migration from northern China into
southern China during periods of war and civil unrest[6]
dating back as far as the end of Western Jin.[7] The forebears
of the Hakka came from present-day Central Plains provinces
of Henan and Shaanxi, and brought with them features of
Chinese varieties spoken in those areas during that time. (Since
Hakka
then, the speech in those regions has evolved into dialects of Hakka hag5 ga1 fa4
modern Mandarin). The presence of many archaic features occur or hag5 ga1 va4
in modern Hakka, including final consonants -p -t -k, as are found
in other modern southern Chinese varieties, but which have been
lost in Mandarin.

Laurent Sagart (2002)[8] considers Hakka and southern Gan

Chinese to be sister dialects that descended from a single common
ancestral language (Proto-Southern Gan) spoken in central Jiangxi
during the Song Dynasty. In Hakka and southern Gan, Sagart
(2002) identifies a non-Chinese substratum that is possibly
Hmong-Mien, an archaic layer, and a more recent Late Middle
Chinese layer. Lexical connections between Hakka, Kra-Dai, and
Hmong-Mien have also been suggested by Deng (1999).[9] Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Due to the migration of its speakers, Hakka may have been
influenced by other language areas through which the Hakka- Hanyu Pinyin Kèjiāhuà
speaking forebears migrated. For instance, common vocabulary is Wu
found in Hakka, Min, and the She (Hmong–Mien) languages. Romanization Kah-ka-ho
Today, most She people in Fujian and Zhejiang speak Shehua,
which is closely related to Hakka. Gan
Romanization Khak-ka-ua
Hakka
Linguistic development
Romanization hag5 ga1 fa4
A regular pattern of sound change can generally be detected in or hag5 ga1 va4
Hakka, as in most Chinese varieties, of the derivation of phonemes Pha̍k-fa-sṳ Hak-kâ-fa
from earlier forms of Chinese. Some examples: or Hak-kâ-va

武
Characters such as (war, martial arts) or (room,屋 Yale
Yue: Cantonese
haak gā wá
house), pronounced roughly mwio and uk (mjuX and
ʔuwk in Baxter's transcription) in Early Middle Chinese, Romanization
have an initial v phoneme in Hakka, being vu and vuk in Jyutping haak3 gaa1 waa2
Hakka respectively. Like in Mandarin, labiodentalisation
Southern Min
in Hakka also changed mj- to a w-like sound before
grave vowels, while Cantonese retained the original Hokkien POJ Kheh-oē ( 客話)
distinction (compare Mandarin 武 屋
wǔ, wū, Cantonese
武 mou , 屋 uk ).
5 1

Middle Chinese initial phonemes /ɲ/ (ny in Baxter's

人
transcription) of the characters (person, people) and
日 (sun, day), among others, merged with ng- /ŋ/ initials
人 日
in Hakka ( ngin, ngit). For comparison, in Mandarin,
/ɲ/ became r- /ɻ/ (人 rén, 日 rì), while in Cantonese, it A Hakka speaker, recorded in
merged with initial y- /j/ (人 yan , 日 yat ).
4 6 Taiwan.
The initial consonant phoneme exhibited by the
character 話 (word, speech; Mandarin huà) is
pronounced f or v in Hakka (v does not properly exist as a distinct unit in many Chinese
varieties).
學
The initial consonant of hɔk usually corresponds with an h [h] approximant in Hakka and
a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative (x [ɕ]) in Mandarin.

Phonology

Dialects
Hakka has as many regional dialects as there are counties with Hakka speakers as the majority. Some of
these Hakka dialects are not mutually intelligible with each other. Meixian is surrounded by the counties of
Pingyuan, Dabu, Jiaoling, Xingning, Wuhua, and Fengshun. Each county has its own special phonological
points of interest. For instance, Xingning lacks the codas [-m] and [-p]. These have merged into [-n] and [-
t], respectively. Further away from Meixian, the Hong Kong dialect lacks the [-u-] medial, so whereas the
Meixian dialect pronounces the character 光 as [kwɔŋ˦], the Hong Kong Hakka dialect pronounces it as
[kɔŋ˧], which is similar to the Hakka spoken in neighbouring
Shenzhen.

Tones also vary across the dialects of Hakka. The majority of

Hakka dialects have six tones. However, there are dialects which
have lost all of their checked tones (rusheng), and the characters
originally of this tone class are distributed across the non-ru tones.
An example of such a dialect is Changting, which is situated in
Western Fujian province. Moreover, there is evidence of the
retention of an earlier Hakka tone system in the dialects of Haifeng
and Lufeng, situated in coastal southeastern Guangdong province.
They contain a yin-yang splitting in the qu tone, giving rise to
seven tones in all (with yin-yang registers in ping and ru tones and
a shang tone).
𠊎講客。客語友善環境。
In Taiwan, there are two main dialects: Sixian and Hailu (Ngài gong Hak。Hak-ngî yû-san fàn-
kín)
(alternatively known as Haifeng; Hailu refers to Haifeng County
(I speak Hakka. Hakka-language-
and Lufeng County). Most Hakka speakers in Taiwan can trace
friendly environment.)
their ancestry to these two regions. Sixian speakers come from
Jiaying Prefecture, mainly from the four counties of Chengxiang
(now Meixian District), Zhengping (now Jiaoling), Xingning and
Pingyuan. Most dialects of Taiwanese Hakka, except Sixian and Dabu, preserved postalveolar consonants
([tʃ], [tʃʰ], [ʃ] and [ʒ]), which are uncommon in other southern Chinese varieties.

Huizhou dialect (not to be confused with Huizhou Chinese)

Meixian dialect (otherwise known as Meizhou)
Wuhua dialect
Xingning dialect
Pingyuan dialect
Jiaoling dialect
Dabu dialect
Fengshun dialect
Hailu dialect
Sixian dialect
Raoping dialect (a.k.a. Shangrao)[10]
Zhaoan dialect

Ethnologue reports the dialects of Hakka as being Yue-Tai (Meixian, Wuhua, Raoping, Taiwan Kejia:
Meizhou above), Yuezhong (Central Guangdong), Huizhou, Yuebei (Northern Guangdong), Tingzhou
(Min-Ke), Ning-Long (Longnan), Yugui, and Tonggu.

Vocabulary
Like other southern Chinese varieties, Hakka retains single syllable words from earlier stages of Chinese;
thus a large number of syllables are distinguished by tone and final consonant. This reduces the need for
compounding or making words of more than one syllable. However, it is also similar to other Chinese
varieties in having words which are made from more than one syllable.
 monosyllabic words
Hakka
Pronunciation English Notes
hanzi

人 [ŋin˩] person

碗 [ʋɔn˧˩] bowl

狗 [kɛu˧˩] dog

牛 [ŋiu˩] cow

屋 [ʋuk˩] house

嘴 [tsɔi˥˧] mouth

𠊎 [ŋai˩] me / I In Hakka, the standard Chinese equivalent 我 is pronounced [ŋɔ˧].

渠 [11] or
[ki˩]
he / she In Hakka, the standard Chinese equivalents 他 / 她 / 它 /牠 are
𠍲[12] / it pronounced [tʰa˧].

polysyllabic words
Hakka hanzi Pronunciation English

日頭 [ŋit˩ tʰɛu˩] sun

月光 [ŋiɛt˥ kʷɔŋ˦] moon

屋下
[ʋuk˩ kʰa˦] home
屋家
電話 [tʰiɛn˥ ʋa˥˧] telephone

學堂 [hɔk˥ tʰɔŋ˩] school

筷子 [kai zi˩] chopsticks

Hakka, as well as numerous other Chinese varieties such as Min and Cantonese, prefers the verb [kɔŋ˧˩] 講
when referring to saying rather than the Mandarin shuō 說
(Hakka [sɔt˩]).

食
Hakka uses [sit˥] , like Cantonese [sɪk˨] for the verb "to eat" and 飲
[jɐm˧˥] (Hakka [jim˧˩]) for "to
drink", unlike Mandarin which prefers chī 吃
(Hakka [kʰiɛt˩]) as "to eat" and hē 喝
(Hakka [hɔt˩]) as "to
drink" where the meanings in Hakka are different, to stutter and to be thirsty respectively.

Examples
Hakka hanzi IPA English

阿妹，若姆去投墟轉 [a˦ mɔi˥, ɲja˦ mi˦ hi˥ tʰju˩ hi˦ tsɔn˧˩ lɔi˩ Has your mother returned from going to the
來唔曾？ m˦ tsʰɛn˩] market yet, child?

其老弟捉到隻蛘葉來 [kja˦ lau˧˩ tʰai˦ tsuk˧ tau˧˩ tsak˩ jɔŋ˩ jap˥ His/her younger brother caught a butterfly to
搞。 lɔi˩ kau˧˩] play with.

好冷阿，水桶个水敢 [hau˧˩ laŋ˦ ɔ˦, sui˧˩ tʰuŋ˧ kai˥˧ sui˧˩ kam˦ It's very cold, the water in the bucket has
凝冰阿。 kʰɛn˩ pɛn˦ ɔ˦] frozen over.

Writing systems
Chinese script

Hakka Chinese is typically written using Chinese

漢字
characters ( , Hàn-jī).

Latin script

Various dialects of Hakka such as Taiwanese Hakka, is

sometimes written in the Latin script or Pha̍k-fa-sṳ.
Hakka Chinese Hanzi
Dialects of Hakka have been written in a number of Latin
orthographies, largely for religious purposes, since at least
the mid-19th century. The popular The Little Prince has
also been translated into Hakka (2000), specifically the Miaoli dialect of Taiwan (itself a variant of the
Sixian dialect). This also was dual-script, albeit using the Tongyong Pinyin scheme.

Media
Hakka TV is a state-run, primarily Hakka-language television
channel in Taiwan that started in 2003. In mainland China,
Meizhou Televisions's Hakka Public Channel ( 梅州电视台客
家公共频道 [13]
) has broadcasts 24 hours a day in Hakka since
2006.

See also
Varieties of Chinese Tsai Ing-wen, a Taiwanese Hakka
Hakka culture descent, President of Republic of China
Hakka Transliteration Scheme (Taiwan), attended the "Lecturer Hakka
Pha̍k-fa-sṳ Langugae Radio Broadcasting", to give a
speech.
Hagfa Pinyim
Protection of the Varieties of Chinese
Taiwanese Hakka

Notes
a. National language in Taiwan;[2] also statutory status in Taiwan as one of the languages for
public transport announcements[3] and for the naturalisation test.[4]

References
1. Hakka (https://www.ethnologue.com/19/language/hak/) at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
2. Fan, Cheng-hsiang; Kao, Evelyn (2018-12-25). "Draft National Language Development Act
Clears Legislative Floor" (https://web.archive.org/web/20181225161655/http://focustaiwan.t
w/news/aedu/201812250018.aspx). Focus Taiwan News Channel. Central News Agency.
Archived from the original (http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aedu/201812250018.aspx) on 2018-
12-25.
 3. "Dàzhòng yùnshū gōngjù bòyīn yǔyán píngděng bǎozhàng fǎ" 大眾運輸工具播音語言平等
保障法 (https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E7%9C%BE%E9%81%8B%E8%B
C%B8%E5%B7%A5%E5%85%B7%E6%92%AD%E9%9F%B3%E8%AA%9E%E8%A8%8
0%E5%B9%B3%E7%AD%89%E4%BF%9D%E9%9A%9C%E6%B3%95) [Act on
Broadcasting Language Equality Protection in Public Transport] (in Chinese) – via
Wikisource.
4. Article 6 of the Standards for Identification of Basic Language Abilities and General
Knowledge of the Rights and Duties of Naturalized Citizens (http://www.ris.gov.tw/zh_TW/c/
document_library/get_file?uuid=2a89733e-e3e3-4f28-8f7b-84dff55777d5&groupId=10157)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20170725175658/http://www.ris.gov.tw/zh_TW/c/docu
ment_library/get_file?uuid=2a89733e-e3e3-4f28-8f7b-84dff55777d5&groupId=10157) 2017-
07-25 at the Wayback Machine
5. Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J., eds. (2003). The Sino-Tibetan Languages.
Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1129-5.
6. "The Hakka People > Historical Background" (https://web.archive.org/web/2019090916273
9/http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/lang/hakka/english/a/a.htm). edu.ocac.gov.tw. Archived from the
original (http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/lang/hakka/english/a/a.htm) on 2019-09-09. Retrieved
2010-06-11.
7. "[Insert title here]" (https://web.archive.org/web/20040830050836/http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/lang/
hakka/a/main_a11.htm). edu.ocac.gov.tw (in Chinese). Archived from the original (http://edu.
ocac.gov.tw/lang/hakka/a/main_a11.htm) on 2004-08-30. Retrieved 2014-10-12.
8. Sagart (2002).
邓晓华
9. Deng, Xiaohua (1999). "Kèjiāhuà gēn Miáo-Yáo-Zhuàng-Dòngyǔ de Guānxì wèntí"
客家话跟苗瑶壮侗语的关系问题 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190327150716/https://core.a
c.uk/download/pdf/41454386.pdf) (PDF). Mínzú yǔwén 民族语文 (in Chinese). 3: 42–49.
Archived from the original (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41454386.pdf) (PDF) on 2019-
03-27. Retrieved 2021-07-03.
10. Zhan, Bohui 詹伯慧 (1993). "Guǎngdōng Shěng Ráopíng fāngyán jì yīn" 广东省饶平方言记
音 . Fāngyán方言 (in Simplified Chinese) (2): 129–141.
11. Liu, Zhenfa 劉鎮發 客語拼音字彙
(1997). Kèyǔ pīnyīn zìhuì [Hakka Pinyin Vocabulary] (in
Chinese). Xianggang zhongwen daxue chubanshe. p. xxvi. ISBN 962-201-750-9.
12. 𠍲 (https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QzAwMjgw).
Jiàoyùbù yìtǐzì zìdiǎn教育部異體字字典 [Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants of the
Ministry of Education] (in Chinese). Retrieved 2021-11-04.
13. "Méizhōu diànshìtái kāishè quán kèjiā huà píndào (24 xiǎoshí bō chū)" 梅州电视台开设全客
家话频道（ 小时播出） 24 (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_671dbe910100vbx7.html) [Meizhou
TV Station Opens an All-Hakka Dialect Channel (24 Hours Broadcast)]. Luófú shān pùbù de
罗浮山瀑布的博客
bókè (in Chinese). blog.sina.com.cn. 2011-07-21.

Further reading
Branner, David Prager (2000). Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology – the
Classification of Miin and Hakka (https://books.google.com/books?id=7BLQcXUht2sC).
Trends in Linguistics series, no. 123. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-015831-1.
Hashimoto, Mantaro J. (2010). The Hakka Dialect: A Linguistic Study of Its Phonology,
Syntax and Lexicon. Princeton/Cambridge Studies in Chinese Linguistics. Vol. 5.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-13367-8.
O'Connor, Kevin A. (1976). "Proto-Hakka". Ajia Afurika Gengo Bunka Kenkyū / Journal of
Asia and Africa Studies. 11 (1): 1–64.
 Sagart, Laurent (1998). "On distinguishing Hakka and non-Hakka dialects". Journal of
Chinese Linguistics. 26 (2): 281–302. JSTOR 23756757 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/23756
757).
——— (2002). "Gan, Hakka and the Formation of Chinese Dialects" (http://www.ling.sinica.e
du.tw/files/publication/o0004_06_6798.pdf) (PDF). In Ho, Dah-an (ed.). Dialect Variations in
Chinese: Papers from the Third International Conference on Sinology, Linguistics Section.
Taipei: Academia Sinica. pp. 129–153.
Schaank, Simon Hartwich (1897). Het Loeh-foeng-dialect (https://archive.org/details/hetloehf
oengdia00schagoog) (in Dutch). Leiden: E.J. Brill. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
Taiwan Language Tool (https://github.com/i3thuan5/tai5-uan5_gian5-gi2_kang1-ku7)
(including Hakka)

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