Hakka (, , ) forms a language group of
varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the
Hakka people throughout Southern
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
and throughout the
diaspora areas of
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...
,
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
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
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
s, spoken in different provinces, such as
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
,
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...
,
Hainan,
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ...
,
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of t ...
,
Hunan
Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangx ...
,
Jiangxi
Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
and
Guizhou
Guizhou (; Postal romanization, formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in the Southwest China, southwest region of the China, People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the pr ...
, as well as in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
,
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...
,
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
and
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
. 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
Gan and is sometimes classified as a variety of Gan, with a few northern Hakka varieties even being partially mutually intelligible with southern Gan. There is also a possibility that the similarities are just a result of shared
areal features.
Taiwan (where Hakka is the native language of a significant minority of the island's residents) is a center for the study and preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist between the
Taiwanese Hakka dialects and Mainland China's Hakka dialects; even in Taiwan, two major local varieties of Hakka exist.
The
Meixian dialect Meixian may refer to the following places in China:
* Meixian District, a district in Meizhou, Guangdong
** Meixian dialect, the local dialect of Hakka spoken there
* Mei County, also known as Meixian, a county in Shaanxi
* Meixian, Fujian (), tow ...
(Moiyen) of northeast
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
in China has been taken as the "standard" dialect by the People's Republic of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
. The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created an official
romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
of Moiyen in 1960, one of four languages receiving this status in Guangdong.
Etymology
The name of the
Hakka people who are the predominant original native speakers of the variety literally means "guest families" or "guest people": ''Hak'' (Mandarin: ) means "guest", and ''ka'' (Mandarin: ) means "family". Among themselves, Hakka people variously called their language ''Hak-ka-fa'' (''-va''), ''Hak-fa'' (''-va''), ''Tu-gong-dung-fa'' (''-va''), literally "Native Guangdong language", and ''Ngai-fa'' (''-va''), "My/our language". In
Tonggu County,
Jiangxi
Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
province, people call their language ''Huai-yuan-fa''.
History
Early history
It is commonly believed that
Hakka people have their origins in several episodes of migration from northern
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
into southern
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
during periods of war and civil unrest dating back as far as the end of
Western Jin. The forebears of the Hakka came from present-day
Central Plains provinces of
Henan
Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is a ...
and
Shaanxi, and brought with them features of Chinese varieties spoken in those areas during that time. (Since then, the speech in those regions has evolved into dialects of modern
Mandarin). The presence of many archaic features occur in modern Hakka, including final consonants , as are found in other modern southern Chinese varieties, but which have been lost in Mandarin.
Laurent Sagart
Laurent Sagart (; born 1951) is a senior researcher at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale (CRLAO – UMR 8563) unit of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).
Biography
Born in Paris in 1951, he earned hi ...
(2002) 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
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...
. 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
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
layer. Lexical connections between Hakka, Kra-Dai, and Hmong-Mien have also been suggested by Deng (1999).
Due to the migration of its speakers, Hakka may have been influenced by other language areas through which the Hakka-speaking forebears migrated. For instance, common vocabulary is found in Hakka,
Min
Min or MIN may refer to:
Places
* Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China
** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian
* Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China
* Min River (Fujian)
* Min River (Sichuan)
* Mineola (Amtr ...
, and the
She
She most commonly refers to:
*She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English.
She or S.H.E. may also refer to:
Literature and films
*'' She: A History of Adventure'', an 1887 novel by H. Rider Hagga ...
(Hmong–Mien) languages. Today, most
She people in Fujian and Zhejiang speak
Shehua, which is closely related to Hakka.
Linguistic development
A regular pattern of sound change can generally be detected in Hakka, as in most Chinese varieties, of the derivation of
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s from earlier forms of Chinese. Some examples:
* Characters such as 武 (war, martial arts) or 屋 (room, house), pronounced roughly ''mwio'' and ''uk'' (''mjuX'' and ''ʔuwk'' in
Baxter's transcription) in Early
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
, have an initial ''v'' phoneme in Hakka, being ''vu'' and ''vuk'' in Hakka respectively. Like in Mandarin, labiodentalisation in Hakka also changed ''mj-'' to a w-like sound before grave vowels, while Cantonese retained the original distinction (compare Mandarin 武 ''wǔ'', 屋 ''wū'', Cantonese 武 ''mou''
5, 屋 ''uk''
1).
* Middle Chinese initial phonemes /ɲ/ (''ny'' in Baxter's transcription) of the characters 人 (person, people) and 日 (sun, day), among others, merged with ''ng-'' /ŋ/ initials in Hakka (人 ''ngin'', 日 ''ngit''). For comparison, in Mandarin, /ɲ/ became ''r-'' /ɻ/ (人 ''rén'', 日 ''rì''), while in Cantonese, it merged with initial ''y-'' /j/ (人 ''yan''
4, 日 ''yat''
6).
* 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).
* The initial consonant of 學 ' usually corresponds with an ''h''
approximant in Hakka and a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative (''x''
� 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
Jiaoling County ( postal: Chiuling; ) is a county in the northeast of Guangdong Province, China, bordering Fujian province to the north. Under the jurisdiction of Meizhou City, it was previously known as the Zhenping County ( postal: Chenping) ...
,
Xingning,
Wuhua, and
Fengshun
Fengshun ( postal: Fungshun or Pungshan; ) is a county in Meizhou City, in the east of Guangdong Province, southern China.
Ethno-linguistic make-up
Fengshun is noted for its large Hakka population.
Administrative divisions
Fengshun County's ex ...
. Each county has its own special phonological points of interest. For instance, Xingning lacks the codas and . These have merged into and , respectively. Further away from Meixian, the
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
dialect lacks the medial, so whereas the Meixian dialect pronounces the character 光 as , the Hong Kong Hakka dialect pronounces it as , which is similar to the Hakka spoken in neighbouring
Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern provi ...
.
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
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
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).
In
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
, there are two main dialects: Sixian and Hailu (alternatively known as Haifeng; Hailu refers to
Haifeng County
Haifeng County ( postal: Hoifung; ) is a county under the administration of Shanwei, in the southeast of Guangdong Province, China.
History
Hakka peasants from nearby villages of Chengxiang county (modern-day Meixian) immigrated to Haifeng, f ...
and
Lufeng County). Most Hakka speakers in Taiwan can trace their ancestry to these two regions. Sixian speakers come from Jiaying Prefecture, mainly from the four counties of Chengxiang (now
Meixian District
Meixian (, Hakka: Moiyen), formerly Meihsien, is a district of Meizhou City, in northeastern Guangdong Province, China. The county is an important Hakka settlement and is the ancestral home of many Hakka descendants living in Taiwan.
History ...
), Zhengping (now
Jiaoling
Jiaoling County ( postal: Chiuling; ) is a county in the northeast of Guangdong Province, China, bordering Fujian province to the north. Under the jurisdiction of Meizhou City, it was previously known as the Zhenping County ( postal: Chenping) ...
),
Xingning and
Pingyuan. Most dialects of
Taiwanese Hakka, except Sixian and Dabu, preserved
postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
s (, , and ), which are uncommon in other southern Chinese varieties.
*
Huizhou dialect
The Huizhou dialect () is a Chinese dialect spoken in and around Huicheng District, the traditional urban centre of Huizhou, Guangdong. The locals also call the dialect ''Bendihua'' () and distinguish it from the dialect spoken in Meixian and ...
(not to be confused with
Huizhou Chinese)
*
Meixian dialect Meixian may refer to the following places in China:
* Meixian District, a district in Meizhou, Guangdong
** Meixian dialect, the local dialect of Hakka spoken there
* Mei County, also known as Meixian, a county in Shaanxi
* Meixian, Fujian (), tow ...
(otherwise known as Meizhou)
*
Wuhua dialect
*
Xingning dialect Xingning () may refer to:
*Xingning, Guangdong, county-level city
* Xingning, Zixing (兴宁镇), a town of Zixing City, Hunan.
** Xingning Academy, ancient structure in Xingning, Guangdong
** Xingning Basin, located around Xingning, Guangdong
...
*
Pingyuan dialect Pingyuan may refer to:
Places
* Pingyuan Province (平原省), a short-lived former province of China
* Pingyuan Prefecture (平远州), a former name of Zhijin, Guizhou, China
*Pingyuan County, Guangdong (平远县), of Meizhou, Guangdong
*Pingyua ...
*
Jiaoling dialect
Jiaoling County ( postal: Chiuling; ) is a county in the northeast of Guangdong Province, China, bordering Fujian province to the north. Under the jurisdiction of Meizhou City, it was previously known as the Zhenping County ( postal: Chenping) ...
*
Dabu dialect
Dabu may refer to:
Places in China
* Dabu County (), county in Meizhou, Guangdong
*Dabu, Ruyuan County (), a town in Ruyuan County, Guangdong
* Dabu, Gan County (), village in Gan County, Ganzhou, Jiangxi
* Dabu, Guilin City (), village in Yanshan ...
*
Fengshun dialect
Fengshun ( postal: Fungshun or Pungshan; ) is a county in Meizhou City, in the east of Guangdong Province, southern China.
Ethno-linguistic make-up
Fengshun is noted for its large Hakka population.
Administrative divisions
Fengshun County's ex ...
*
Hailu dialect
The Hailu dialect (; Hailu Hakka Romanization System: hoi´ liug` kiong`), also known as the Hoiluk dialect or Hailu Hakka (), is a dialect of Hakka Chinese that originated in Shanwei, Guangdong. It is also the second most common dialect of Hakk ...
*
Sixian dialect
The Sixian dialect, also known as the Sixian accent (; Sixian Hakka Romanization System: Xi ien kiongˊ / Xi ian kiongˊ; is pronounced as ien (PFS: yen) in Northern Sixian and as ian (PFS: yan) in Southern Sixian. Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Si-yen-khi� ...
*
Raoping dialect
Raoping Hakka (; Taiwanese Hakka Romanization System: ngiau pin kagˋ gaˇ faˋ), also known as Shangrao Hakka (), is a dialect of Hakka Chinese spoken in Raoping, Guangdong, as well as Taiwan.
Distribution
In Raoping County, Hakka is spo ...
(a.k.a. Shangrao)
*
Zhaoan dialect
Zhao'an () is a county in the municipal region of Zhangzhou, southernmost Fujian province, People's Republic of China.
History Qing dynasty to the Republic of China
In May 1907, county officials arrested, on suspicion of piracy, the local lead ...
''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.
Hakka, as well as numerous other Chinese varieties such as Min and Cantonese, prefers the verb when referring to ''saying'' rather than the Mandarin (Hakka ).
Hakka uses , like Cantonese for the verb "to eat" and (Hakka ) for "to drink", unlike Mandarin which prefers (Hakka ) as "to eat" and ''hē'' (Hakka ) as "to drink" where the meanings in Hakka are different, ''to stutter'' and ''to be thirsty'' respectively.
Writing systems
Chinese script
Hakka Chinese is typically written using
Chinese character
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
s (, ''Hàn-jī'').
Latin script
Various dialects of Hakka such as
Taiwanese Hakka, is sometimes written in the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
or
Pha̍k-fa-sṳ.
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
The Sixian dialect, also known as the Sixian accent (; Sixian Hakka Romanization System: Xi ien kiongˊ / Xi ian kiongˊ; is pronounced as ien (PFS: yen) in Northern Sixian and as ian (PFS: yan) in Southern Sixian. Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Si-yen-khi� ...
). This also was dual-script, albeit using the
Tongyong Pinyin scheme.
Media
Hakka TV
Hakka TV (; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Hak-ka Thìen-shì-thôi) is a Hakka language satellite cable channel operated by Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS) in Taiwan, launched on July 1, 2003.
The Council for Hakka Affairs monitored the station until Taiwan ...
is a state-run, primarily Hakka-language television channel in Taiwan that started in 2003. In mainland China, Meizhou Televisions's Hakka Public Channel () has broadcasts 24 hours a day in Hakka since 2006.
See also
*
Varieties of Chinese
*
Hakka culture
*
Hakka Transliteration Scheme
The Hakka Transliteration Scheme or Pinfa refers to a romanization scheme published by the Guangdong Provincial Education Department in September 1960 as one of four systems collectively referred to as Guangdong Romanization. The scheme describes t ...
*
Pha̍k-fa-sṳ
*
Hagfa Pinyim
Hagfa Pinyim, (literally "Hakka Pinyin") is a system of romanization used to transcribe Chinese characters as used in Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ...
*
Protection of the Varieties of Chinese
*
Taiwanese Hakka
Notes
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Taiwan Language Tool(including Hakka)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hakka (Language)
Languages of China
Languages of Taiwan
Languages of Hong Kong
Chinese languages in Singapore
Languages of Singapore
Languages of Malaysia
Languages of Indonesia
Languages of Vietnam
Languages of Thailand
Languages of Suriname
Languages of India
Languages of Bangladesh
Hakka culture
Varieties of Chinese