Taiwanese Hakka is a language group consisting of Hakka dialects spoken in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, and mainly used by people of Hakka ancestry. Taiwanese Hakka is divided into five main dialects: Sixian, Hailu, Dabu, Raoping, and Zhao'an. The most widely spoken of the five Hakka dialects in Taiwan are Sixian and Hailu. The former, possessing 6 tones, originates from

Meizhou Meizhou ( zh, t=梅州, Hakka Chinese: Mòichû) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong province, China. It has an area of , and a population of 3,873,239 as of the 2020 census. It comprises Meijiang District, Meixian District, Xing ...

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

, and is mainly spoken in

Miaoli Miaoli City (Wade–Giles: ''Miao²-li⁴-shih⁴''; Hakka Chinese, Hakka Pha̍k-fa-sṳ, PFS: ''Mèu-li̍t-sṳ''; Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī, POJ: ''Biâu-le̍k-chhī'' or ''Miâu-le̍k-chhī''; Japanese language, Japanese Byōritsushi) is a cou ...

, Pingtung and

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung, officially Kaohsiung City, is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsiung City has a population of approximately 2.73 million p ...

, while the latter, possessing 7 tones, originates from Haifeng and Lufeng,

, and is concentrated around

Hsinchu Hsinchu (, ), officially Hsinchu City, is a city located in northwestern Taiwan. It is the most populous city in Taiwan that is not a special municipality, with estimated 450,655 inhabitants. Hsinchu is a coastal city bordering the Taiwan ...

. Taiwanese Hakka is also officially listed as one of the national languages of Taiwan. In addition to the five main dialects, there are the northern Xihai dialect and the patchily-distributed Yongding, Fengshun, Wuping, Wuhua, and Jiexi dialects.

Geographic distribution

In 2014, 4.2 million Taiwanese self-identified as Hakka, accounting for 18% of the population. The Hakka Affairs Council has designated 70 townships and districts across Taiwan where the Hakka account for more than a third of the total population, including 18 in

Miaoli County Miaoli is a county (Taiwan), county in western Taiwan. Miaoli is bordered by Hsinchu County and Hsinchu City to the north, Taichung to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the west. Miaoli is Regions of Taiwan, classified as "central Taiwan" by t ...

, 11 in

Hsinchu County Hsinchu is a County (Taiwan), county in Regions of Taiwan, north-western Taiwan. The population of the county is mainly Hakka people, Hakka; with a Taiwanese aboriginal minority in the southeastern part of the county. Zhubei is the county seat ...

, and another 8 in Pingtung, Hualien, and Taoyuan counties each.

Status

With the introduction of martial law in 1949, the KMT-led government repressed Hakka, along with Taiwanese Hokkien and other indigenous languages in favor of Mandarin. In 1988, the Hakka community established the Restore My Mother Tongue Movement to advocate for the right to use and preserve the Hakka language. Language restrictions were relaxed after 1987 with the lifting of martial law and ensuing democratic reforms. In 2012, the ministry-level Hakka Affairs Council was established to stem the language's decline in Taiwan. In December 2017, the

Legislative Yuan The Legislative Yuan () is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of China (Taiwan) located in Taipei. The Legislative Yuan is composed of 113 members, who are directly elected for four-year terms by people of the Taiwan Area through a ...

designated Hakka as an official national language of Taiwan.

Sociolinguistics

While Hakka has official status in Taiwan, it has seen ongoing decline due to a

language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...

to the more dominant

Taiwanese Mandarin Taiwanese Mandarin, frequently referred to as ''Guoyu'' () or ''Huayu'' (), is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese ...

and

Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...

. The number of Hakka speakers in Taiwan has declined by 1.1% per year, particularly among youth. In 2016, only 22.8% of self-identifying Hakkas aged 19 to 29 spoke the language. Today, Taiwanese Hakka tends to be used within families and within local communities, which has reduced intergenerational transmission. An estimated 2 million Hakkas now self-identify as Hoklo. Furthermore, the great diversity of Hakka dialects used throughout Taiwan has impeded standardization of Hakka for teaching.

Notes

References

External links