Hakka (Simplified Chinese: 客家话, Traditional Chinese: 客家話, Pronunciation in Hakka: Hak-ka-fa/-va, Pinyin: Kèjiāhuà) is a spoken variation of the Chinese language spoken predominantly in southern China by the Hakka ethnic group and descendants in diaspora throughout East and Southeast Asia and around the world.-1... Guangdong, often spelt as Kwangtung, is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ...   (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal map spelling: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Jiangxi (Chinese: 江西; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chiang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kiangsi) is a southern province of the Peoples Republic of China, spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south. ... This is a list of languages placed in order by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... The Sino-Tibetan languages form a putative language family composed of Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia. ... A bill is a proposed new law introduced within a legislature that has not been ratified, adopted, or received assent. ... -1... Guangdong, often spelt as Kwangtung, is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Traditional Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 正體字/繁體字, Simplified Chinese: 正体字/繁体字) refers to one of two standard sets of printed Chinese characters. ... Look up pronunciation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ), commonly called Pinyin, is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ... Spoken Chinese The Chinese spoken language(s) comprise(s) many regional variants. ... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Henan, Shanxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces The Hakka are a subgroup of the Han Chinese people who live predominantly in the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujian in China. ... For other uses, see Diaspora (disambiguation). ... Geographic East Asia. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... Languages various Religions Predominantly Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, traditional Chinese religions, and atheism. ...

The Hakka language has numerous variants or dialects, spoken in Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou provinces, including Hainan island and Taiwan. Hakka is not mutually intelligible with Mandarin, Cantonese, Minnan and most of the significant spoken variants of the Chinese language. A variety of a language is a form that differs from other forms of the language systematically and coherently. ... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the languages speakers. ... Guangdong, often spelt as Kwangtung, is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ...   (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal map spelling: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Jiangxi (Chinese: 江西; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chiang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kiangsi) is a southern province of the Peoples Republic of China, spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south. ... Guangxi (Zhuang: Gvangjsih; old orthography: ; Simplified Chinese: 广西; Traditional Chinese: 廣西; Pinyin: GuÇŽngxÄ«; Wade-Giles: Kuang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangsi), full name Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Zhuang: Gvangjsih Bouxcuengh Swcigih; old orthography: ; Simplified Chinese: 广西壮族自治区; Traditional Chinese: 廣西壯族自治區; Pinyin: GuÇŽngxÄ« Zhuàngzú ZìzhìqÅ«) is a Zhuang autonomous region of...   (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: SzÅ­4-chuan1; Postal map spelling: Szechwan and Szechuan) is a province in the central-western China with its capital at Chengdu. ...   (Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is a province of China, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning south of the lake). Hunan is sometimes called 湘 (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province. ... (Simplified Chinese: 贵州; Traditional Chinese: è²´å·ž; pinyin: Gùizhōu; Wade-Giles: Kuei-chou; also spelled Kweichow) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... A pair of languages is said to be mutually intelligible if speakers of one language can readily understand the other language. ... Mandarin (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; literally speech of officials), or Beifanghua (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; literally Northern Dialect(s)), is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. ... Cantonese is a major dialect group or language of the Chinese language, a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Mǐn Nán (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name Bân-lâm-gú; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ...

There is a pronunciation difference between Taiwanese Hakka dialect and Guangdong Hakka dialect. Amongst the dialects of Hakka, the Moi-yen/Moi-yan (梅縣, Pinyin: Méixìan) dialect of northeast Guangdong has typically been viewed as a prime example of the Hakka language, forming a sort of standard dialect. Meixian (梅縣; Hakka: Moi-yen or Moi-yan) is a county in north eastern Guangdong province, Peoples Republic of China. ... Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ), commonly called Pinyin, is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ...

The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created an official romanisation of Meixian Hakka dialect in 1960, one of four languages receiving this status in Guangdong. Guangdong, often spelt as Kwangtung, is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... A romanization or latinization is a system for representing a word or language with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, where the original word or language used a different writing system. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ...

See Identification of the varieties of Chinese for more on the dispute whether Hakka and other Chinese linguistic groups should be properly considered languages or dialects. Chinese forms part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ...

Etymology

The name of the Hakka people who are the predominant original native speakers of the language literally means "guest families" or "guest people": Hak 客 (Mandarin: kè) means "guest", and ka 家 (Mandarin: jīa) means "family". Amongst themselves, Hakka people variously called their language Hak-ka-fa (-va) 客家話, Hak-fa (-va), 客話, Tu-gong-dung-fa (-va) 土廣東話, literally, "Native Guangdong language," and Ngai-fa (-va) 𠊎話, "My/our language".

History

Early history

The Hakka people have their origins in several episodes of migration from northern China into southern China during periods of war and civil unrest. The forebearers of the Hakka came from present-day Henan and Shaanxi provinces, and brought with them features of Chinese languages 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 -p -t -k, as are found in other modern southern Chinese languages, but these have been lost in Mandarin. Henan, Shanxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces The Hakka are a subgroup of the Han Chinese people who live predominantly in the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujian in China. ... Henan (Chinese: 河南; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Ho-nan), is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. ...   (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ShÇŽnxÄ«; Wade-Giles: Shan-hsi; Postal map spelling: Shensi) is a north-central province of the Peoples Republic of China, and includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River as well as the Qinling Mountains across the... Mandarin (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; literally speech of officials), or Beifanghua (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; literally Northern Dialect(s)), is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. ...

Due to the migration of its speakers, the Hakka language may have been influenced by other language areas through which the Hakka-speaking forebears migrated. For instance, common vocabulary are found in Hakka, Min and Cantonese Chinese languages. Min (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; POJ: Bân hong-giân; BUC: Mìng huŏng-ngiòng) is a general term for a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou... Cantonese is a major dialect group or language of the Chinese language, a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ...

Some people consider Hakka to have mixed with other languages, such as the language of the She people, throughout its development. The She (畲) people are an ethnic group. ...

Linguistic development

A regular pattern of sound change can generally be detected in Hakka, as in most Chinese languages, of the derivation of lexemes from earlier forms of Chinese. Some examples: Definition A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of words that are the same in basic meaning. ...

• The lexeme represented by the characters 武 (war, martial arts) or 屋 (room, house), pronounced mvio and uk in Middle Chinese is vu and vuk in Hakka respectively ( Mandarin: wu).
• Lexemes corresponding with characters 人 and 日, among others, are pronounced with a ng consonant in Hakka (人:ngin, 日:ngit), and have a corresponding reading in Mandarin as an initial r- consonant.
• The consonant initial of the lexeme corresponding with the character 話 (word, speech; Mandarin hua) is pronounced f or v in Hakka (v does not properly exist as a distinct unit in many Chinese languages).
• The initial consonant of 學 hɔk, usually corresponds with an h consonant in Cantonese and an unvoiced palatal (x[ɕ]) or velar (h[x]) in Mandarin^{[citation needed]}.

Middle Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; Pinyin: zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ... Standard Mandarin – also known as Standard Chinese or Standard spoken Chinese – is the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Singapore. ... This article is on all of the Yue dialects. ...

Phonology

Moiyen dialect initials

There are no voiced plosives ([b d ɡ]) in Hakka, but it exhibits two sets of voiceless stops, an unaspirated set ([p t k]), and the other aspirated ([pʰ tʰ kʰ]).

When the initials [ʦ ʦʰ s] and [ŋ] are followed by a palatised medial, they become [ʨ ʨʰ ɕ] and [ɲ] respectively.

Moiyen rimes

Moiyen Hakka has six vowels, [i ɿ ɛ a ə ɔ u], that are romanised as i, i, ê, a, e, o and u, respectively. The palatisation medial ([j]) is represented by i and the labialisation medial ([w]) is represented as u.

Moreover, Hakka rimes exhibits the final consonants found in Middle Chinese, namely [m, n, ŋ, p, t, k] which are romanised as m, n, ng, b, d, and g respectively in the official Moiyen romanisation. The word rime has several meanings in English: For various forms of frost, see rime (frost). ...

Moiyen tones

The Middle Chinese fully voiced initial characters have become aspirated unvoiced initial characters in Hakka. The four Middle Chinese tones Ping, Shang, Qu, Ru have developed in the Moiyen dialect to exhibit a yin-yang splitting in the Ping tone, and a yin-yang splitting in the Ru tone, giving it six tones. Middle Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; Pinyin: zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ...

These so called yin-yang tonal splittings developed mainly as a consequence of the type of initial a Chinese character had during the Middle Chinese stage in the development of Chinese languages, with unvoiced initial characters [p- t- k-] tending to become of the yin type, and the voiced initial characters [b- d- g-] developing into the yang type. In modern Moiyen Hakka however, part of the Yin Ping tone characters have sonorant initials [m n ŋ l] originally from the Middle Chinese Shang tone characters and fully voiced Middle Chinese Qu tone characters, so the voiced/unvoiced distinction should be taken only as a rule of thumb. Tones in Chinese derive from the traditional Middle Chinese tone classes, known as Ping Sheng (平聲), Shang Sheng (上聲), Qu Sheng (去聲), and Ru Sheng (入聲), which in English in the linguistic literature, are sometimes called the level, rising, departing and entering tones. ... The tone contours of Standard Mandarin Tone contours are numbers that represent the way pitch varies over a syllable. ... It has been suggested that Tonal language be merged into this article or section. ... Middle Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; Pinyin: zhōnggÇ” HànyÇ”), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ...

Hakka tone contours differs more as one moves away from Moiyen. For example the Yin Ping contour is given as 33 in Changting (长汀) and 24 in Sixian (四县), Taiwan.

Tone sandhi in Moiyen Hakka

For Moiyen Hakka, the yin ping and qu tone characters exhibit sandhi when the following character is of a lower pitch than it is. The pitch of the yin ping tone changes from /44/ to /35/ when sandhi occurs. Similarly, the qu tone changes from /53/ to /55/ under sandhi. Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ...

The neutral tone is indicated by the tilde occurring in some postfixes used in Hakka. Its pitch level can be approximated by /3/.

Other dialects of Hakka

The Hakka language has as many regional dialects as there are counties with Hakka speakers in the majority. Surrounding Meixian are the counties of Pingyuan 平遠, Dabu 大埔, Jiaoling 蕉嶺, Xingning 興寧, Wuhua 五華, and Fengshun 豐順. Each is said to have its own special phonological points of interest. For instance, the Xingning does not have rimes ending in [-m] or [-p]. These have merged into [-n] and [-t] ending rimes, respectively. Further away from Meixian, the Hong Kong dialect lacks the [-u-] medial, so whereas Meixian dialect pronounces the character 光 as [kwɔŋ44], Hong Kong Hakka dialect pronounces it as [kɔŋ33], which is similar to the Hakka spoken in neighbouring Shenzhen. Meixian (梅縣; Hakka: Moi-yen or Moi-yan) is a county in north eastern Guangdong province, Peoples Republic of China. ... Pingyuan can refer to: Pingyuan County, a county in Shandong province, China Pingyuan County, a county in north east Guangdong province, China Pingyuan (province), a former province of China Pingyuan is also the Chinese word for plains. This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages... Dabu is a common saying by the Warcraft Orc peons. ... Jiaoling (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ) is a northeastern county of Guangdong province. ... Xingning (traditional Chinese: 興寧 simplified Chinese: 兴宁) is county-level city, under the jurisdiction of Meizhou, in the Guangdong province of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Map of Fengshun (丰顺县), Meizhou. ...

As much as endings and vowels are important, the tones also vary across the dialects of Hakka. The majority of Hakka dialects have six tones, as typified by Meixian dialect above. However, there are dialects which have lost all of their Ru Sheng tones, and the characters originally of this tone class are distributed across the non-Ru tones. Such a dialect is ChangTing 長汀 which is situated in the Western Fujian province. Moreover, there is evidence of the retention of an earlier Hakka tone system in the dialects of Haifeng 海 豐 and Lufeng 陸 豐 situated on coastal south eastern 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). Tones in Chinese derive from the traditional Middle Chinese tone classes, known as Ping Sheng (平聲), Shang Sheng (上聲), Qu Sheng (去聲), and Ru Sheng (入聲), which in English in the linguistic literature, are sometimes called the level, rising, departing and entering tones. ... Guangdong, often spelt as Kwangtung, is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

The Hoi-liuk (Hailu 海陸) Hakka dialect speakers found on Taiwan originated from this region. This particular dialect contains postalveloar consonants ([ʃ], [ʒ], [tʃ], etc.), usually not found in other Chinese languages. Taiwan's other main population of Hakka speakers, the Sixian (Hakka: Siyen 四縣) speakers come from Jiaying 嘉應 and surrounding Jiaoling, Pingyuan, Xingning, and Wuhua dialects. Jiaying county later changed its name to Meixian. Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ...

Vocabulary

Like other southern Chinese languages, Hakka retains single syllable words from earlier stages of Chinese because it can differentiate a large number of working syllables by tone and rime. This reduces the need for compounding or making words of more than one syllable. However, it is also similar to other Chinese languages in having words which are made from more than one syllable.

Examples of Single Syllable Words

人 [ŋin₁₁] person (Mandarin rén)
碗 [ʋɔn₃₃] bowl (Mand. wǎn)
狗 [kɛu₃₃] dog (Mand. gǒu)
牛 [ŋiu₁₁] cow (Mand. niú)
屋 [ʋuk₃] house (Mand. wū)
嘴 [tsɔi₅₃] mouth (Mand. zuǐ)
𠊎 [ŋai₁₁] me/I (Mand. 我wǒ)

Example of Multiple-Syllable Words

日頭 [ŋit₃ t^hɛu₁₁] sun
月光 [ŋiɛt₅₃ k^wɔŋ₃₃] moon
屋下/屋家 [ʋuk₃ k^ha₃₃] home
電話 [t^hiɛn₅₄ ʋa₅₃] telephone
學堂 [hɔk53 t^hɔŋ₁₁] school

Hakka prefers the verb [kɔŋ₃₁] 講 when referring to speaking rather than the Mandarin shuo 說 ( Hakka [sɔt₃] ).

Hakka uses [sit₅] 食, like Cantonese (sik) for the verb "to eat" and "to drink", unlike Mandarin which prefers chi 吃 as "to eat" and he 喝 as “to drink"

Writing systems

Various dialects of Hakka have been written in a number of Latin orthographies, largely for religious purposes, since at least the mid-19th century.

Currently the single largest work in Hakka is the New Testament and Psalms (1993, 1138 pp., see [2]), although that is expected to be surpassed soon by the publication of the Old Testament. These works render Hakka in both romanization and Han characters (including ones unique to Hakka) and are based on the dialects of Taiwanese Hakka speakers. John 21:1 Jesus Appears to His Disciples--Alessandro Mantovani: the Vatican, Rome. ... Psalms (from the Greek: Psalmoi (songs sung to a harp, originally from psallein play on a stringed instrument), Ψαλμοί; Hebrew: Tehilim, תהילים) is a book of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh or Old Testament. ... Note: Judaism commonly uses the term Tanakh. ...

The popular Le Petit Prince has also been translated into Hakka (2000, indirectly from English), specifically the Miaoli dialect of Taiwan (itself a variant of the Sixian dialect). This also was dual-script, albeit using the Tongyong Pinyin scheme. The Little Prince (French Le Petit Prince), published in 1943, is French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupérys most famous novel, which he wrote while staying at a hotel in New York. ... Tongyong Pinyin (Chinese: ; pinyin: Tōngyòng pÄ«nyÄ«n; literally Universal/General Usage Sound-combining) is the current official romanization of the Chinese language adopted by the national government (although not all local governments) of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since 2002. ...

References

External links

• Hakka text-to-speech
• Hakka People Online
• Classification of Hakka Dialects
• Meixian/Moiyen Romanisation Scheme
• Aspects of Meixian/Moiyen Dialect of Hakka Phonology
• Information about Hakka
• Chinese to Hakka Character Converter

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