Hakka Chinese

Chinese
title=Hakka
s=客家话
t=客家話
h=Hak-kâ-fa
"or" Hak-kâ-va
gan= Khak-ka-ua
p=Kèjiāhuà
j=haak3 gaa1 waa2
y=haak gā wá
poj=Kheh-oē (客話)Infobox Language
name=Hakka
nativename=客家話 / 客家话
familycolor=Sino-Tibetan
states=People's Republic of China, Malaysia, Taiwan (Republic of China), Japan (due to presence of Taiwanese community in Tokyo-Yokohama Metropolitan Area), Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Mauritius, Suriname, India and other countries where Hakka Chinese migrants have settled.
region=in China: Eastern Guangdong province; adjoining regions of Fujian and Jiangxi provinces
speakers=34 million
rank=32
fam2=Chinese
nation=none (legislative bills have been proposed for it to be one of the 'national languages' in the Republic of China); one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the ROC [http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E7%9C%BE%E9%81%8B%E8%BC%B8%E5%B7%A5%E5%85%B7%E6%92%AD%E9%9F%B3%E8%AA%9E%E8%A8%80%E5%B9%B3%E7%AD%89%E4%BF%9D%E9%9A%9C%E6%B3%95] ; ROC government sponsors Hakka language television station to preserve language
agency=The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created an official romanisation of Meixian Hakka dialect in 1960, one of four languages receiving this status in Guangdong. It is called Kejiahua Pinyin Fang'an.
iso1=zh (Chinese)|iso2b=chi|iso2t=zho|iso3=hak

Hakka (zh-tsp|t=客家話|s=客家话|p=Kèjiāhuà; Hakka: "Hak-kâ-fa") is one of the main subdivisions 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.

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.

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: Méixiàn) dialect of northeast Guangdong has typically been viewed as a prime example of the Hakka language, forming a sort of standard dialect.

The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created an official romanisation of Meixian Hakka dialect in 1960, one of four languages receiving this status in Guangdong.

"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."

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)