Hakka Cheenese

Hakka or Kejia is ane o the main subdiveesions o the Cheenese leid spoken predominantly in soothren Cheenae bi the Hakka fowk an descendants in diaspora throughoot East an Sootheast Asie an aroond the warld.

Due tae its uisage in scattered isolatit regions whaur communication is limited tae the local aurie, the Hakka leid haes developed numerous variants or dialects, spoken in Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces, includin Hainan island, Singapore an Taiwan. Hakka is no mutually intelligible wi Mandarin, Wu, Minnan, an maist o the significant spoken variants o the Cheenese leid.

There is a pronunciation difference atween the Taiwanese Hakka dialect an the Guangdong Hakka dialect. Amang the dialects o Hakka, the Moi-yen/Moi-yan (梅縣, Pinyin: Méixiàn) dialect o northeast Guangdong haes been typically viewed as a prime example o the Hakka leid, formin a sort o staundart dialect.

The Guangdong Provincial Education Depairtment creatit an offeecial romanization o Moiyen in 1960, ane o fower leids receivin this status in Guangdong.

Etymology

The name o the Hakka fowk who are the predominant oreeginal native speakers o the leid literally means "guest families" or "guest fowk": Hak 客 (Mandarin: kè) means "guest", an ka 家 (Mandarin: jiā) means "family". Amangst themselves, Hakka fowk variously cawed their leid 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," an Ngai-fa (-va) 話, "Ma/oor leid".