Taiwanese Hakka
Language · official in 1 country
Taiwanese Hakka has no single spoken standard: five main dialects, Sixian, Hailu, Dapu, Raoping and Zhao'an, all remain in use, and their diversity has held back a teaching standard. Its speakers call it Hak-kâ-ngî. The Legislative Yuan designated Hakka a national language of Taiwan in December 2017.
The language on record
- Own name
- 客家語
- ISO 639-3
- HAK
- Script
- Chinese, traditional
- Family
- Sinitic (Hakka)
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Taiwanese Hakka is official
Taiwan is the one entry. Hakka became a national language there in December 2017, and the ministry-level Hakka Affairs Council maintains it.
Official beside Taiwanese Hakka
About Taiwanese Hakka
Where the Hakka townships are
In 2014, 4.2 million people in Taiwan identified as Hakka, 18% of the population, and the Hakka Affairs Council has designated 70 townships and districts where Hakka make up more than a third of residents: 18 in Miaoli County, 11 in Hsinchu County and 8 each in Pingtung, Hualien and Taoyuan. Most Hakka live in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli.
How Sixian and Hailu differ
The two dialects heard most are Sixian and Hailu. Sixian has six tones, comes from Meizhou in Guangdong, and is spoken mainly in Miaoli, Pingtung and Kaohsiung. Hailu has seven tones, comes from Haifeng and Lufeng in Guangdong, and is concentrated around Hsinchu. Beside the five main dialects there are the northern Xihai dialect and scattered pockets of Yongding, Fengshun, Wuping, Wuhua and Jiexi.
What brought Hakka back into public life
Martial law from 1949 brought repression of Hakka, with Taiwanese Hokkien and the indigenous languages, in favour of Mandarin; in 1964 speaking Hokkien or Hakka in schools and official settings was forbidden. Restrictions eased after martial law was lifted in 1987, and in 1988 the Hakka community founded the Restore My Mother Tongue Movement. The Hakka Affairs Council, established in 2012, runs Hakka TV and Hakka Radio.
Why fewer young Hakka speak it
The number of speakers has been falling by 1.1% a year, fastest among the young, as speakers shift to Taiwanese Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien. In 2016 only 22.8% of self-identified Hakka aged 19 to 29 spoke the language. It is now used mostly within families and local communities, which weakens transmission from one generation to the next.
Common questions
Questions about Taiwanese Hakka
Which Hakka dialects are spoken in Taiwan?
Five main ones: Sixian, Hailu, Dapu, Raoping and Zhao'an. The government counts six if Sixian and South Sixian are separated.
How is Taiwanese Hakka written in schools?
Textbooks mix traditional Chinese characters with the Latin alphabet. The Ministry of Education maintains the Taiwanese Hakka Romanization System and a list of recommended characters, and an older missionary romanisation, Pha̍k-fa-sṳ, is also in use.