Talk:Hakka (linguistics)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Hakka (linguistics) article.
Article policies
This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

Contents

[edit] Move

All right. I apologize, but:

  1. 'hua != Chinese' as much as 'hua != language'; and
  2. 'Hakka Chinese' may also refer to, say, Chinese citizens who are Hakka.

I propose moving the linguistic article to something like (I prefer) Hakka language, Hakka (tongue), Hakka (linguistics), or Hakka dialect. --Kaihsu Tai 21:32, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

If Taiyu is Taiwanese language, Kejia-hua should be Hakka language. --Menchi 21:37, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yu is the direct translation for language (so as explained to me, it is appropriate). In contrast, hua refers only to the spoken language. I wont object to moving it to Hakka dialect.

What about all the other spoken variations of Chinese? --Jiang 21:49, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

(I find phrases like 'spoken variations of Chinese', 'Taiyu', and 'Kejia-hua' objectionable -- they should be clearly 'the Chinese/Sinitic languages', 'Hō-ló-oē', and 'Hakka' -- but that's just me.) I would move them to unqualified titles like 'Min' (or 'Ban') and 'Yue' (or 'Yuet') if no possibility of ambiguity arises; otherwise I can accept 'Min dialect' or 'Fujian dialects'. Why should we be Mandarin-centric and POV? --Kaihsu Tai 22:07, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Is 'Hō-ló-oē' in the same Chinese characters as Taiyu? What standard are we using here? If not XXXX Chinese, then what? XXX dialect? XXX (followed by nothing)? --Jiang

(I will avoid the first question, for brevity and the love of harmony.) Jiang -- let's agree on 'XXXX' (yes, followed by nothing) when no ambiguity is possible, and 'XXXX dialect' (or, if you wish, some variation of 'XXXX Chinese dialect') when ambiguity may arise. --Kaihsu Tai 23:10, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

How are these not "spoken variations of Chinese"? Since when has Mandarin become spoken Chinese? --Jiang 22:35, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The thing is that, Jiang, there is no Chinese tongue (now I use this word to avoid the 'language or dialect?' mess) -- but there are Chinese tongues. To elaborate: Mandarin is not spoken Chinese. Written Mandarin is spoken Mandarin, written down -- remember the whole thing about Wusi (05-04), colloquialism etc? Then: Literary (ancient) Chinese (wenyan) can be written and then read out loud, but never spoken. (Try speaking it to someone.) Exhortation: Read some DeFrancis & Co. I have tried to include them in References here and there. --Kaihsu Tai 23:10, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)
My point is...i dont see the offense in labelling something "a dialect of Chinese" since Chinese cannot be limited to a single spoken dialect. --Jiang

Should we allow standardization supersede the common names? Since an ambiguity exists for Mandarin, will we keep it at Mandarin Chinese or move it to Mandarin dialect. The latter phrase is rarely used. --Jiang 23:25, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hakka (linguistics) and Mandarin (linguistics) work. They sound better than Hakka (tongue). --Menchi 23:30, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Let's do that then. Jiang? --Kaihsu Tai 08:18, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Using parenthesis makes disambiguating necessary. Will this be too much trouble?

Let's copy this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) and wait a couple days. People may not be aware of this discussion. --Jiang 08:23, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There has been considerable confusion over the use of the term dialect. According to the way I was taught (and I think most people on the chinese@kenyon.edu listserv would agree), a dialect is what happens when a linguistic community splits (e.g., English speakers move to Australia and North America) and then the resultant groups diverge in pronunciation. However, the pronunciation changes are of a consistent nature and once you see how a few words change you can pretty much predict how all the other words will be pronounced. So if an American moves to Australia s/he may be totally unable to understand some or even most things that people say for several weeks or longer, but s/he will eventually be able to figure it all out and adapt to the systematic changes in pronunciation. The differences between Yun2 Nan2 hua4 and Bei3 Jing1 hua4 are like that.

In cases of different languages, the changes have gone so far that there is no longer a systematic relationship between most words in the two languages. The differences between Min3 Nan2 yu3 and pu3 tong1 hua4 are like that.

The "Chinese language" is like "romance languages" (all the languages that trace back to Latin). In my understanding, the appropriate term for the mutually incomprehensible languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Wu2 yu3...) would be "regional languages", or, if the context didn't make it clear, "regional Chinese languages". The term "dialects" should be reserved for the differences between, e.g., pu3 tong1 hua4 and Si4 Chuan1 hua4.

Using a tree structure would be a good way to show what fang1 yan2 are closely related and what ones are remote. All of the languages of the pu3 tong1 hua4 qu1 would go on one main branch, Fu2 Jian4 hua4 and Tai2 Wan1 hua4 would go on another branch. I'm guessing that Ke4 Jia1 hua4 as spoken on Taiwan and on the mainland may have more than one versions, and they would all go on a main branch. I suspect that the Ke4 Jia1 hua4 branch would be closer to the pu3 tong1 hua4 branch than Min3 Nan2 yu3 would.

Patrick0Moran 01:51, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The dialect/language thing is mostly a political, not linguistic distinction. While many of the Chinese dialects are not mutually intelligible, they're called dialects in the interest of promoting Chinese unity. Similarly, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are largely comprehensible to speakers of any of those languages, but they're called 'languages' because Norway, Denmark and Sweden are separate countries who have an interest in having their speech be a language of its own. I think it was Uriel Weinreich who said "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy."

That said, I don't see anything wrong with using 'dialects' in Wikipedia -- common usage is our god, right? Moreover, I fail to see the need to impose some artificial consisntency on this whole thing -- like having all the dialect names in Mandarin or somesuch. The language most people speak south of Kaohsiung is commonly known as "Taiwanese", and the guest-families language is usually called "Hakka" (though this doesn't really match the pronunciation in Hakka or Mandarin). Anyway, while I think the articles should refer to Hakka, Taiwanese, etc. as dialects, the titles should still use _(linguistics)

In addition, according to the Hanyu Fangyan Gaiyao, there are four Mandarin dialects. However, the Putonghua, while based on the Mandarin dialect of the northern provinces ("the common language of China, based on the northern dialects, with the Peking phonological system as its norm of pronunication." -- National Language Reform Meeting) is not really a dialect (nor known as one), sort of like Standard Arabic, I suppose.

--Xiaopo 19:26, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)


Should we call whales fish? Even if most people in the world did it? We have a problem in English with everyone calling any insect a bug, even though that name is supposedly reserved for sap-sucking insects with soda straws for mouthparts.

I think that common usage should not be a "god." To do so means that what is right and what is wrong doesn't count any more. The only thing that counts is what the majority of people would like to believe or have been told to believe. There is entirely too much of "my invisible friend is more powerful than your invisible friend" contention going on in the world today for me to accede to fostering that kind of thinking anywhere.

Just in terms of simple educational objectives, the average reader could use whatever landmarks and roadsigns we can provide to help him/her keep in mind the fact that a person from Si4 Chuan1 and a person from Bei3 Jing1 (each speaking the language they were brought up speaking) can understand each other, whereas a person whose native tongue is the vernacular of Bei3 Jing1 cannot understand a person whose vernacular is Taiwanese.

I am not so sure that a person from Sichuan (with its myriad of local dialects) and a person from Beijing could understand each other's tongue. It is well documented that Deng Xiaoping's (Hakka, Sichuan) spoken words were very difficult to understand by top-level Putonghua/English interpreters, and that he needed his daughter to interpret his words into Putonghua first before interpreters could render them into English. Indeed Putonghua and the local Beijing speech are different enough for a Putonghua speaker (including those from Beijing) with no knowledge of local Beijing speech not to understand the local Beijing speech. 86.161.63.5 (talk) 11:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course since all these groups now say "hi", we could call them all English. ;-)

[edit] On the way to become a feature

This article has the potential to become a feature. There are still missing non-Moiyen dialects, more sociolinguistics, etc.... A model may be Taiwanese (linguistics). -- Kaihsu 16:45, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)

[edit] SIL Ethnologue tag

I'm changing it from CHN to the more specific HAK, which is what this article is all about. A-giau 22:53, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Other Chinese pronunciations

Can we add more examples of Chinese pronunciations (Mandarin and Cantonese primarily)? Does anyone else think this would benefit the page? Any expansion of the linguistic derivation section would be much appreciated as well. Thanks --Dpr 18:49, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Palatised initials

Originally When the initials z c s ([ʦ ʦʰ s]) and ng ([ŋ]) is followed by a palatised medial, they become j q x ([ʨ ʨʰ ɕ]) and ngi ([ɲ]) respectively. This became changed to When the initials ([ŋ]) is followed by a palatised medial, they become ([ɲ]) respectively. The sentence itself is grammatically incorrect in itself. However, the real point is that the difference between the set of initials [ʦ ʦʰ s] and [ʨ ʨʰ ɕ] is the point of articulation, where the latter under the influence of palatisation is moved forward to form apical consonants. In this case, it ought to be restored but the romanised elements of the original sentence should be omitted.

When the initials [ʦ ʦʰ s] and [ŋ] is followed by a palatised medial, they become [ʨ ʨʰ ɕ] and [ɲ] respectively. Dylanwhs 00:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hakka v

The Hakka v or correctly [ʋ] which is also coded as [ʋ decimal 651 ] is a labial dental approximant, not a labial dental fricative [v]. Thanks Garzo for reverting the change. Dylanwhs 15:07, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hakkapedia?

If Hakka really is a unique language by its own right (and not merely a Chinese dialect), then I do not understand why no one has yet requested for a Hakka wiki to come into existence.

Please be careful about what you ask for. There is no standard Hakka language, but a group of dialects with one, Meixian dialect held as the paradigm example. My dialect of Hakka differs in some respects to Meixian, both phonologically and in terms of vocabulary. In anycase, do you think Hakka cannot be a unique language before Wikipedia? Dylanwhs 15:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Besides, the Hakka Romanised script existed as early as 1860 with the completion and publishing of the New Testament Hakka bible. -- Phillip J, 04:14 Thursday 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Still doens't mean that we need a Hakka wikipedia, especially when a Chinese wikipedia already exists. I do note however, that a Cantonese and Minnanhua wikipedia exists, but even so, I personally think that it is unnecessary. Dylanwhs 15:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

A Romanized Hakka Test Wikipedia has been created. Now is your opportunity to show that Hakka really is a unique language. --Phillip J 04:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hakka ɿ is not the same as ɪ

The usual treatment in Chinese books dealing with Hakka phonology renders the apical i as ɿ. The vowel ɪ is lower and less apical than ɿ. Dylanwhs 20:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Political Comment is off topic

Most of the Hakka people living in the north of Taiwan are supporters of Kuomintang, while the Hakka people who live in the south of Taiwan are supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party.

This is off topic in a discussion about linguistics. Dylanwhs 18:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] R consonant

"Lexemes corresponding with characters 人 and 日, among others, are pronounced with a ng consonant in Hakka (人:ngin, 日:ngit), while being pronounced with an r consonant in many Chinese languages, including Mandarin"

Is there any other example of a Chinese language in which these words start with an "r"? I thought "r" was almost unique to Mandarin. In Cantonese these words start with "y". (人:yan4, 日:yat6) 66.173.105.253 20:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
That part was added by DPR (26 Sep 2006) [[1]]. The whole Derivation paragraph needs to be re-written. Dylanwhs 19:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes 27 Jan 2007

Having read through the changes made since my last edit, the following are mistakes, which I am now correcting.

With regard to the population given of 34 million, davidpbrown sources his figures from the 1996 Ethnologue database.

Wrong:

Hakka is mutually intelligible with Mandarin, Cantonese, Minnan and most of the significant spoken variants of the Chinese language.

Correct:

Hakka is not mutually intelligible with Mandarin, Cantonese, Minnan and most of the significant spoken variants of the Chinese language.

I have inserted 'not' back in again, because 'mutually intelligible' does not mean 'does not understand each other'. When one says X is not mutually intelligible with Y and Z, it means that X is different to Y and Z to the point where whatever X says, Y and Z may not understand, and vice versa.

Lexemes corresponding with characters 人 and 日, among others, are pronounced with a ng consonant in Hakka (人:ngin, 日:ngit), while being pronounced with an r consonant in Mandarin

Change to: ... in Hakka (人:ngin, 日:ngit), and have a corresponding reading in Mandarin as an initial r- consonant.


I've reverted the change in

我 [ŋai11] me/I (Mand. 我wǒ)

to:

𠊎 [ŋai11] me/I (Mand. 我wǒ)

because 我 has the pronunciation [ŋɔ33] in Hakka, and 𠊎 occurs in Unicode and in Hanyu Dacidian, as the dialectal character used for Hakka. Dylanwhs 10:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: If you can't see the character 𠊎, it is either (1.) you don't have the font, (2.) using a browser which doesn't support Unicode Extension B characters, (3.) Using Internet Explorer. If you have the appropriate font I suggest Mozilla Firefox which does a better job than IE. Dylanwhs 10:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This Article Needs Hakka Dialect Audio Samples

This article needs some audio samples of different Hakka dialects from Guangdong and Taiwan. I would be happy to hear some samples of Hakka speeches from Meixian,Guangdong and Taiwan. Sonic99 03:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] tones

the tones listed in the inventory don't match the vocab (i.e. Shang). Are these different dialects, or just different transcription conventions? kwami (talk) 08:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hakka dialects are unintelligible with each other

Guangdong Hakka is different from Fujian Hakka. They have difficulty communicating to each other because they can only understand 50% of each other's dialect. Hakka is a minority language. I don't know why Hakka want to preserve their language and force their children to learn it when different regional Hakka cannot even understand each other dialect. Hakka is useless. Forget Hakka and join the mainstream society that speak Mandarin and Cantonese. Sonic99 (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

DEar Sonic 99, you are an idiot...go screw yourself..Insulting Hakk dialec tand thier People like that. (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 05:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)