Hakka is one of the Chinese dialects with about 33,000,000 speakers worldwide. However, there are sub dialects of Hakka depending on regions and influences on other languages. The Meixian dialect is considered the so-called standard dialect. It is a city in north eastern Guangdong. Other sub dialects differ tonally and phonetically but share a common vocabulary among others.
The term Hakka 客家 comprises of two words, the first meaning guest and the second meaning family. This term refers to the Hakka because of documented evidence of a history of migration. Studies have shown that the ancestors of the original Hakka were residents of the Great Central Plains of Eastern China near the Yellow River黄河 basin about 2000 years ago.

Due the great threats of war among other incidents, the Hakka fled in 5 stages. The first began with an invasion of non-Chinese from the north into the plains. This had created a period in Chinese history known as the 16 states. Nearing the end of the Tang dynasty the country had become filled with corruption and poor government and the threat of war had begun a second wave in population migration. The Mongol conquest of China in the mid-20^th century caused the Hakka to flee south again. The fourth wave occurred when the Ming dynasty collapsed. China was then conquered by another non-Chinese invader, the Manchu, who formed the Qing dynasty. Near the end of the 1830s the Taiping rebellion lead by a fiery Hakka Christian preacher lead the to the establishment of the Da Ping Tian Guo or the Great Kingdom of Heavenly Peace to rival the Manchu Qing government. This lasted about 50 years and weakened when its leader died. Poor leadership caused the kingdom to collapse. The Qing government cruelly pursued its one time followers and hence led to the 5^th great movement. At this moment a new wave of Hakka migration can be added, this time outside Asia. Many migrants found manual labor in America at the end of the 20^th century. Furthermore, recently people have moved to Europe and built businesses.

A long time ago I came across information on the Hakka a southern dialect and people of China – and communicated with the writer. No longer in touch and the papers I have printed out I am sure are all yellow from age.

I think it was about the time when I was in the University of Alberta because the internet didn’t exist when I was in highschool.
Recently I have been looking up more information here on Hakka or 客家 and finding a lot of information in Japanese because the Japanese were the first to really do a ethnological study on the Taiwan first nations. (The Hakka are not really a first nations but they are a minority) There is a little in English but because there is no common romanization it is nearly impossible to read any of the place names. Mostly ofcultural relevance and very little linguistical information and almost nothing on learning/hearing the language. I did find that language seminars havebeen given at Tokyo Universty on Hakka and I am sure more universities here in Taiwan offer specialized courses for research.

Their numbers are less than 10-20% and most of them in Taiwan live in the north in Xinchu (新竹県）. I’m interested in finding out more. There is an old village in that area, Chudong（竹東）, Beipu（北浦）, which I need to go and see somehow, not sure how yet. ** Taiwanese is a common name for Binnan, or dialects similar to Han Chinese in Fujian, mainland China.

The Hakka have been known as an outsider peoples rejected by Han Chinese. They have been mistaken for Thai/Burmese at one point. Most of them originally came from Fujian, Guangdong prov. on the mainland 4-500 years ago. The Hakka are known for their distinct archetecture and their language is nothing like Mandarin Chinese. Also interesting to note that the first Hakka dictionary was a Hakka-Dutch dictionary published in the mid 1800s because of the Dutch occupation of Taiwan.