Jared's Discusion Re the Hakka Language

[C Lee <clem2@idt.net>]

Dear friends,

Actually Linny had just added a new dimension or problem to the question
of creating a  "Jiaying Province". There is no such thing as one Hakka
Language. Actually there are many spoken Hakka dialects and some of them
vary so much that it is quite impossible for 2 Hakkas to converse in
Hakka unless they are both from the same area, as in the case when
Linny, a Moiyan Hak, tried to converse with a Tai Pu Hak. I think that
the Moiyan Hakka dialect is considered standard, because it is the least
influenced by another Chinese dialect compared to the Hakka(s) spoken in
other areas of China. Many overseas Moiyan Hakkas(2nd., 3rd. generation)
expressed the same sentiments as Linny when they visited Moiyan, they
were amazed that they spoke the same way as those in Moiyan. There is no
written Hakka but only one written Chinese for all dialects/languages
for China. It is a question of how each dialect pronounces the Chinese
characters. As Linny pointed out meaningless sounds are added to the
actual Chinese words depending on the dialect spoken, as in the case of
fish, pronounced in Moiyan Hakka as ng ne.  As you can see, even among
the Hakkas, we are quite diversed.

Clem