With over fourty-five million native speakers across the globe, Hakka isn't showing any signs of dying off anytime soon, even with the pressure of 'Mandarinisation', a phenomenon coined by Netizens, defining how Mandarin is pressuring itself on other Chinese varieties, especially Cantonese. Although it's only an official language in Taiwan, it's well-known across China and other Chinese-speaking countries and territories, including seven million overseas Chinese. So, just what is Hakka?
Hakka is a Chinese variety, branching off from Sino-Tibetan to Sinitic to Chinese to where we are now. However, within Hakka, there are lots of other small dialects. The majority are not even mutually intelligible with each other - however, the dialect considered the 'standard dialect' of Hakka is by the name of Meixian, named after the Guangdong county. Meixian also seems to have roughly the same consonant and vowel system as Standard Cantonese. Unfortunately, there seems to be less Hakka speakers than who are actually ethnically Hakka, since those who are young tend to branch out to other Chinese varieties, notably Cantonese or even Mandarin.
Speaking of Meixian, there are lots of different ways to actually say it; well, those 'lots of different ways' only consisting of two. 'Meixian' and 'Moiyan'. 'Meixian' is the Mandarin pronunciation of the dialect; however, 'Moiyan' is the way you would say it in.. well, Meixian. On the other hand, 'Meixian' is a more popular term opposed to the other, so you would have a lot more luck searching up that, instead of 'Moiyan'.
In Chinese characters, Hakka is known by '客家話'. (Meixian is '梅縣話', 'plum county language', but '梅縣' is actually a district in Meizhou, a division in Guangdong province.) This literally means 'guest family language'. Noting on the 'guest family' portion of the word, why is it called that? Well, this was elaborated during time periods of civil war within China. Ethnic Hakkas eventually moved from locations in northern China to other provinces during the eighth century. Eventually, they migrated again, from the east to the south of numerous other provinces, notably Jiangxi. Finally, during the centuries of the twelveth to seventeenth, they settled in Guangdong (the province that Cantonese is named after). This definitely meant that they earned their name of 'guest family'.
Meanwhile, Meixian is spoken in areas of southern China, Hong Kong, etc. Additionally, spoken Meixian is very different from written Meixian; but we'll get into details of that matter in later chapters in this book. Other things I will mention later on include tones, romanisation, vowel and consonant sounds, stroke orders, grammar, etc.
Oh, and before you proceed with the book, I have an additional note. You cannot speak Chinese. In fact, no one can. You either speak Mandarin or Cantonese or Hakka or Hokkien, etc; Chinese varieties. Alternatively, you use Chinese (either Traditional or Simplified) to write. Please note that, since I will be referring to Meixian as being 'spoken' and 'Chinese' as being 'written'.
Enjoy the book!