Pha̍k-fa-sṳ () is an
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis.
Most national ...
similar to
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
( ; , , ; POJ), also known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing syst ...
and used to write
Hakka, a variety of Chinese. Hakka is a whole branch of Chinese, and Hakka dialects are not necessarily mutually intelligible with each other, considering the large geographical region. This article discusses a specific variety of Hakka. The orthography was invented by the
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...
church in the 19th century. The Hakka New Testament published in 1924 is written in this system.
Writing system
Pha̍k-fa-sṳ uses a modified
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...
(an additional
double-dotted ṳ for the
close central unrounded vowel //) and some diacritics for tones. A single hyphen is added to indicate a compound.
History
Shortly after the missionaries of the
Basel Missionary Society, Reverend
Theodore Hamberg and
Rudolf Lechler arrived in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
in 1847, Hamberg and his colleagues began compiling the Hakka to
English to Hakka to
German dictionaries. Lechler was initially allocated the evangelizing work amongst the
Shantou population, but because of opposition from the local authorities there, the Shantou mission was abandoned and he joined Hamberg in the mission work with the Hakka in 1852. After Hamberg died unexpectedly in 1854, Lechler continued with the dictionary work together with fellow missionary colleagues for over fifty years. During that time, Reverend
Charles Piton also made several revisions to the dictionary.
The first publication of Romanized Hakka in Pha̍k-fa-sṳ was done by
Donald MacIver (1852-1910) in 1905 at Shantou and was titled ''A Chinese-English dictionary : Hakka-dialect, as spoken in Kwang-tung province''. He noted that some of the content was based on the dictionaries compiled by the previous Basel missionaries. However, the latter had used the Lepsius romanization, which was different from Pha̍k-fa-sṳ. MacIver made the changes to the dictionary, but he realised that Hakka vocabulary written by the Basel missionaries belonged to the Hakka dialects of southwestern
Guangdong Province:
Haifeng County,
Lufeng County
Lufeng (; Yi script, Chuxiong Yi script: , International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA:) is a county-level city located in Yunnan province, China, administered as a part of Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture. Geography
Lufeng is located in the east of Ch ...
,
Jiexi County and
Wuhua County. On the other hand, MacIver's Hakka vocabulary was extracted from the northeastern part of Guangdong Province such as Jiaying Prefecture (now
Meizhou
Meizhou ( zh, t=梅州, Hakka Chinese: Mòichû) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong province, China. It has an area of , and a population of 3,873,239 as of the 2020 census. It comprises Meijiang District, Meixian District, Xing ...
).
Current system
Letters
Consonants
Vowels
Tone marks
Listed below are tone marks of Pha̍k-fa-sṳ with tone value of
Sixian and
Hailu dialects of
Taiwanese Hakka:
Comparison of Chinese and Taiwanese Pha̍k-fa-sṳ
Comparisons were made between ''The Hakka New Testament'' (1924) and the ''Hakka Bible: Today's Taiwan Hakka Version'' (2012). The former was published in
Shantou, China, while the latter was published in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
.
Initials
Below are rules for switching between Chinese and Taiwanese Pha̍k-fa-sṳ:
[劉敏貞. (2011)]
比較兩種客語聖經譯本底背ke語音差異—用汕頭客語聖經譯本lâu現代客語聖經譯本底背ke約翰福音為例
Tone marks
The table below compares the tone marks of Chinese Pha̍k-fa-sṳ, Taiwanese Pha̍k-fa-sṳ, and
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
( ; , , ; POJ), also known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing syst ...
of
Southern Min
Southern Min (), Minnan ( Mandarin pronunciation: ) or Banlam (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Chinese languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian (especially the Minnan region), most of Taiwa ...
.
Notes:
#Taiwanese Hakka does not differentiate between 陰上 (yīnshǎng) and 陽上 (yángshǎng). Certain dialects (but not the standard) of
Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...
does have yángshǎng (ǎ).
#Sixian Hakka does not differentiate between 陰去 (yīnqù) and 陽去 (yángqù), but Hailu does have yángqù (å).
See also
*
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
( ; , , ; POJ), also known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing syst ...
*
Hagfa Pinyim
*
Hakka Bible: Today's Taiwan Hakka Version
References
External links
Chinese to Hakka Dictionary Online (in the Siyen dialect)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phak-fa-su
Hakka Chinese
Languages of Taiwan
Romanization of Chinese
Latin-script orthographies