Taiwanese Hakka
Chinese topolect spoken in Taiwan
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In 2014, 4.2 million Taiwanese self-identified as Hakka, accounting for 18% of the population. The Hakka Affairs Council has designated 70 townships and districts across Taiwan where the Hakka account for more than a third of the total population, including 18 in Miaoli County, 11 in Hsinchu County, and another 8 in Pingtung, Hualien, and Taoyuan counties each.
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Status
With the introduction of martial law in 1949, the KMT-led government repressed Hakka, along with Taiwanese Hokkien and other indigenous languages in favor of Mandarin. In 1988, the Hakka community established the Restore My Mother Tongue Movement to advocate for the right to use and preserve the Hakka language. Language restrictions were relaxed after 1987 with the lifting of martial law and ensuing democratic reforms. In 2012, the ministry-level Hakka Affairs Council was established to stem the language's decline in Taiwan. In December 2017, the Legislative Yuan designated Hakka as an official national language of Taiwan.
Sociolinguistics
While Hakka has official status in Taiwan, it has seen ongoing decline due to a language shift to the more dominant Taiwanese Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien. The number of Hakka speakers in Taiwan has declined by 1.1% per year, particularly among youth. In 2016, only 22.8% of self-identifying Hakkas aged 19 to 29 spoke the language. Today, Taiwanese Hakka tends to be used within families and within local communities, which has reduced intergenerational transmission. An estimated 2 million Hakkas now self-identify as Hoklo. Furthermore, the great diversity of Hakka dialects used throughout Taiwan has impeded standardization of Hakka for teaching.