Introduction

First Book of Reading in the Romanised Colloquial of the Hakka-Chinese in the Province of Canton

This book was published in the Romanized edition by The Basel Missionary Society in 1879, and then the Chinese edition came out in 1880. It was used as a textbook that inspired Hakka descendants to get knowledge and study. It could be seen as a concise encyclopedia for its various contents about basic natural science, all kinds of species, customs and habits, and concepts, and the whole book consists of 238 chapters. It reflected the spoken language of the Xinjie Hakka dialect at that time because of the highly used colloquial words in this book. The Romanized edition of this book applied to the Lepsius system, and the Chinese edition was arranged according to the order of the Pinyin edition. Hence, the length of each line of the text varies in the Chinese edition.

Acts of the Apostles (Hakka edition in Chinese characters)

Acts of the Apostles (Hakka edition in Lepsius Romanization): Acts of the Apostles is the fifth chapter of The New Testament in the Colloquial of the Hakka Dialect, and it was the second edition published by The Basel Missionary Society in 1892. The book is written in the Romanization system of Lepsius, which was customary to be used by The Basel Missionary Society and contains chapters 1 to 28. Acts of the Apostles (Hakka edition in Chinese characters): Acts of the Apostles is the fifth chapter of The New Testament in the Colloquial of the Hakka Dialect, published by The Basel Missionary Society in 1883. It is the Hakka edition in Chinese characters, and the contents are chapters 1 to 28 of Acts of the Apostles. Please note that the Hakka edition in Chinese characters does not correspond to the edition of the Romanization system of Lepsius word-for-word.

Hakka Catechism for Confirmation

This document is the publication of The Basel Missionary Society in 1884. It is the Q & A collection of religion in Chinese-Romanization Pinyin (Lepsius system), and there are 17 pages; it was initially a joint issue with Hakka Selected Portions of the Bible (newly printed in movable type by Wo Shing Printing Company in Hong Kong, the tenth year of the reign of Guangxu).

Hakka Selected portions of the Bible

The Basel Missionary Society published Hakka Selected Portions of the Bible in 1884. It is Chinese-Romanization Pinyin (Lepsius system), and there are four volumes on 103 pages; it was initially a joint issue with Hakka Catechism for Confirmation (newly printed in movable type by Wo Shing Printing Company in Hong Kong, the tenth year of the reign of Guangxu).

Medizinisches Hakka-lesebuch

The book was edited by the Deji Hospital in Meixian in 1931, and It recorded general medical files and ancient stories of famous doctors in Hakka. The contents were written in Hakka Chinese characters, but this book has no Romanization Pinyin version.

Conversations Chinoises Prises sur le Vif avec Notes Grammaticales: Langage Hac-Ka Ⅰ(HK)

The book was a collection of daily conversations in Hakka, written by the French Father Charles Rey of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris, who also edited Dictionnaire Chinois-Francais, Dialecte Hac-Ka, when he preached in Shantou, Guangdong. There are 719 pages in the book, and every paragraph of the dialogue is translated and given definitions in French, Hakka in Chinese characters, and Hakka in Romanized Pinyin. The contents of Hakka in Chinese characters consist of 98,451 words in the book with in-depth and fascinating topics, and it can fully reflect the spoken language in Hakka in the contemporary and the social and cultural customs of the local lives. Although the version of Hakka in Romanization Pinyin matches that of Dictionnaire Chinois-Francais, Dialecte Hac-Ka, it differs slightly in the pronunciations.

Conversations Chinoises Prises sur le Vif avec Notes Grammaticales: Langage Hac-Ka Ⅱ(HK)

The book was a collection of daily conversations in Hakka, written by the French Father Charles Rey of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris, who also edited Dictionnaire Chinois-Francais, Dialecte Hac-Ka, when he preached in Shantou, Guangdong. There are 719 pages in the book, and every paragraph of the dialogue is translated and given definitions in French, Hakka in Chinese characters, and Hakka in Romanized Pinyin. The contents of Hakka in Chinese characters consist of 98,451 words in the book with in-depth and fascinating topics, and it can fully reflect the spoken language in Hakka in the contemporary and the social and cultural customs of the local lives. Although the version of Hakka in Romanization Pinyin matches that of Dictionnaire Chinois-Francais, Dialecte Hac-Ka, it differs slightly in the pronunciations.

The Hakka Dialect of Taoyuan, Taiwan

This book was written by the researcher Shih-feng Yang from the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, in 1957 and published in The Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Monographs series. A; no. 22. The materials of this book were from the author’s research and fieldwork in Yangmei Township in the autumn of 1953 (the 42nd year of the Republic of China), and it took him three months to achieve collection. The informants were Mr. Huo-tu Liao and Mr. Guang-chiou Chen; they both spoke genuine Hakka in the Taoyuan area; Mr. Liao spoke Hailu Hakka, and Mr. Chen spoke Sixian Hakka. There are 25 collected stories about folk tales and customs and an introduction to the wedding and marriage traditions.

The Hakka Dialect of Meinung

This book was written by the researcher Shih-feng Yang from the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica in 1971, and it was first published in the Bulletin of IHP Volume 42 Part 3 (In Honor of Dr. Wang Shih-Chieh on His 80th Birthday). According to the text, the Hakka dialect recorded in this book was based on the author’s fieldwork in Meinung Township, Kaohsiung County, in 1966 (the 55th year of the Republic of China), and the informant was Mr. Hsien-rong Wen.

Taichung County Folk Literature (Hakka)

The volumes of Taichung County Folk Literature (Hakka) were edited by Hu Wan Chuan and published by The Cultural Center of Taichung County from 1992 to 2003. The township-based notion presented these volumes in various languages and categories. The contents were collected objectively from all kinds of folk literature data with the help of the staff of the townships and villages using comprehensive censuses, and then categorized, recorded, and organized these materials. The editor compiled and arranged the materials in both original languages (Minnan Chinese characters, Hakka Chinese characters, and Romanized Atayal) and the translation and explanation of Chinese; the story and the plot were not changed, and the explanations were added after the texts where the sounds, characters, and meanings were hard to comprehend. The Hakka section of the website includes two volumes of Hakka Folk Songs in Shigang, three volumes of Hakka Folk Songs in Dongshi, and seven volumes of A Collection of Dongshi Hakka Stories.

Taoyuan County Folk Literature (Hakka)

The volumes of Taoyuan C Taoyuan County Folk rature (Hakka) were edited by Hu Wan Chuan and published by The Cultural Center of Taoyuan County and The Cultural Bureau from 1999 to 2007. The township-based notion presented these volumes in various languages and categories. The contents were collected objectively from all kinds of folk literature data with the help of the local volunteers and the cultural and historical works using comprehensive censuses, and then categorized, recorded, and organized materials. The editor compiled and arranged the materials in both original languages (Minnan Chinese characters, Hakka Chinese characters) and the translation and explanation of Chinese; the story and the plot were not changed, and the explanations were added after the texts where the sounds, characters, and meanings were hard to comprehend. The Hakka section of the website includes Hakka Folk Songs in Longtan, five volumes of Hakka Folk Songs in Yangmei, Hakka Folk Songs, and Proverbs and Riddles in Xinwu, A Collection of Xinwu Hakka Stories, A Collection of Yangmei Hakka Stories, Hakka Proverbs and Riddles in Yangmei, two volumes of Hakka Folk Songs in Guanyin, Hakka Folk Songs in Pingzhen, three volumes of Hakka Folk Songs in Zhongli, and two volumes of Hakka Album by Liao De-tian in Longtan.

A Chinese-English Dictionary: Hakka-Dialect as Spoken in Kwang-Tung Province

The first edition of A Chinese-English Dictionary: Hakka-Dialect as Spoken in Kwang-Tung Province was compiled by the Presbyterian minister D. MacIver and published in 1905. The original name was An English-Chinese Dictionary in the Vernacular of the Hakka People in the Canton Province. According to the preface, this dictionary was edited and compiled from partly Chinese-English (Hakka-English) and partly Chinese-German (Hakka-German) manuscripts; these manuscripts were written by Rev. T. Hamberg and Rev. R. Lechler from The Basel Missionary Society of Switzerland. Rev. T. Hamberg began compiling the dictionary as soon as he came to Hong Kong for preaching in 1847; when he died in 1854, Rev. R. Lechler continued the work, and this edition was widely used among Missionaries who preached in Hakka areas for more than 50 years. It was also noted in the preface that the manuscripts from the Missionaries of The Basel Missionary Society were written in the Hakka dialect, which was commonly used in the southwest Hakka area; however, the dictionary revised by D. MacIver was used in the northeast Hakka area: Meixian, Xingning, Pingyuan, Jiaoling, Wuhua, and Dapu. The second edition of the dictionary was published in 1926. In the preface of this expanded edition, the editor, M. C. Mackenzie, mentioned that he started editing the dictionary at the request of the English Presbyterian Mission after the first edition (An English-Chinese Dictionary in the Vernacular of the Hakka People in the Canton Province) had been issued for ten years. It took him ten years to complete the work and publish this expanded edition in 1926, and the dictionary’s title was changed to A Chinese-English Dictionary: Hakka-Dialect as Spoken in Kwang-Tung Province. The dictionary editions from 1905 and 1926 were achieved with Mr. Phang Kin-Kau, MacIver’s student. It contains a wide range of words in this dictionary, such as astronomy and geography, plants and animals, agriculture, local conditions and customs, and the slang terms that ordinary people used are also included; many entries with sounds but no characters are even involved. The second edition of A Chinese-English Dictionary: Hakka-Dialect as Spoken in Kwang-Tung Province, revised and corrected by M. C. Mackenzie and published in 1926, is applied to this website, and there are 1,142 pages in the part of the dictionary. It archives the images of the pages on the website and constructs a Hakka corpus by filling in the dictionary’s contents, and it also provides users with an online search.

Dictionnaire Chinois-Francais, Dialecte Hac-Ka

Dictionnaire Chinois-Francais, Dialecte Hac-Ka was published in Guangdong in 1901 by Father Charles Rey of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris, and after several modifications and revisions, it became what we see and use today in 1926. Charles Rey arrived in China in 1889 and preached first in Kayinchu (now Meizhou), so he learned Kayinchu Hakka and adopted it as the standard local accent. He also went to preach in Lufeng in 1916; for that reason, this dictionary includes some other pronunciations besides Kayinchu Hakka. The features of this dictionary are that it collects amounts of characters and many terminologies used in church; furthermore, the number of proverbs and idioms is vast, so it is pretty helpful as a reference tool for studying early Hakka. There are a few pages about phonetics, tones, grammar, and a simple introduction to the morphology in the dictionary before the text starts; hence, it helps researchers to get an overview of the phonology and syntax of Meixian Hakka at that time. One of the features of this dictionary is that it has an appendix of the index and charts about the distinctive Chinese time system, measurements, and family titles. The total pages of the part in the dictionary are 1,142 pages. It archives the images of the pages on the website and constructs a Hakka corpus by filling in the dictionary’s contents; it also provides users with an online search.