Editing Hakka Chinese (section)

===Linguistic development===
A regular pattern of sound change can generally be detected in Hakka, as in most Chinese varieties, of the derivation of [[phoneme]]s from earlier forms of Chinese. Some examples:
* Characters such as {{lang|hak|武}} (war, martial arts) or {{lang|hak|屋}} (room, house), pronounced roughly ''mwio'' and ''uk'' (''mjuX'' and ''ʔuwk'' in [[Baxter's transcription for Middle Chinese|Baxter's transcription]]) in Early [[Middle Chinese]], have an initial ''v'' phoneme in Hakka, being ''vu'' and ''vuk'' in Hakka respectively. Like in Mandarin, labiodentalisation in Hakka also changed ''mj-'' to a w-like sound before grave vowels, while Cantonese retained the original distinction (compare Mandarin {{lang|cmn|武}} ''wǔ'', {{lang|cmn|屋}} ''wū'', Cantonese {{lang|yue|武}} ''mou''<sup>5</sup>, {{lang|yue|屋}} ''uk''<sup>1</sup>).
* Middle Chinese initial phonemes /ɲ/ (''ny'' in Baxter's transcription) of the characters {{lang|hak|人}} (person, people) and {{lang|hak|日}} (sun, day), among others, merged with ''ng-'' /ŋ/ initials in Hakka ({{lang|hak|人}} ''ngin'', {{lang|hak|日}} ''ngit''). For comparison, in Mandarin, /ɲ/ became ''r-'' /ɻ/ ({{lang|cmn|人}} ''rén'', {{lang|cmn|日}} ''rì''), while in Cantonese, it merged with initial ''y-'' /j/ ({{lang|yue|人}} ''yan''<sup>4</sup>, {{lang|yue|日}} ''yat''<sup>6</sup>).
* The initial consonant phoneme exhibited by the character {{lang|hak|話}} (word, speech; Mandarin ''huà'') is pronounced ''f'' or ''v'' in Hakka (''v'' does not properly exist as a distinct unit in many Chinese varieties).
* Word-initial ''h'' [h] as in {{lang|hak|學}} ''{{IPA|hɔk}}'' usually corresponds with a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative (''x'' [ɕ]) in Mandarin.