Editing Hakka people (section)

== Language ==
{{Main|Hakka Chinese}}

[[File:"I speak Hakka" sign.jpg|thumb|[[Hakka Chinese]] sign]]

Hakka Chinese is the native Chinese variety of the Hakka people. Hakka Chinese is the closest Chinese variety to [[Gan Chinese]] in terms of phonetics, with academics considering the late Old Gan together with Hakka Chinese and the Tongtai dialect of [[Jianghuai Mandarin]] to have been the [[lingua franca]] of the [[Southern and Northern dynasties|Southern dynasties]].<ref>Lu Guoyao (魯國堯), ''On Gan-Hakka and the Tongtai dialect derived from lingua franca of Southern Dynasties'' (客、贛、通泰方言源於南朝通語說), 2003, {{ISBN|7-5343-5499-4}}, pages 123–135</ref> Northern Hakka varieties have partial mutual intelligibility with southern Gan. Accordingly, Hakka is sometimes classified as a variety of Gan. Some studies posit that Hakka people and [[Gan people]] have close genetic relations and shared [[areal feature]]s.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Sino-Tibetan Languages |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-7007-1129-5 |editor-last=Thurgood |editor-first=Graham |language=en |editor-last2=LaPolla |editor-first2=Randy J.}}</ref>

In Taiwan, the [[Ministry of Education (Republic of China)|Ministry of Education]] named "Taiwanese Hakka Chinese" as one of the [[languages of Taiwan]].<ref>{{cite web|title=不僅只有台灣閩南語，台灣客家語也是「台語」！|url=http://www.hakka.gov.tw/content.asp?cuItem=124497&mp=2013|author=黃玉振|publisher=行政院客家委員會|date=25 May 2011|access-date=17 April 2012|quote=只要是共同生長於台灣這塊土地上的所有族群的成員，他們不僅都是台灣人，而且他們所操持的族群語言也都是「台灣話」（或「台語」）！|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928032303/http://www.hakka.gov.tw/content.asp?cuItem=124497&mp=2013|archive-date=28 September 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>