Hakka language

[Bahar]

According to the source below, Hakka language had been used as common language since long time ago before mandarin (beijing hua) has replaced it in Qing dynasty.

http://www.asiawind.com/hakka/language.htm Hakka people have a strong preservation of the heritage, particularly in the dialect(language). Whether Hakka tongue should be called a dialect or language is still a question. It is believed to be the official tongue for the Middle Kingdom prior to the immigration of the northern tribes of Xiongnu, Turkistan, Liao2, Jin1, Yuan2, and Manchurian. After all these years of migrations, the pronunciation and expressions of Hakka have changed little. A strong supporting evidence is many poems from the Cunqiu/Warring States era ("Shi Jing", 770 B.C- 221 B.C.) to Tang dynasty (700 A.D.) only rhyme when recited in Hakka and not in Mandarin. While it is well-known that rhyming is a structural imperative in Chinese poems, it is highly likely that Hakka was the actual common language used during these 1400 years. Certain proverbs/idioms used in Ming dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.) still rhyme better with Hakka than other tongues. The Hakka dialect should be regarded as one of the oldest, if not the oldest, of Chinese dialects. Although it is now less spoken than Mandarin.

[ala]

According to the source below, Hakka language had been used as common language since long time ago before mandarin (beijing hua) has replaced it in Qing dynasty.

Qing dynasty used Nanjing Mandarin （commonly called Blue-Green Mandarin 蓝青官话） for much of its reign, not Beijing Mandarin. It was only until the late 1800's, when the switch to Beijing Mandarin was made.

[bhchao]

Was Dr. Sun Yat-sen of Hakka origin?

[djwebb2004]

Is lan-qing a kind of mimicry of nan-jing?