Pha̍k-fa-sṳ


Pha̍k-fa-sṳ is an orthography similar to Pe̍h-ōe-jī and used to write Hakka, a variety of Chinese. Hakka is a whole branch of Chinese, and Hakka dialects are not necessarily mutually intelligible with each other, considering the large geographical region. This article discusses a specific variety of Hakka. The orthography was invented by the Presbyterian church in the 19th century. The Hakka New Testament published in 1924 is written in this system.

Writing system

Pha̍k-fa-sṳ uses a modified Latin alphabet and some diacritics for tones. A single hyphen is added to indicate a compound.

History

Shortly after the missionaries of the Basel Missionary Society, Reverend Theodore Hamberg and Rudolf Lechler arrived in China in 1847, Hamberg and his colleagues began compiling the Hakka to English to Hakka to German dictionaries. Lechler was initially allocated the evangelizing work amongst the Shantou population, but because of opposition from the local authorities there, the Shantou mission was abandoned and he joined Hamberg in the mission work with the Hakka in 1852. After Hamberg died unexpectedly in 1854, Lechler continued with the dictionary work together with fellow missionary colleagues for over fifty years. During that time, Reverend Charles Piton also made several revisions to the dictionary.
The first publication of Romanized Hakka in Pha̍k-fa-sṳ was done by Donald MacIver in 1905 at Shantou and was titled A Chinese-English dictionary : Hakka-dialect, as spoken in Kwang-tung province. He noted that some of the content was based on the dictionaries compiled by the previous Basel missionaries. However, the latter had used the Lepsius romanization, which was different from Pha̍k-fa-sṳ. MacIver made the changes to the dictionary, but he realised that Hakka vocabulary written by the Basel missionaries belonged to the Hakka dialects of southwestern Guangdong Province: Haifeng County, Lufeng County, Jiexi County and Wuhua County. On the other hand, MacIver's Hakka vocabulary was extracted from the northeastern part of Guangdong Province such as Jiaying Prefecture.

Current system

Letters

Vowels

Tone marks

Listed below are tone marks of Pha̍k-fa-sṳ with tone value of Sixian and Hailu dialects of Taiwanese Hakka:
Chinese Tone NameTone MarkDiacriticsExamplesSixianHailu
陰平 yīnpíng◌̂circumflex夫 fû2453
陽平 yángpíng◌̀grave accent扶 fù1155
上聲 shǎngshēng◌́acute accent府 fú3124
陰去 yīnqù富 fu5511
陽去 yángqù◌̊ring護 fů5533
陰入 yīnrù福 fuk25
陽入 yángrù◌̍vertical line服 fu̍k52

Comparison of Chinese and Taiwanese Pha̍k-fa-sṳ

Comparisons were made between The Hakka New Testament and the Hakka Bible: Today's Taiwan Hakka Version. The former was published in Shantou, China, while the latter was published in Taiwan.

Initials

Below are rules for switching between Chinese and Taiwanese Pha̍k-fa-sṳ:
RulesCharacterChinese PFSTaiwanese PFS
ny→ng源nyênngièn
sh→s聖shìnsṳn
ts→ch做tsòcho
tsh→chh自tshṳ̀chhṳ
kw→k光kwongkông

Tone marks

The table below compares the tone marks of Chinese Pha̍k-fa-sṳ, Taiwanese Pha̍k-fa-sṳ, and Pe̍h-ōe-jī of Southern Min.
Tone NameChinese PFSTaiwanese PFSTaiwanese POJ
陰平aâa
陽平âàâ
陰上ááá
陽上áá
陰去àaà
陽去àā
陰入apapap
陽入a̍pa̍pa̍p

Notes:
  1. Taiwanese Hakka does not differentiate between 陰上 and 陽上. Certain dialects of Taiwanese Hokkien does have yángshǎng.
  2. Sixian Hakka does not differentiate between 陰去 and 陽去, but Hailu does have yángqù.