Hoklo people
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hoklo refers to people having ancestry from the southern part of Fujian Province in mainland China. Due to migration, today, large populations of Hoklos can also be found in Malaysia, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. The Hoklos speak a variant of Min Nan as their native language.
In Taiwan, the Hoklos are the largest ethnic group (see Demographics of Taiwan). Most Hoklos trace their paternal ancestry to men who migrated to Taiwan from Fujian in the 17th and 18th centuries. At present, most Hoklos in Taiwan are uncertain as to what ancestry they share with the Taiwanese aborigines, due to undocumented intermarriages between the Hoklo people and Taiwanese lowland aborigines.
Because about 70% of the population in Taiwan are Hoklo, Taiwanese is often used interchangeably with Hoklo. People who are aware of the multi-ethnic nature of Taiwan consider this an offense to other ethnic groups, although most people will know by context when this word refers to people from Taiwan and when this word refers specifically to Hoklos.
In Taiwan, there are three common ways to write Hoklo in Chinese characters (pronunciations are given in both MTL and POJ):
- 福佬 (Hoklør, Hok-ló) – emphasizes the relationship to Fujian province.
- 河洛 (Hølok, Hô-lo̍k) - emphasizes people’s long history.
- 鶴佬 (Høqlør, Ho̍h-ló) - emphasizes the modern pronunciation of the characters (this simply captures sound from putting together words). This variant is used by the Chinese Wikipedia version of this article.
Despite many ways to write Hoklo in Chinese, many Taiwanese will use the term Holo (Høxlør, Hō-ló) to refer to the Holo language and Hoklo culture.
In Hakka, Hoklo may be written as 學老 and 學佬.
In Hong Kong, "Hoklo" refers to all Minnan speakers relocating from Fujian.
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| Han subgroups by dialect or region |
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| Northern and Northeastern • Central Plain • Shaanxi-Shanxi • West of River • Southwestern • Huai-Yangtze • Wu-Yue • Hunan • Ou-Yue • Northern Min • Eastern Min • Southern Min • Hakka • Teochiu (Teochew) • Cantonese • Hainan |
