Are you teaching Hakka to your children?

[pangkatnyin]

As our mother hakka is in the verge of extinction.
I want to hear about the pros and cons of teaching hakka to our future generations.
I was reluctant to teach before, but now I feel sure that I have to teach it anyway so the children can better identify themselves as hakka because they actually speak the language and can connect back to the root.

Cheers.
pkn

[Ah-bin]

Often Chinese books dealing with Hakka will quote a proverb:

寧賣祖宗田、莫忘祖宗言

"One would rather sell one's ancestor's fields than one's ancestor's language“

Considering what Hakkas all over the world are up to, it seems like some kind of sick joke now. I think the only places where they pass it on are remote places like East Timor, and even then I bet they would jump at the chance to learn English and Mandarin, and forget all their Hakka.

Don't know if you are from Malaysia or not but this is a very good paper about some of the attitudes you will have to face trying to teach any Chinese language apart from Mandarin.

http://www.penanghokkienclass.com/why-c ... r-tongues/

[claire]

It is too hard for little children, and my kids don't want to speak Hakka, it is a pity.

[pangkatnyin]

I think the process of leaving hakka unspoken should be called 脫客 | thot hak. During the process one generation is giving away their hakka identity in search of a new one.

pkn