Hoklo people

The Hoklo people or Hokkien people (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ho̍h-ló-lâng) are a Han Chinese[6] subgroup who speak Hokkien,[7] a Southern Min language,[8] or trace their ancestry to Southeastern Fujian, China[9] and known by various endonyms or other related terms such as Banlam (Minnan) people (閩南儂; Bân-lâm-lâng) or Hokkien people (福建儂; Hok-kiàn-lâng).[lower-alpha 1] There are significant overseas populations in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei and the Americas.

Hoklo people
  • Hokkien
  • Banlam
  • Minnan
閩南泉漳人
A Hokkien family in Southern Fujian, 1920
Total population
~40,000,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Mainland ChinaFujian
 TaiwanMajority of Han Taiwanese (~16,321,075)
 IndonesiaLargest group of Chinese Indonesians[2]
 SingaporeLargest group of Chinese Singaporeans
 PhilippinesLargest Group of Chinese Filipinos[3]
 BruneiLargest Group of Bruneian Chinese
 MalaysiaOne of the largest groups of Malaysian Chinese
 MyanmarOne of the three largest groups of Burmese Chinese
(figure combined with Cantonese)[4]
 United States70,000+[5]
 Hong KongMinority population
 MacauMinority population
Languages
Mother tongue: Hokkien
Others: Standard Chinese, English, national language(s) of respective countries they inhabit
Religion
Chinese folk religions (including Taoism, Confucianism, ancestral worship and others), Mahayana Buddhism and non-religious

Etymology

In Taiwan, there are three common ways to write Hoklo in Chinese characters, although none have been established as etymologically correct:

  • 福佬; 'Fujian folk' – mistakenly used by outsiders to emphasize their native connection to Fujian province. It is not an accurate transliteration in terms from Hokkien itself although it may correspond to an actual usage in Hakka.
  • 河洛; 'Yellow River and Luo River' – emphasizes their purported long history originating from the area south of the Yellow River. This term does not exist in Hokkien. The transliteration is a phonologically inaccurate folk etymology, though the Mandarin pronunciation Héluò has gained currency through the propagation of the inaccurate transliteration.
  • 鶴佬; 'crane folk' – emphasizes the modern pronunciation of the characters (without regard to the meaning of the Chinese characters); phonologically accurate.

Meanwhile, Hoklo people self-identify as 河老; 'river aged'.[10]

In Hakka, Teochew, and Cantonese, Hoklo may be written as Hoglo (學老; 'learned aged') and 學佬 ('learned folk').

Despite the many ways to write Hoklo in Chinese, the term Holo[11][12] (Ho̍h-ló)[13] is used in Taiwan to refer to the language (Taiwanese language), and those people who speak it.

Culture

Architecture
Hoklo architecture styled Lukang Longshan Temple, with its distinguished swallowtail-roof.
Main article: Hoklo architecture

Hoklo architecture is, for the most part, similar to any other traditional Chinese architectural styles. Hoklo shrines and temples have tilted sharp eaves just like the architecture of Han Chinese due to traditional beliefs. However, Hoklo shrines and temples do have special differences from the styles in other regions of China: the top roofs are high and slanted with exaggerated, finely-detailed decorative inlays of wood and porcelain.

The main halls of Hoklo temples are also a little different in that they are usually decorated with two dragons on the rooftop at the furthest left and right corners and with a miniature figure of a pagoda at the center of the rooftop. One such example of this is the Kaiyuan Temple in Fujian, China.

Language
Main article: Hokkien

The Hoklo people speak the mainstream Hokkien (Minnan) dialect which is mutually intelligible to the Teochew dialect but to a small degree. Hokkien can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty, and it also has roots from earlier periods such as the Northern and Southern Dynasties and also a little influence from other dialects as well.

Hokkien has one of the most diverse phoneme inventories among Chinese varieties, with more consonants than Standard Mandarin or Standard Yue. Vowels are more-or-less similar to that of Standard Mandarin. Hokkien varieties retain many pronunciations that are no longer found in other Chinese varieties. These include the retention of the /t/ initial, which is now /tʂ/ (Pinyin 'zh') in Mandarin (e.g. 'bamboo' 竹 is tik, but zhú in Mandarin), having disappeared before the 6th century in other Chinese varieties.[14] Hokkien has 5 to 7 tones, or 7 to 9 tones according to traditional sense, depending on the variety. The Amoy dialect for example, has 7-8 tones.

Diaspora
Hokkien women performing the Dragon Boat dance in traditional attire in Hong Kong.

Taiwan
Main article: Hoklo Taiwanese
Minnan-speaking areas in South China and Taiwan. Only the speakers of Quanzhou-Zhangzhou dialects (also known as Hokkien) are seen as Hoklos.

About 70% of the Taiwanese people descend from Hoklo immigrants who arrived to the island prior to the start of Japanese rule in 1895. They could be categorized as originating from Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou based on their dialects and districts of origin.[15] People from the former two areas (Quanzhou-speaking) were dominant in the north of the island and along the west coast, whereas people from the latter two areas (Zhangzhou-speaking) were dominant in the south and perhaps the central plains as well.

Southeast Asia

The Hoklo or Hokkien-lahng (as they are known in Southeast Asia) are the largest dialect group among the Chinese diaspora communities in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and the southern part of Thailand. These communities contain the highest concentrations of Hoklo or Hokkien-lahng in the region. The various Hokkien/Minnan dialects are still widely spoken in these countries, but the daily use of them is slowly decreasing in favor of Mandarin Chinese, English, and local languages.

The Hoklo or Hokkien-lahng also make up the largest ethnic group among Chinese Indonesians.

In the Philippines, the Hoklo or Hokkien-lahng form the majority of the Chinese people in the country. The native Hokkien/Minnan dialect is still spoken there.

Hailufeng Hokkiens

The Minnan speaking people in Haifeng and Lufeng are known as Hailufeng Hokkiens or Hailufeng Minnan, in a narrow scope, but are often mistaken by outsiders as Teochews in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

Chen Jiongming is a famous Hailufeng Hokkien who served as the governor of the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces previously.

United States

After the 1960s, many Hokkiens from Taiwan began immigrating to the United States and Canada.

See also

Notes
  1. "Hokkien" is sometimes erroneously used to refer to all Fujianese people.

References
  1. 闽南文化研究. 2004. ISBN 9787806409633.
  2. Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2005), "Indonesia", Ethnologue: Languages of the World (15th ed.), Dallas, T.X.: SIL International, ISBN 978-1-55671-159-6, retrieved 26 January 2010.
  3. Ng, Maria; Holden, Philip, eds. (1 September 2006). Reading Chinese transnationalisms: society, literature, film. Hong Kong University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-962-209-796-4.
  4. Mya Than (1997). Leo Suryadinata (ed.). Ethnic Chinese As Southeast Asians. ISBN 0-312-17576-0.
  5. 2005-2009 American Community Survey
  6. Damm, Jens (2012). "Multiculturalism in Taiwan and the Influence of Europe". In Damm, Jens; Lim, Paul (eds.). European perspectives on Taiwan. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. p. 62. ISBN 9783531943039.
  7. Bolton, Kingsley; Botha, Werner; Kirkpatrick, Andy (14 September 2020). The Handbook of Asian Englishes. ISBN 9781118791653.
  8. Ding 2016, p. 1.
  9. Ding 2016, p. 3.
  10. Gu Yanwu (1985). 《天下郡國利病書》:郭造卿《防閩山寇議》. 上海書店. OCLC 19398998. 漳猺人與虔汀潮循接壤處....常稱城邑人為河老，謂自河南遷來畏之，繇陳元光將卒始也
  11. Exec. Yuan (2014), pp. 36, 48.
  12. Exec. Yuan (2015), p. 10.
  13. Governor-General of Taiwan (1931–1932). "hô-ló (福佬)". In Ogawa Naoyoshi (ed.). 臺日大辭典 [Taiwanese-Japanese Dictionary]. (in Japanese and Hokkien). Vol. 2. Taihoku: 同府 [Dōfu]. p. 829. OCLC 25747241..
  14. Kane, Daniel (2006). The Chinese language: its history and current usage. Tuttle Publishing. pp. 100–102. ISBN 978-0-8048-3853-5.
  15. Davidson (1903), p. 591.

Bibliography
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