User:Yhjow/Hoklo people

The Hoklo People (Chinese:河洛人) are Han people whose traditional Ancestral homes are in southern Fujian of China. They are also known by various endonym as Hok-ló, Hō-ló, or Ho̍h-ló, or other related terms such as Min-nan people (閩南人） or Hokkiens (福建人）.

In narrow perspective, the Hoklo people refers usually to people who speak and use the Hokkien dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in southern Fujian, Taiwan, and by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia.

In wide perspective, the Hoklo people can include users of other Min Nan Chinese such as Zhongshan Min, Zhenan Min, Teochew dialect, Hainanese etc.

Definition
In general, the Hoklo people can refer to one of the following:

Taiwanese Hoklo
In Taiwan, the Hoklos are the largest ethnic group (see Demographics of Taiwan). Most Hoklos trace their paternal ancestry to male settlers who migrated to Taiwan from Fujian in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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 recognize the two are not identical, although most people will know by context when this word refers to people from Taiwan and when this word refers specifically to Hoklos.

Chinese Characters for Hoklo
In Taiwan, there are three common ways to write Hoklo in Chinese characters (Min Nan pronunciations are given in POJ):


 * 福佬 (Hok-ló; lit. "Fujian person") – emphasizes their connection to Fujian province.
 * 河洛 (Hô-lo̍k; lit. "Yellow River and Luo River") – emphasizes their purported long history originating from the area south of the Yellow River. This Han-character reading does not reflect the actual pronunciation in the southern-Chinese languages but only in Mandarin. It is likely a result of folk etymology.
 * 鶴佬 (Ho̍h-ló; lit. "crane person") – emphasizes the modern pronunciation of the characters (without regard to the meaning of the Chinese characters). This variant is used by the Chinese Wikipedia version of this article.

In Hakka, Hoklo may be written as 學老 (lit. "knowledge aged") and 學佬 (lit. "knowledge person").

Despite many ways to write Hoklo in Chinese, many Taiwanese will use the term Hō-ló to refer to the language and Hoklo culture.