I was born in Montreal and my parents are both Hakka from Calcutta. They never taught me the language and now in my thirties, I'm realizing how important it is to me to go back to my roots. I want to learn my mother tongue!
Would anyone out there have any good resources, recordings, textbooks, etc. that would help me learn the basics? I have already seen Eric Chen's Youtube lessons, which are great, but unfortunately, quite limited.
There is a book entitled Dialect and Folkways Handbook in Meizhou (梅州方言民俗图典) that you can purchase but it is probably more like a dictionary than anything else.
Resources for, specifically, Moiyen (梅州) Hakka are going to be far more scarce than for a broader topic like the Hakka language in general.
Searching for Meixian (梅縣) Hakka would even greatly increase the number of results you get.
With any of the Chinese topolects, having a good foundation in standard Mandarin will open up a lot more resources.
The other thing with the Hakkasphere is that it is a lot more fragmented (considering the person to distance covered ratio of the diaspora), compared to e.g. the Cantonese speaking world or even the Hokkien/Hoklo/Minnan world. Although you specifically want Moiyen/Meixian Hakka, I'd also consider Sixian Hakka, which is the Taiwan version of the Moiyen "side".
Online though, we have a substantial amount of resources.
THere's even Taiwan's Hakka TV, as well as a wealth of religious literature (including the Bible with audio), and a large collection of Hakka opera (漢劇), including classic tales.
