Hakka /ˈhækə/, also rendered Kejia, is one of the major groups of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people in southern China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and throughout the diaspora areas of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and around the world. Taiwan, where Hakka is the native language of a significant minority of the island's residents, is an important world center for study and preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist between the Taiwanese Hakka dialect and China's Guangdong Hakka dialect; even in Taiwan, two local varieties of Hakka exist.