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Proposal for Sinitic linguistic policy

This is an archived version of this page, as edited by Satyadasa~metawiki (talk | contribs) at 05:36, 4 August 2005 (→Support - 贊成/赞成). It may differ significantly from the current version.


Following a heated debate on Wikipedia-l, everybody mostly just forgot about the requests for Wikipedias in different Sinitic languages.

Background reading

In English

Wikipedia articles:

中文

Details

11 people voted for the creation of a Cantonese Wikipedia. Explicit opposition came from Shizhao, Fuzheado, and ???. 14 people voted for the creation of a Wu Wikipedia. Explicit opposition came from Shizhao, Fuzheado, and ???. 3 out of the 14 voters were possibly fake. 2 people voted for the creation of a Hakka Wikipedia. Nobody expressed opposition, though it was not a widely-publicised request.

Proposal: To create a Cantonese Wikipedia (in 粵語白話文) right away at http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/ , and to create a Wu Wikipedia in the near future. Do not exclude the possibility of Wikipedias in other Sinitic languages.

Vote - 投票

This is a vote for the creation of these Wikipedias. The options are "support" and "oppose". If you wish to choose on a case-by-case basis, please vote in both sections but note which requests you support and which you oppose. The vote does not have a closing date, as its results will only act as a suggestion. If these Wikipedias are created, however, the poll may be closed.

Support - 贊成/赞成

  1. Node ue 08:15, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Harvzsf 08:43, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Pektiong 11:23, 29 July 2005 (UTC) (I support the creation of Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), and Wu (zh-wuu) wikipedia)[reply]
  4. Waerth 11:59, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  5. The Epopt 13:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Chun-hian 16:18, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Arbeo 19:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Lankiveil 22:07, July 29, 2005 (UTC) (I support Cantonese and Wu. Hakka will have to be more thoroughly investigated to see if there's sufficient interest before I support that, however).
  9. Jasonzhuocn 15:40, 30 July 2005 (UTC)I support Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), Wu (zh-wuu) ,and Classical Chinese.[reply]
    Now there is an idea: a classical Chinese wiki! Too bad there is no ISO 639 code for classical Chinese, as there is for Greek (grc for ancient, gre/ell for modern). What would be the target year for classical/literary Chinese, though? Tang dynasty? or perhaps Ming dynasty is more appropriate as the canonical era? Not that I can write fluently in either style.... I think at least it should aim so that people with Japanese Kanbun training (and of course those with training in the Korean and Vietnamese traditions) should be able to read it as much as people with training in literary Chinese in Taiwan or in China. – Kaihsu 16:22, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Kaihsu 17:40, 30 July 2005 (UTC): support Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), and Wu (zh-wuu).[reply]
  11. Bourquie 21:22 UTC, 30 Jul 2005
  12. Connie 21:01, 30 July 2005 (UTC) (Although I support the creation of Cantonese Wikipedia, I think we should develop a standard system of some Cantonese words. For example, some people would use "le" instead of "呢", "ge" instead of "嘅". Therefore develop a system is necessary.)[reply]
  13. Eternal 22:12, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Jogloran 00:54, 31 July 2005 (UTC) (I support the concept of dialect Wikipedias including Yue, Hakka and Wu. However, I strongly believe that if we intend to start any dialect projects we need to standardise the use of dialect characters, as the lack of a written standard can cause considerable variability in the way these characters are rendered.) Who knows? This might be a chance to boost the profile of Chinese 'dialects' and demonstrate that they are more than their label![reply]
  15. Felix Wan 18:00, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  16. MilchFlasche 03:40, 2 August 2005 (UTC) (I support the creation of Cantonese, Wu, and Hakka. I also urge that future contributors recruit more people who might be interested in "dialects" writing to join the projects, and discuss more about writing standards most people could accept.)[reply]
  17. Dovi 13:05, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  18. w:User:Nat Krause 13:45, August 26, 2005 - I support the creation of a Cantonese Wikipedia. I have no opinion about other dialects (besides Minnan), although I certainly agree with "not exclud[ing] the possibility" of including them. Mark or someone else involved in the proposal might want to clarify whether the idea of a Wu Wikipedia would be to have it written in Chinese characters or in Roman letters (I'm assuming that the Cantonese would be in characters). Personally, I would like to see much higher restrictions placed on the creation of new Wikipedias in terms of commitments from prospective editors, but, until that change is made, I'd say Cantonese has met the standing requirements.
  19. --Ffaarr 07:11, 3 August 2005 (UTC)I think it's a very good thing that everyone can get knowledge through his or her own language.The differences between mandarin chinese and the languages like Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, minnan etc. are as much as or even more than between Italian and Spanish. There is no reason that we exclude them from wikipedia.[reply]
  20. Support. Most worthy of inclusion. Enochlau 10:20, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support to Cantonese Wikipedia and Classical Written Chinese Wikipedia, but oppose the code zh-yue. We should instead use separate codes for each of the languages. No comment to Shanghainese and Hakka at the time being. Would like to see a Min Nan version written in Chinese characters. - CantoneseWiki 19:24, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Satyadasa 05:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - 反對/反对

  1. I support any Chinese languages. But I think that developing Translation System is more effective. After all, the difference of languages is not very much.59.116.161.144 13:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Please log in. That's not to say your vote won't be counted if you don't, just that it would be better if you did.
  2. Creating wikipedias for Cantonese and Wu dialects is just similar to creating wikipedias for British English, Canadian English and Australian English. Wikipedia is a written project, not spoken (at least at present). The difference between writing down Cantonese, Wu and Putonghua in Hanzi script is much less than recording their pronunciations. Just an example, we won't create two wikipedias just because one pronounces the English word "either" as [aIðər] and another one pronounces it as [I:ðər] --Hello World! 16:53, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Do some homework and read some books on the topic. Anyone who says that Cantonese written down is not much different from Mandarin has not seriously tried to write Cantonese down oneself. – Kaihsu 18:15, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Hello World!, we aren't talking about Mandarin-based "baihuawen", but rather 粵語白話文 (Cantonese written vernacular), and a similar equivalent for Wu. It would indeed be pointless to create a Wikipedia for Cantonese in Baihuawen (Bakwahbun in Cantonese I think). --Node
    Being a native Cantonese person, I often write Cantonese-style language in somewhere like discussion forum and chat rooms. In most languages, the written form is not 100% equal to the colloquial form. The difference bet0ween Mandarin-based baihuawen and Cantonese, like "的" and "嘅", "這個" and "呢個", is not justifiable enough to establish a different version of Wikipedia. Wikipedia should not be a place to promote certain style of writing.--Hello World! 08:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  3. What is the point of making a new wikipedia for a prounoucation? Agreed to "Hello World!", it's pointless, unless wikipedia evlove to a standard enable sound as output. Also consider the following problems: 1. The effort of making the chinese wikipedia will be diverted (if we had different wikipedia on it, also considering on redunancy). 2. The Chinese wikipedia's content detail is already fall much behind from the english one, should we concenrate the efforts on creating or may be tranalting it, rather than making another sub-wikipedia? 3. Will it ever grow? creating a wikipedia requires a lot of effort, and since there is already one Chinese-Wikipedia will other user bother to creating a cantonese one from scratch? I doubted.. Conclude Other than pride of having a wikipedia of our own language, I can't see any reason of creating such wikipedia --Zektonic 17:51, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Zektonic, we aren't talking about Mandarin-based "baihuawen", but rather 粵語白話文 (Cantonese written vernacular), and a similar equivalent for Wu. It would indeed be pointless to create a Wikipedia for Cantonese in Baihuawen (Bakwahbun in Cantonese I think). --Node
  4. The official written language is the same throughout China: 白話文. The only difference is 繁體 (in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan) and 簡體(in mainland China). The current Chinese wikipedia already features a translator to suit these needs, so basically the whole population in understanding the materials. The spoken language, unarguably, is differented in regions; however, we're dealing with the written language, which the whole population that speaks Chinese should have learnt. So, I see that it does not come to importance to actually create different Wikipedias featuring only the spoken language.Crosstimer 03:51, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Hello there. I was under the impression that a dialect Wikipedia would not be rendered simply in 白話文 but, in the case of Cantonese for example, be rendered in a mesolect of the kind you see in glossy magazines - a form which is usually closer to the spoken language. If this is the case, then surely this involves more than the re-mapping of characters. Jogloran 07:25, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    This is correct Jogloran. It is for the variety used in some magazines, tabloids, some websites, etc;. See here for a preview. --Node ue 07:42, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I agree with Hello World! I think it's useless & just a waste of time to creat versions for different Chinese dialects, especially for Cantonese. It's because though the spoken vocabulary can be very different between the dialects, the written vocabulary is almost the same. It's almost the same, just few different characters. On the other hand, most of Hong Kong's & Guangdong's printing materials are written in Mandarin-based texts. As a Cantonese Native speaker, I'd like to tell you guys that we're able to & used to get information from reading Mandarin-based texts. Be honest, I find it really weird when I reading the Sample Articles. Jeromy~Yuyu 17:06, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes but wasn't the motto of the BakWaMaan movement "我手寫我口"? But they only considered it for people who speak Mandarin, not for others -- Cantonese people certainly aren't writing as they speak. Why is it that people modify, first their writing, and then even their speech to match Mandarin? What happens if we change English, so that it's Swedish with each word translated separately? This is simply not natural, and in my view it is a bad thing. I think it would've been better if people kept Classical Chinese writing (MaanJinMaan) -- that is more unified, and is not anybody's native language. But, now the monster has been set free, and if Mandarin speakers can "write their mouths", why shouldn't other people too?? --Node ue 06:31, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Even Beijing spoken language does not exactly match baihuawen. There are lots of slangs in Beijing language that are not comprehensible by other Chinese people. Is it justifiable to create a Pekingese Wikipedia? If Cantonese language gets an individual version of Wikipedia, I think there should be over 100 versions of Chinese dialects Wikipedia, over 10 versions of English Wikipedias, and about 20 versions of German dialects Wikipedia. --Hello World! 10:41, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Cantonese is unique in that it _does_ appear in print. It is lucky enough to have something approximating a written standard of colloquial speech. Jogloran 11:01, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Cantonese is a bigger group than Beijing dialect. Cantonese includes the speech of Hongkong, Macao, Guangzhou, Zhongshan... Beijing is just the dialect of Beijing. It should compare Mandarin and Cantonese, excluding perhaps such outlying varieties as Toisan, Pinghua, Jinhua, etc. This way we only need maybe 10 to 15 separate Wikipedias at the most -- Cantonese, Wu, Kejia, "New Xiang", "Old Xiang", Gan... except right now probably only Cantonese, Wu, and Kejia could be created since the others aren't ever written (Wu and Kejia aren't often written, but they are written more often than Xiang and Gan). Also it is absurd to say Beijing spoken language does not match baihuawen. Yes, there are a couple of differences, but these are the small differences between different Mandarin dialects, nothing like the difference between colloquial Cantonese writing and baihuawen. --Node ue 23:15, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Chinese characters as well as most grammar are common for all these dialects, so differences between pronunciation is not necessary to separate different dialects as European languages, as they have differences in spelling. In most cases, we share a writing system but read as we like. Separate zh-wiki will strongly divide the power for writing. Zh-wiki is not a testing-field for fewly-used and immature written system. But as old Chinese (文言文) has a quite different grammar and writing manner, as well as bridge between Chinese and Japan, Korea etc., as Latin in Europe or Samskrit in India, I agree to set only old Chinese. --polyhedron(古韻) 07:48, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The romanization of "白話文" in Cantonese is "bɑk9 wɑ2 mɐn4" or "ˍbɑk ˊwɑ ˌmɐn".--Hello World! 11:26, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  1. some Sl --Shizhao 01:49, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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