Proposal for Sinitic linguistic policy

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

Background reading[edit]

In English[edit]

Wikipedia articles:

中文[edit]

Details[edit]

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.

Result[edit]

zh-yue: is now available! – Kaihsu 09:42, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Voting trends[edit]

In the past 3 months whilst the vote has been going on, there seems to be a general pattern of (number of nays) × 3 is about equal to (number of ayes). Whether this can be extrapolated when the sample size is around one billion is debatable.

The geographical, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds of "support" votes is widely varied, including native speakers of Cantonese, Mandarin, Minnan, English, Dutch, Tagalog, and many others, from at least 4 continents. However, the background of "oppose" votes seems to be limited to native speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin, with the exception of one German mothertongue speaker. However, this may partially be due to the much smaller number of "oppose" votes.

It also appears that people who use enwiki more frequently than zhwiki are more likely to vote "support" than those who use zhwiki more frequently than enwiki.

Vote - 投票[edit]

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(53)[edit]

  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]
    中文维基百科似乎无法容纳以粤语、客语、吴语等书面文的书写知识，希望能够与汉语各种语言书写维基的机会。--Jasonzhuocn 11:51, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[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]
    文言文也有許多不同時期的分別，該使用何種時代的文言，是有興趣書寫文言的維基人可以討論的議題。--Jasonzhuocn 11:51, 1 November 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. w:User:Nat Krause 13:45, August 18, 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.
  18. --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]
  19. Support. Most worthy of inclusion. Enochlau 10:20, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  20. 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]
    discussion moved to Talk:Proposal_for_Sinitic_linguistic_policy#Discussion about a code for Cantonese
    • I will consider withdraw my support vote if zh-yue is chosen as the domain name. Zh-yue is not neutral. It implies Cantonese is a variant or a dialect. The fact is Cantonese versus written modern Chinese and Mandarin is more notable than Norwegian versus Danish. The neutral way is to use "cantonese" as the domain. See Talk:Proposal for Sinitic linguistic policy#Discussion about a code for Cantonese for the discussion. — CantoneseWiki 11:36, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hi CantoneseWiki, it's also possible to use ISO/DIS-3 code "yue". --Node ue 00:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Cannot agree either. 粵語 is far less common than 廣東話. Even worse, Yue is a Mandarin transliteration of the less common name. - CantoneseWiki 14:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Hi CW, unfortunately it will be difficult to get a Wikipedia using a non-ISO code, such as "cantonese.wikipedia.org". "zh-yue", and "yue", are the only ISO codes which apply to Cantonese. It seems to me to be a case of "choose your battles" -- wouldn't it be better to have a Cantonese Wikipedia with an unsatisfatory subdomain, than to have none at all? --Node ue 07:21, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Neutrality is non-negotiable. The ISO is clearly taking side on this matter. Not to have it at all is better than accepting discriminating and unequal terms. - CantoneseWiki 18:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
  21. Satyadasa 05:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  22. katimawan2005 09:40, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Chris 06:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC) Yes, of course.[reply]
  24. --KaurJmeb 10:13, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Chamdarae 13:18, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  26. All, immediately. It's ridiculous they've been blocked this long, and querulous proposals with tremendous collateral damage floated for the specific purpose of blocking them - David Gerard 20:59, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Caesarion 15:37, 21 August 2005 (UTC) Yes, I support it. I can think of no other reason for opposing than a political conviction.[reply]
  28. J.K. 12:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC) Never understood the case against, frankly. If you can scrape a decent number of contributors together, why not, regardless of the language in question? Cantonese definitely, other languages subject to there being at least, say, five regular editors.[reply]
  29. Xingmu 08:08, 4 September 2005 (UTC) I have been thrilled to see the possibility of a Cantonese wikipedia come to light. But after watching the ongoing discussions, I don't really understand what's taking so long. Hasn't the opposition lost steam for its arguments? I had put my arguments on my talk page.[reply]
  30. The ideal is that all people have Wikipedia is their own native language. --Millosh 00:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I write Wikipedia, not record my voice. And Chinese can read Chinese characters out in their accents. --Alexcn 09:01, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    As I saw from discussion, Cantonese has it's own writing system. Cantonese Wikipedia has more sense then zh-tw. --Millosh 19:31, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  31. --E2m 01:02, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  32. --Tnssh 03:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  33. --者尺 跟我談一談 09:07, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  34. oscar 13:13, 6 September 2005 (UTC) imho any language with sufficient support (here) deserves its own wiki.[reply]
  35. --EssO 13:36, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  36. --向柏霖
  37. --theodoranian 09:01, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  38. If someone is willing to write an article in dialects and if it is different from standard Chinese, we should respect that. If it doesn't do any harm to Standard Chinese Wikipedia, it should not bother Chinese Wikipedian in anyway. 阿仁--Seasurfer 11:10, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  39. Recent nationalist propaganda aside, Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), Wu (zh-wuu), etc. are languages each with its own spectrum of dialects. Historically the Chinese described them as fangyan, or "regional tongues", an analysis not inconsistent with them being languages in Western linguistic terms. Cantonese, in particular, has a strong and lively tradition of vernacular writing. A-giâu 18:00, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Almafeta 19:33, 10 September 2005 (UTC) For the same reason we don't have 'Germanic' and 'Romantic' with 1.2 billion potential editors each.[reply]
  41. Agree with Almafeta. --Willtron 09:45, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  42. Cicero 10:32, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  43. Pérez 20:07, 12 September 2005 (UTC) (I support the creation of Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), and Wu (zh-wuu)[reply]
  44. --ian 18:15, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  45. Dovi 03:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)(Putting my vote back, since this looks like a general policy thing.)[reply]
  46. 山村野民 20:25, 8 October 2005 (UTC)(同意建立吴语粤语及其他汉藏语族的语言的版本.)[reply]
  47. 邪恶轴心 21:35, 18 October 2005 (UTC)(强烈支持汉语方言版本的制作.)[reply]
  48. HenryLi 16:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC) (It is the tradition of Cantonese [people], widely used in Kwangtung, Kwangsi, Hong Kong, Macau and among many overseas Chinese communities, with mountains of media production and publication. It is the major medium of instruction in schools of Hong Kong.)[reply]
  49. Linyz 02:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  50. nishishei Support the creation of Cantonese (based on Guangzhou standard) and Wu (based on Shanghai standard) Wikipedias. If a Scottish Wikipedia (http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) is allowed, then the Chinese dialects better be too. That is only fair. I suggest the opposition back off, and let those who want to create Wikipedias in their respective Chinese dialects have the opportunity. --Nishishei
      • don't think anyone should back off until he/she was somehow presuaded by the opposites or once the decision was made. KevinNowhere 13:37, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Please explain first why a Scottish English Wikipedia (http://sco.wikipedia.org) is allowed, but major Chinese dialects with existing VERNACULAR WRITTEN traditions are still being stalled. And it is also clear that the majority here is IN FAVOR of creating separate Wikipedias for the major Chinese dialects. Your opposition is in the minority and frankly frivolous considering the precedents that already exist in other Wikipedias (Minnan/Holo, Scottish English, Alsace German, etc). Your rationale for opposition of individual Chinese dialect Wikipedias was that "most people who can and know how to go online [already] understand Mandarin". So, I'm curious, do you also believe that since most Mandarin Wikipedia contributors and users speak English too, that an English Wikipedia (which is far more resourceful than the Mandarin one) is also enough? Your argument is flawed. --Nishishei 18:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • 1st of all, i have almost no opposition on the idea you people who supporting it gave, reasons you guys support it are almost like fundamental principle, i guess im in no place to doubt that. i'm trying to give my view and lets people to do a cost-benefit calculation on the issue. so dun take my view, or the opposition's view too hard. i really have no idea why scottish would have a separate wiki domain, probably they got enough suuport, or maybe they found it useful; but in the zh-yue case at least, i didn't see such a need, and i can come up with no example on a seriously informative website which use written cantonese thoroughly. i did think about that if a zh-yue domain would help people study the language, but should a page academically elaborate on the dialect would be enough? this is in an international sense, in a local sense, i personally dun think this is worth doing and i honestly worry about its viability, but if things really got sorted out and it is flourishing, im just more that happy to surrender and join your blog.
    i said most people using zh-wiki who can and know how to go online [would] understand Mandarin. but i am not sure if "most", though i do think considerable amount of them do, users in zh-wiki necessarily write and read english well enough to merely stay in the en-wiki, at least im not. and even if someone know english fairly well, i bet they would like to read wiki in their native language because it made people felt comfortable. and there are so many reasons to justify a zh-wiki but i see very little for a zh-yue one. The point is, are these dialects really the ONLY native language of some of the zh-wiki users? or is Mandarin also their native language which they know fairly well and feel comfortable to stay in? if it is the case, then Mandarin for sure cover most Chinese users and staying with one language seems effective.
    im not sure when this vote is over, but at the time it is and came out with a result like this, i'm going to help a little bit perhaps, but now as nothing is decided, i will contribute my view on why i oppose this. also i wonder if putting this vote into zh-wiki, my POV is probably we would have some much clear and meaningful debates on the issue. Lastly, as i would say this is not a scientific collaboration, nothing is right or wrong; this is simply a matter of agree or disagree. i dun think in the minority makes our opinions actually wrong and flawed. KevinNowhere 23:00, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  51. --140.122.230.28 12:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC) I am Macanese馬交人 in Chinese and English Wikipedia.[reply]
  52. Support. I will use parallels with European languages to illustrate my reasons, so I'm assuming you have familiarity with the linguistic situation there.
    First, the Chinese languages (the "dialects") are linguistically more different than the Slavic languages (Czech, Russian, Polish, etc.), and around the same level of differentiation as the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.). It is amazing how Russian and Ukrainians, Swedes and Norwegians, Italians and Spaniards can communicate with only minor difficulties while a Mandarin-speaker will have no idea of what a Cantonese speaker is saying.
    It is often argued that there is only one written language for all Chinese languages, therefore there are no grammatical or lexical differences between them, and that besides different pronunciation of the Chinese characters, any differences are due to local "slang". I present a thought-experiment whose results will be obvious for those who speak Chinese, but will be enlightening for foreigners who've come to think of Cantonese and Mandarin as dialects like British and American.
    Read a children's book to a youngster in London, UK. Since the book is for children throughout the English world, there should be no formal terms and literary devices that would obstruct the child's understanding. So the British child will understand perfectly when the book is read aloud in British English, despite the book being country-neutral. You will see sentences like "They are eating watermelon now", nothing too technical.
    Read the same book to an American child in American English. The child understands everything. Sentences like "They are eating watermelon now", acceptable in British English, are also understood by the American child.
    Now we make a Chinese translation of the book. Again, there should be no formal terms and literary devices that would obstruct the child's understanding. You will see sentences like "Tamen xianzai chi xigua" (they are eating watermelon now), no slang or formal terms.
    Read the book aloud in Mandarin to a child in Beijing. The child understands the whole thing.
    Now read the book aloud to a child in Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong, with each character pronounced in a Cantonese way. You will hear the "they are eating watermelon now" sentence read as "Ta mun jinjoi hek saigwa". The child will not understand ANYTHING (except maybe the "watermelon" (saigwa) word).
    The only way for the child to understand the book is if a translation is done, into vernacular Cantonese from written Chinese, which despite having Cantonese pronunciations for every character, cannot be understood by any Hong Kong child, no matter how good her/his spoken skills are, unless they are literate in standard Chinese. The "they are eating watermelon" sentence", put in a form comprehensible to the child, would become: "keuidei yiga sik-gen saigwa" (any non-Cantonese Mandarin speakers dare to figure out the Mandarin cognates to the vocabulary and syntax in such sentences? Good luck!) This is nothing like the situation that exists with the English dialects. The fact is that Cantonese and Mandarin are not dialects, they are unintelligible but related languages.
    Is written Cantonese just standard Chinese but with a bunch of "slang" characters thrown in? No! It is not slang in that most of the characters are used in all levels of speech, from the acrolect to the basilect, and standard Chinese is only used in reference to a written work, be it song lyrics, proverbs, poetry, or passage reading. These Cantonese characters often represent grammatical differences that don't even exist among adjacent Romance languages. Among thousands of differences, examples such as Cantonese's lack of formal 2nd person pronoun (no ni vs. nin distinction), unrelated interrogatives (bingo vs. shei (who), bindo vs. nali (where), dimgai vs. weishenme (why), dimyoeng vs. zhenme (how)), a word for "to be" unrelated to Mandarin (hai vs. Mandarin shi), unrelated demonstratives (yi/go vs. Mandarin zhe/na), unrelated 3rd person and plural pronouns (keui vs. Mand.'s ta, -dei vs. -men), unrelated verb negator (m vs. Mand.'s bu), different way of constructing negative imperative (mho vs. buyao), existence of distinction between do/make (jo/jing vs. Mandarin's zuo), unrelated possessive (go vs. Mandarin's de), final particles that do not have equivalents in Mandarin, etc,..............................
    Another argument is that, every educated person in China, from Cantonese-speakers in Guangzhou to Wu-speakers in Suzhou, knows standard Chinese, so why have Cantonese/Min Nan/Gan/Wu versions? The same can be said in countries like France and Italy. You will be hard-pressed to find a contributer for the Sicilian, Lombard, or Napolitan wikipedias who does not speak Italian. Same thing for finding contributors to Low Saxon, Bavarian, or Alsacian wikipedias who does not speak German.
    Cantonese one of the only non-Mandarin Sinitic languages that has a (somewhat) standardized written form, so we should take advantage of it to develop its proper version of Wikipedia. --69.199.10.11 05:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  53. Support--Taichi - (あ！) 05:02, 15 April 2006 (UTC): All sinitic languages must be an wikipedia version.--Taichi - (あ！) 05:02, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - 反對/反对(21) (2 unregistered users)[edit]

  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.
    ------
    The same could be said of, say, Spanish and Portuguese. While it is possible to write Sinitic languages in such a way as to make machine translation easier (mainly by imposing a strict syntatical structure), in general the more the style is speech-like, the more difficult it is to translate. In Southern Min 我要打你 is "góa beh kā lí phah" (我卜共汝扑), or translated syllable by syllable into Mandarin: "我要給(?)你打", where 給 is a very rough (and ultimately incorrect) translation of "kā". A-giâu 19:56, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  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]
    You are right that "[i]n most languages, the written form is not 100% equal to the colloquial form" (e.g. written Arabic vs. spoken Arabic). But the difference is more than one of "style" (en:Register (linguistics) is a better term). In this case one would, at the very least, have to learn a separate set of vocabulary, both content and grammatical words. A-giâu 20:13, 10 September 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]
    It Does, but not the Mainstream..........Yuyu 09:41, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I find it odd that entertainment news sold just about everywhere in Hong Kong is considered "not the Mainstream". A-giâu 20:23, 10 September 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]
    I think the motto "我手寫我口" is really silly. Their must be some difference between Baihuawen & Manderin/ Putonghua all the time......... also, Cantonese has no such "Standard Grammar" as Manderin/Putonghua has. Everyone will have their own Standard, & will cause lots of fusions & conflict on editing.
    In fact, in both Hong Kong, Macau & Guangdong, the written baihuawen is actually Manderin-based. Only some entertainment material will use the Cantonese-base Baihuawen. If a sperate Cantonese Wikipedia will just a repeat of the Maderine with just few-word-difference, exp. "of", "he", "what"......Actually, most the traslation of names are the same.
    After all, if Cantonese can archieve an seperate Wikipedia Status, Well, all Chinese dialects should get one.... & there are more than 600 Chinese Dialect. Yuyu 09:39, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Yuyu, there are only 600 dialects if you consider it at a city-by-city basis. Cantonese is not on that basis. If you consider it on the level of Cantonese, there are definitely less than 20 Chinese languages. --Node ue 17:33, 12 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]
    Hi, I think you're right about one thing, which is that writing systems for all these languages (well you may regard them as "dialects", while I would dub them "languages"; anyway we all know what we mean) are quite immature now, especially for Hakka and Wu --- but you gotta believe that Cantonese can really be written with very few difficulty, if you see enough Hong Kong forums. And there's something most people who oppose to Sinitic Languages particularity tend to ignore: the difference between these dialects/languages is not only in pronunciation of the reservoir of the whole Hanzi characters, but also in a lot of daily expressions and funcion words. Take Cantonese and Minnan for example, many words they use have no correspondences in Hanzi, and they have etymologies quite different than Medieval Chinese. Therefore, it's quite useful to reconsider the concept of "Chinese dialects", because they do have differences bigger than many European "languages". Don't let the term tease us, and don't ignore linguistic varieties because of political unity. :) --MilchFlasche 05:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    And one more thing. My mother tongue is Cantonese, not Mandarin, not 'Chinese', but specifically Cantonese. When I read through the sample articles in Cantonese linked above, I was struck by how much clearer it was to my mind. When I read a text written in standard language, it takes a little longer for the exact meaning to become apparent. Jogloran 15:32, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  7. There is no need making a new wikipedia for a prounoucation.--[[User:Zy26|zy26 (Talk)]] 02:12, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
    Have you read the test wikipedia of Cantonese? It is so different from the Chinese that in many places I can't understand. The difference from the two language(even in written form) is much more than pronunciation. The difference is simply provable by the fact that if someone write Cantonese in Zh wikipedia, the article will be deleted or modified into Chinese.--Ffaarr 08:34, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    maybe we can modify the policy of Zh wikipedia.--[[User:Zy26|zy26 (Talk)]] 02:02, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
  8. --Elian 03:04, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Elian, I am curious as to the rationale of your vote...? --Node ue 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Almost the same.--Truth 11:10, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Please see 粵語白話文. --Node ue 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  10. I just can't understand why some people try hard to devide Chinese into pieces.--BenBenI 12:55, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    why not oppose after understanding it?--Ffaarr 14:18, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  11. There are no standard writting systems for Chinese dialects. The existing Contonese and Minnan wikis are difficult to understand even by the most of people who speak the same dialets. If a wiki only used by a few people there would be no need to create it. --Fanghong 09:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Do YOU speak Cantonese or Minnan? Did you know that no Cantonese Wikipedia exists yet?? With regards to standard writing systems, please see Chinese Wikipedia article 粵語白話文 --Node ue 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Better you read 粵語白話文 carefully, the artical said there is no standard writing systems and there are a lot ambiguous and confuse characters even used English words. There is a Japanese word (玄关) used as "Main Page" in existing Cantonese test Wikipedia .--Fanghong 02:04, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    You said "are difficult to understand even by the most of people who speak the same dialets". This is not true. Most Cantonese speakers can read in 粵語白話文. The majority of characters in YueYuBaiHuaWen are not difficult or ambiguous, that is a small minority only. 玄关 is not Japanese, it's Cantonese. --Node ue 05:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I have a partial list here of Japanese words borrowed into Mandarin Chinese over the course of a century. It runs dozens of pages long and has words like jingji (economy) and wenhua (culture) [the latter existed in ancient Chinese texts but had a different meaning. The Japanese attached the current meaning to it, which was later imported back to China]. Suffice it to say that were these words to be deleted from Chinese, all newspapers and textbooks would be riddled with blanks. A-giâu 10:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    See the meaning of 玄關 and 玄關妙理. - CantoneseWiki 12:07, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Nonstandardized pronunciations differ even in one dialect. Such difference would be a hazard if these new wikipedia adopt phonetic written systems. And it would be meaningfulless if they prefer Chinese characters. --Alexcn 08:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    See zh.wp article 粵語白話文 --Node ue 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  13. I will have to vote against it, as I find it absurd to create a seperate wiki from American/British/Australian/Indian/Singaporean English, the same for creating dialect variations of Chinese pages. I was not active in Wiki when zh-min-nan was set up. If I was, I would have voted against the establishment of zh-min-nan as well. These are just variations of the same language--Kren 00:21, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    See zh.wp article 粵語白話文 --Node ue 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    These two situations are different at all.Why not read some articles in wikipedia about these languages? Users of these languages can't communicate with users of Mandarin Chinese at all.But the user of British, American, Austalian...etc. English all can talk with each other with little difficulty.--Ffaarr 00:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. I'm beginning to wonder if these people here are all from up North?? --Node ue 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    You're right. I wonder if the real reason behind the opposition is not so much linguistic as political. Probably because they "oppose threats to the motherland" real or imagined from alleged "splitists". --Harvzsf 07:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I'm afraid all of you are wrong. I am not from up north, but rather more south than you. I am opposing to this due to linguistic considerations and not political... and you are the people who are politicizing it. May I ask, if you have been actively lobbying for people to come and vote and the reason you get them here is political or linguistic?--Kren 12:11, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it's quite easy to find out that you're from Singapore. But attitudes of Singaporeans have been shaped (in large part by massive gahmen popplerganda) to the position that is prevalent in Beijing, which coincidentally seems to be your current place of residence. But other than you, the most recent voters against it are all from Mandarin-speaking places: Chengdu, Nanjing, "Northeast China"... As to your accusation of vote-stacking, I sent e-mails to ALL Cantonese speakers on en.wiki, and in fact some of them voted against it (for example Sl, Hello World!, or Jeromy~Yuyu), but the majority voted for it -- Connie, Enochlau, Jogloran, and quite a few others... -- Node
    You are making too many assumptions and not all your facts are correct. As for vote-stacking, its against web-community's current ettiqutte, and especially so for a academic based project like wikipedia. --Kren 01:36, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    1) Which facts are incorrect? Am I wrong that you are from Singapore, and you have lied on your userpage?? 2) Please read my previous message again. Quite obviously vote stacking is bad. BUT I DID NOT STACK VOTES AS YOU ACCUSED ME. --Node ue 05:01, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Vote is vote, every one has the right to express his opinion. You have right to support but you have no right to use political or localist prejudice against people who have different opinian. Almost all Chinese Singapornese are Cantonese speaking. and there are a lot Cantonese speaking people live in different area. --Fanghong 02:20, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Where are you getting your information? The vast majority of Chinese Singaporeans speak Hokkien (FuJianHua) or Teochew (ChaoZhouHua), not Cantonese. Cantonese is a minority in Singapore. Next time, read up a bit on a subject before saying such wildly inaccurate things. --Node ue 04:52, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Oppose. Resources are limited, in particular time. It would be better to build up a good baihua written Chinese wiki now, instead of fragmenting into different wikis that all lack enough support to sustain it. I foresee a written cantonese wiki dying off very soon, mostly because the effort that will go into it, will go to waste. It is one thing to have specific cantonese entries (for), it is another thing to reproduce a whole wiki into written cantonese (totally against), considering the work that needs to be done yet.
    Just to note: Two of the 10 largest Wikipedias (Swedish and Dutch) are from languages with under 5 million speakers. Even if the Chinese language family was divided up into 100 sublanguages, you'd have enough speakers in each to make a full Wikipedia. Almafeta 22:25, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  15. I think we should work together in Chinese Wikipedia, Cantonese is a part of Chinese. Also Cantonese is not a written language, but I think Cantonese would be a part of spoken article project in Chinese Wikipedia.--Simon Shek 13:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Cantonese is a written language... 粵語白話文. Did you look at the test-wikipedia?? --Node ue 09:15, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we should try to use Cantonese in spoken article at zh:wikipedia, instead of create new language version. We should put more time on Chinese wikipedia. Encyclopedia is for knowledge, not for preserving a language. School in Hong Kong would not accept an essay which is writing in Cantonese Chinese. Writing an encyclopedia article should use formal style.--Simon Shek 15:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Simon, while I agree that it's a good thing to develop zh.wiki more, I also think part of this goes to "freedom of expression". The motto of the zh.wiki is "海內百川，有容乃大", and I think it rings true. If someone wants to create their own Wikipedia, which is the case for some Cantonese and Wu speakers, is it really reasonable to object and try to compell them to work on your own WP instead? Ultimately, I think that a Cantonese Wikipedia will take away only the tiniest fraction of zh.wiki users. How many Cantonese-speaking Wikipedians do you think will move? I don't think you would move, I know Anderw Lih wouldn't, and I don't think most other would either. So it is only a small fraction of people, like maybe Ffootballchu, Jogloran, Eternal, CantoneseWiki, and these srots of users.
    If you were around for the split of Min Nan Wikipedia, I think this situation is comparable. Did the Minnan WP hurt zh.wiki? Yes, it drew away a handful of ppl, but Chinese Wikipedia continued to grow and was not hurt. You say that encyclopaedias should use formal style... well, what about Minnan Wikipedia? Or Napolitan Wikipedia, or Sicilian Wikipedia, or Occitan or Lingala or Javanese Wikipedia? These are all languages which you may not write school essays in, and are not "formal" writing, but since there is desire to write in these languages, Italian or French or Indonesian Wikipedia don't say "We won't let you leave, you should contribute to the growth of our project instead, thanks for your cooperation."
    But let it be clear that I do respect your opinion, although I don't agree with it. --Node ue 17:59, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  16. I'm a new user (or editor) of wikipedia, and one thing I found fantastic of zh- wikipedia is that every Chinese speaker, despite his/her living circumstance and dialect background, can work together to create a Chinese version of knowledge base. I mean, throughout thousands of years, we have been creating, developping and sharing our culture in one single form of language, why should we interrupt this tradition by splitting our culture into several, even hundreds of forms? Or perhaps I should soften my tone, anyway I think it's too hasty to build up the dialect versions when the "written Chinese version" is still far from being mature. --(user:Demos in zh.wikipedia)193.252.199.51 17:54, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think it's a good reason to oppose. I also eagerly hope to see zh.wikipedia to become better and better.But I want to see that we become better because of our efforts and not by the oppression of other Sinitic languages.Cantonese, Minnam, Wu etc. and Mandarin Chinese are brothers or sisters in Sinitic languages family.I think that we should let them to develop together like Germanic,Romance or Slavic languages. --Ffaarr 01:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I appreciate your idea of brotherhood of Sinitic languages. But I think since the "dialects" of Chinese existed and flourished largely, if not only in the form of spoken language, why there's such an emergency of expressing themself writtenly, otherwise being oppressed? In my opinion, the effort would better be made on the study and preservation of their oral form, which is their most living form. Plus, I'm afraid that after the creation of dialect forms of wikipedia, the major work carried on the Chinese wiki world would be merely completing the basic items in different dialects which are under the description of "essential". Are these efforts really essential, even in terms of preserving the dialects? Similarily, I see no significance of preserving Chinese characters by restablishing math formulas in them. Moreover, story of the Babel tower insinuates that the split of languages is originally an effort to prevent us from acquiring the knowledge (or power). That's also a reason why I show up to oppose this proposal, as it seems to me as kind of omen:) Well, believe me not.--193.252.199.51 23:06, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that oral form is very important.But why is writing them not allowed, especially like Cantonese which has been written for decades? If there's no in one language want to write.It's ok. But now many users(at least in Cantonese and Wu)wanted but not allowed.
    I think that making an wikipedia is not primarily for preserving these languages,but for making people get knowledge through his or her own langauge.
    Every wikipedia has to start with basic items.If it is not allowed, the zh.wiki and any other wiki would have not appeared.If you are not intersted in these wiki, no one will compel you to join. But now, some people want to do it and think it is meaningful.Why stop them? Or you think that we should compel them to work instead in zh.wiki?
    The Babel tower story is interesting.But in modern world, the situation is just the oppsite.People around the world learn English, and many languages are gradually replaced by powerful languages.In mainland China, Hongkong and Tainwan, with formal education of Mandarin Chinese(普通話or國語, there is no reason to worry about that we will be unable to communicate knowledge with each other.--Ffaarr 01:32, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, originally I just intended to oppose the effort to seperate our strength in building the Chinese wikipedia. As for the fact that this debate has risen to the level of freedom of speech, I'd rather shut up my mouth. As Voltaire said, I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. To be clear, I withdraw my opposition.
    But, I still regret your choice of desolving the force that we just manage to accumulate. In fact I've read some articles in the Zh-Yue version, and finally I find that apart from some empty words and the sequence of words, a large part of the contents are written in the same vocabulary as Mandarin. Actually I had never learned Cantonese, but I still managed to understand the most part of the contents, even the more oral discussions. Then I think it still not idiot to ask if really rewrite so many Chinese articles in Cantonese by merely changing the form of acclaimations worth the efforts. Not to say that most educated Hongkongnese or Taiwanese or Cantonese can equally, if not more, easy to read in continental Written Chinese, just as you said.--Demos 01:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Although I tried to persade you, I respect your opinion.If some of my word were too harsh, I apologize for it.
    I think that similarity between languages are better reason to oppose than “desolving the force " For me, I may guess the meaning of Cantonese( from 60% to 80% maybe like Swedish people for Nowegian or French people for Wallon).But I really think they are different languages even for written form.( for differences in vocabulary, grammar etc.)--Ffaarr 09:57, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry... "resolving the strength" would be a better expression. I think the difference between us is that we regard wikipedia differently as a tool. Anyway, nice to meet you, and so long.--Demos 12:17, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  17. 不同意，因为中文方言也是通用简体中文和繁体中文的Derekhe 13:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Umm...this is incorrect. Please see Test-WP/zh-yue. If what you said were true, do you think anyone would even make such a request for separate WP? --Node ue 17:59, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Oppose due to the fact that
    - the Chinese Wiki still have a lot to work on and don't think depriving man-power from zh-wiki would be a good idea, to neither the original zh-wiki community or the otherwise new vernacular-zh one.
    - (no offense)doubt the viability of a vernacular-zh wiki page. Guess most people who can and know how to go online understand Mandarin. And by saying most people i mean i know it is not the case for everyone, but as it is for the most people, it would be good enough in my POV.
    - i guess keeping HK/Taiwan/Mainland people in one wiki is extremely brilliant. I guess putting every "Chinese" in one place should be nice.
    - For the cantonese test page, let me be honest, i feel strange, even as a native Cantonese speaker from HK. People know cantonese, mainly from HK and Guangdong, understand Mandarin as well, a separate zh-yue wiki is unnecessary. In fact Hong Kong's language education did not encourage using Cantonese in its written form. They talk about 兩文三語, which means 2 writings 3 languages, for languages they are talking about English, Mandarin and Cantonese, for writing they are Mandarin and English. At least in HK, written Cantonese is nowhere to be found in any serious articles except quotations at minimum quantity. I use written Cantonese all the time, in MSN and icq and e-mails, but certainly not in a somehow formal or serious writing. I suppose wiki is a serious, or at least a more than casual place therefore i oppose this proposal.
    - Actually i only opposes an separate wiki domain for vernacular-zh, if these languages are using as supplementary translation for some entries, i don't see any problem at all. KevinNowhere 22:48, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The idea of depriving man-power is a very traditional Chinese prospective. Everyone in a community have to sacrifice part of his/her freedom of expression to achieve a BIG thing. Something DIFFERENT would definitely hamper the achievement of big thing and must be ELIMINATED. I have say a word AGAINST it. Wikipedia is not a zero-sum game. Do you see that the diversity of languages is a key in the success of wikipedia? Everyone has his/her freedom of expression in his/her preferred language which helps to aggregate more articles, more contributors and hence more sharing of knowledge. I dare say that a Cantonese, and other, wikipedia would NOT detriment the Chinese wikipedia, but HELP Chinese and Cantonese and many other wikipedia to grow. Articles in Cantonese would eventually spread to other wikipedia. Don't just focus on the number of current participants. Try get a big picutre that vast majority of people have not yet contributed, viewed, even known about wikipedia. The real hindering to the growth of Chinese wikipedia is the restriction on the freedom of expression like the recent blockage.
    • An education policy is largerly defined by an authority. It changes with politics. That disencouraging using Cantonese in its written form in Hong Kong education does not mean written Cantonese is wrong and should be eliminated. Before the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911-2, every piece of serious writing is in Classic Chinese, not the current vernacular one. A language and its written form always change with time. Written Cantonese can be found on newspapers and magazines. Why can't treat Cantonese serious? It is a pitfall to conclude a language is superior to one another.
    • As you have mentioned that "Hong Kong's language education did not encourage using Cantonese in its written form", this implies that Cantonese writing differs quite a lot from that of vernacular Chinese. In fact, Mandarin and Cantonese are language NOT mutual intelligible though they have shared common roots.
    HenryLi 19:08, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm a native cantonese speaker so I know how different the language is comparing to Mandarin and that's why my point is not rest on this fact. On the other hand I see the attitude of "Something DIFFERENT would definitely hamper the achievement of big thing and must be ELIMINATED" in the yes camp. See how messy the no side is and how tidy the yes side is; also think about what does the "2 unregistered users" tag implies. This is a voting. Voting "no" doesn't mean punching people who voted "yes" so don't treat us as somebody who "hindering...the growth of Chinese wikipedia." And voting "no" doesn't mean blockage too.(Henry I know you didn't mean it, I'm just borrowing words) I have listed all my opinion and I can't help if people are not convinced by it just like i'm not convinced by you guys. Again, this is only a matter of agree or disagree and that's why we vote on things so that once decision was made, the minority should not obstruct the majority. I hated to use bold words but don't take the opposition so hard. Did I mention i'm more than happy to help if the yue page really established? Lastly, I don't know if "depriving man-power" really is a very traditional Chinese perspective; it sounds socialist though. As long as it makes sense, it doesn't matter where it came from. If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't matter where it came from as well. True for all. KevinNowhere 03:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    It is the style commonly found in the meta-wiki. Have a look on other votings in meta-wiki. When one votes, it is a simple vote. If it is more than a vote, and he writes some comment, there would be chances others commenting his comment and putting forward their ideas. It is not commenting the vote, but the comment. It would be better vote in on section and put comment in separate section. In this way it would be cleaner. If one don't want others commenting on his comment, I am sorry it is not the way in this community.
    Making of unregistered user is not neccessary as long as anonymous votes count. Some might concern about somebody would intend to vote multiply times and affect the fairness in this way. It is possible but there is not such violation in this voting.
    At this moment, there is no evidence that the creation of Chinese wikipedia and other langauges would hinder the growth of English wikipedia. From statistics, the number of articles grows exponentially and quite steady in both English and Chinese wikipedia. The Internet space is hugh. In fact there is a lot of alternatives for Cantonese writers to spend their time and effort. Why not create a space for them to contribute in wikipedia? It is hard to imagine that so many regular Chinese wikipedia contributors at this moment would find Cantonese wikipedia more attractive and leave Chinese wikipedia. If it really happens, there must be something wrong with Chinese wikipedia. I see Cantonese wikipedia as a chance for attracting more wikipedians and more Chinese wikipedians, than a threat.
    HenryLi 06:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    to KevinNowhere: I added "2 unregistered users" tag. This kind of tag is common in Requests for new languages. In meta, there's no concesus about anonymous voter(now in disscussion),so I just put the tag here for reference like some resqust votes in requests for new languages.In some wikipedias, anonymous votes are not counted, so I had miscounted the two votes because of misunderstanding the voting rule here,I apologize for it.--Ffaarr 01:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    nonono, Ffaarr, I should say sorry then, due to my ignorance about the rules of wiki. Yes Herny, it seems better to seperate comment and vote, but dun make me wrong, I'm not against commenting on vote, at least im myself commenting here. I just seems to me that the yes camp is so overwhelming on commenting the no vote while almost nobody comment the yes vote and thus give me that impression. After reading you two's comments, I'm happy to find myself wrong on that matter. Here my apology, and my celebration to the wiki community. (hey, I still vote "no", lol, cheers guys)KevinNowhere 07:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Strong oppose. Colloquial Cantonese expressions that differ drastically with written vernacular Chinese is usually considered rude, or extremely subjective. This conflicts with Wikipedia's fundamental concept of NPOV. I have invited those in support of a Cantonese wikipedia to provide an explanation on how colloquial Chinese can be neutral, but have been ignored. (e.g. is "大粒佬" (dai6 lap7 lo2) acceptable? That would be like saying The Big Guy Around is a neutral, acceptable term in English wikipedia.) Therefore, in the interests of Wikipedia, I believe that written vernacular Chinese is indeed superior to written Cantonese. Furthermore, reiterating KevinNowhere's point, Cantonese speakers are typically familiar with vernacular Chinese anyway, regardless of reason. So, I think a Cantonese Wikipedia would be a waste of resources. I can imagine the Cantonese wikipedia overflowing with vandalism (as seen on the test pages), and articles full of subjective comments. -- Tonync 02:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is incorrect, your belief is based on linguistic stereotyping, similar to people who say that German is full of anger, French is romantic, etc. Most differences between Cantonese and Mandarin are grammatical as well as lexical. A large portion of vocabulary differences are non-vulgar. e.g. "san" (to close) vs. "guan" (Mandarin for close). "San" would be used in non-colloquial situations as well.--142.151.131.12 03:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Oppose Wikipedias in other Chinese languages written in a Chinese script unless there is strong evidence that the written form is significantly different from Mandarin written in a Chinese script. However, I am neutral about Chinese Wikipedias in other languages that use phonetic (or otherwise distinguishing) scripts that would mark them as clearly and significantly different from Mandarin. Jade Knight 19:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Jade Night, did you read any of the articles listed under "Evidence"? All of them give "strong evidence that the written formis significantly different from Mandarin written in a Chinese script". *sigh* --Node ue 08:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

#Strong oppose. -- please sign votes!

  1. Oppose Opposes for many reasons, a Wikipedia is mostly written and read not spoken and heard. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that documents, catalogues, and describes the world, it's not to change the world.
<1> Creating a Wikipedia in different versions of (not-internationally/academically recognised) Wu romanisations is ridiculous. As if the Wikipedia is created in order to promote their Wu romanisation scheme. The Minnan Wikipedia uses a romanisation scheme, and many native Minnan speakers find it difficult to read/contribute, one needs to adapt to reading in the romanisation scheme used there in order to read/contribute in the Minnan Wikipedia, however this isn't true for almost all of the other newly created Wikipedias, although Deitsch has several orthographies, a native speaker can easily use and contribute to the Deitsch Wikipedia. The Minnan Wikipedia seems to me to be promoting their specific romanisation scheme of Minnan, in other words acting/changing the world, rather than describing/cataloguing the world. A metaphor would be: perhaps some Westerners or even natives themselves may find the Arabic script/Japanese script difficult, but what would you think if you decided to create a Wikipedia in Arabic transliterations/Rômaji? Another metaphor for people familiar with the Latin script, when you learn Cambodian you would probably find it easier to learn with Latin transliterations, you probably won't find it silly at all, however if we flip the situation, when a Cambodian learns English with the Cambodian script, would you not think it silly? What you are describing here is not only a Cambodian learning English with the Cambodian script, but you are proposing to create a Wikipedia, a source of free academic materials in English written in the Cambodian script!! Now do you realise the ridiculousness of your proposals??
<2> If a new Sinitic dialect of Wikipedia is created with "dialect"-specific Chinese characters, then the characters wouldn't be significantly different from the standard Mandarin Chinese. The special characters of each specific dialect could very easily be treated with an automated conversion system much like the current traditional-simplified conversion system. I think the best solution would be to use the current Chinese Wikipedia and add a conversion scheme to-from Wu, Cantonese etc. Since the Cantonese Wikipedia has already been created, one could use a similar program to transfer all the Chinese Wikipedia articles and "automatically translate" into Cantonese for the Cantonese Wikipedia. Minor problems could be solved case-by-case (as seen here for traditonal-simplified conversions) as is with the traditional-simplified conversion. Easily implementable, but I suppose some simply want to start from scratch. I believe a full transfer of articles from the Chinese Wikipedia to the Cantonese Wikipedia is certainly possible, while this does not hold true for the other Wikipedias that were created recently along with the Cantonese Wikipedia. Articles from the German Wikipedia cannot easily be converted into the Deitsch Wikipedia. Another reason is that an encyclopedia is a corpus of academic literature. Specific Cantonese characters and/or romanisation schemes are not used for academic literature in Cantonese speaking areas or elsewhere. One doesn't read textbooks in romanised Wu in graduate classes, nor read in Cantonese specific characters in a university class in Hong Kong.
Lastly, I believe "l'union fait la force"(团结就是力量), and would be very happy if we could develop a conversion solution together under the zh: domain as we have with the traditional-simplified split. Thus I have given you reasons opposing the creation of Wikipedias in Sinitic "dialects" either with romanised schemes or with "dialect"-specific characters. --Shibo77(native Mandarin speaker) 20:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I appeal to you not to take in the above opposition seriously, as his words already display his total lack of understanding on Chinese dialects. He first states that the romanization scheme of Minnan wikipedia is just a particular scheme and is hard to read and write for the Minnan population. The opposite is true. This scheme w:en:Pe̍h-ōe-jī was created by missionaries to southern Fujian in the 19th century to educate the illiterated people there, and has been widely used in the local community until recent decades, as noted in the English wikipedia article. Some other literature (Xiamen hua wen, ISBN 7805339651) also points out that some older generation still write their personal letters in Peh-oe-ji. This user omits this fact deliberately in order to misguide people into believing that this is a little known and poorly conceived scheme.
This user speaks only Mandarin, and thus is unable to comprehend the vast difference between Mandarin and various southern dialects, in vocabulary, in expression and in sentence structures. Have anyone in the West succeeded in making a conversion algorithm among Romance languages, which share a higher degree of intercommutability than various Chinese southern dialects? He once again tries to deceive others into believing that a conversion algorithm amounts to no more than a word for word replacement akin to conversion between simplifed and traditional characters. This reflects his ignorance on dialects and his lack of appreciation on the complexity of natural language processing. --218.103.201.49 06:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reference[edit]

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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