I believe some *are* written colloquially.
For example, the zh-min-nan Wikipedia uses colloquial Minnan.
I'm not sure, but I'm wondering if perhaps the Alemannic and Low Saxon
and Luxemburgish Wikipedias are written colloquially?
In addition, some languages are without a real established modern
written standard, for example Sicilian, but they set a few rules up
front and worked out something fairly neutral-sounding between
dialects which is easy to use, and it is currently used in over 100
articles (quickly approaching 200).
While some languages are written not exactly as they are spoken,
others are written *exactly* as they are spoken, and some are written
very differently than they are spoken (traditional Javanese writings
cannot be understood by most speakers today because it is so formal
and dissimilar to the colloquial speech)
There are books and webpages (admittedly, no encyclopedias) written in
this "colloquial" Cantonese, some in a mixture of hanzi and
romanization, and some in just hanzi. I think the former is a little
bit ugly and usually unnessecary.
Scots is currently trying to gain recognition as a language separate
from English and people are beginning to recognize it as a separate
language. Written Scots is usually fairly colloquial from what I know.
I'm actually surprised nobody has asked for a Scots Wikipedia yet
(but, contrary to what some might think I am like, I haven't requested
it because I haven't actually talked to any native speakers who want
one).
Mark
On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 23:12:11 +0100, André Müller <andrew1985(a)gmx.de> wrote:
Correct me if I can't follow you, but... Wikipedia
articles aren't
written in colloquial speech, are they? In dialects (no matter if
German, English or Chinese) vocabulary and pronunciation always differs
in a wider range in colloquial speech than in formal one.
I could write a colloquial message in Saxon (German dialect; I'm doing
an elaborate study about my own dialect currently) that no Bavarian
could understand (and I'm not talking about the funny pronunciation
here); in formal speech this is nearly impossible.
I know that the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is larger than
that, but as articles are usually in a formal way of writing, both
parties would be able to read it without too many difficulties. A
Mandarin speaker might notice if some article is written by a Cantonese,
and the other way round, but that does not justify its own distinct
Wikipedia, in my opinion.
The simplified/traditional difference would be the only difficulty in
understanding, but that's a different topic, as we know.
- André
Mark Williamson wrote:
Jiaqing, the thing is I am not talking about
formal writing, I am
talking about colloquial speech.
[etc.]
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