Ah, well, I guess that answers my question.
If you have a method you would write it in, then...
I see no problem here, but undoubtedly it will be cast in an extremely negative light by some of the users on zh: who will probably oppose it on the grounds that it will take oh-so-many valuable users away from the oh-so-poor zh.wikipedia.
Before somebody brings that argument up, let me address it.
zh.wikipedia is already over 10000 articles. There are still ongoing issues with the complex situation of Chinese in relation to Wikipedia, although this was somewhat alleviated by the fact that automatic sc<>tc conversion has been implemented (in addition, it will adjust for country-specific terminology, having Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore).
If a Cantonese person wants to start a separate Cantonese Wikipedia, even after they see the advantages and disadvantages, I think that to deny them is like denying a Nynorsk Wikipedia.
However, the issue of Chinese varieties (I won't use the terms language or dialect here as they will bring up political issues and start unnessecary side-arguments) is still very complex. The Minnan Wikipedia barely made it in, and that was *after* they had proven themselves as a healthy separate site (Holopedia) with over 200 articles.
Some people might argue that all people who speak Cantonese can read baihua, but the same argument applies to other populations as well, for example how many Basque monolinguals are there? But they have a Wikipedia because they have a right (well, they don't "have a right", but you know what I mean)
Mark
On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 05:20:12 +0800, David Chang cdelacreme@yahoo.fr wrote:
Hello I am a Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong, and I am interested to set up a Wikipedia based on Cantonese. Cantonese is spoken by around 70 to 80 million people, in Hong Kong, Macau, the Chinese province of Guangdong, and many Chinese communities in Europe, North America and Southeast Asia. Attached below is the information of the language on Enthnologue.org.
David Chang
information from http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=YUH
CHINESE, YUE: a language of China SIL code: YUH ISO 639-1: zh ISO 639-2(B): chi ISO 639-2(T): zho
Population 52,000,000 in mainland China, 4.5% of the population (1984). Includes 498,000 in Macau. Population total all countries 71,000,000 (1999 WA). Region Spoken in Guangdong (except for the Hakka speaking areas especially in the northeast, the Min Nan speaking areas of the east, at points along the coast as well as Hainan Island), Macau, and in the southern part of Guangxi. Also possibly in Laos. Also spoken in Australia, Brunei, Canada, Costa Rica, Honduras, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Malaysia (Peninsular), Mauritius, Nauru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, USA, Viet Nam. Alternate names YUET YUE, GWONG DUNG WAA, CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH, YUEYU, BAIHUA Dialects YUEHAI (GUANGFU, HONG KONG CANTONESE, MACAU CANTONESE, SHATOU, SHIQI, WANCHENG), SIYI (SEIYAP, TAISHAN, TOISAN, HOISAN, SCHLEIYIP), GAOLEI (GAOYANG), QINLIAN, GUINAN. Classification Sino-Tibetan, Chinese. Comments The Guangzhou variety is considered the standard. Subdialects of Yuehai are Xiangshan, spoken around Zhongshan and Shuhai, and Wanbao around Dongwan City and Bao'an County. Official language. Grammar. SVO; prepositions; genitives, relatives after noun heads; articles, adjectives, numerals before noun heads; word order mainly distinguishes subjects, objectives, indirect objects; passives usually indicated by adding a word in front of the verb; tonal. Outside of mainland China, many Cantonese-specific characters are used in the writing system. TV. Bible 1894-1981.Also spoken in: Brunei Language name CHINESE, YUE Population 3,500 in Brunei, 6.93% of ethnic Chinese (1979). Alternate names YUE, YUEH, CANTONESE Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.
Costa Rica Language name CHINESE, YUE Population 4,500 including Mandarin and Hakka speakers (1981 MARC). Alternate names YUE, YUEH, CANTONESE Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China. Indonesia (Java and Bali) Language name CHINESE, YUE Population 180,000 in Indonesia (1982 CCCOWE). Alternate names CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China. Malaysia (Peninsular) Language name CHINESE, YUE Population 748,010 in Malaysia, including 704,286 in Peninsular Malaysia, 24,640 in Sarawak, 19,184 in Sabah (1980 census). Alternate names CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH Dialects CANTONESE, TOISHANESE. Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China. Panama Language name CHINESE, YUE Alternate names YUE, YUEH, CANTONESE Comments Bilingualism in Spanish. Merchants. Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China. Philippines Language name CHINESE, YUE Population 6,000 to 7,200 or 1.2% of Chinese population (1982 CCCOWE). Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China. Singapore Language name CHINESE, YUE Population 314,000 speakers in Singapore (1985), 12.3% of the population, out of 338,000 in the ethnic group (1993). Alternate names CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH, GUANGFU Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China. Thailand Language name CHINESE, YUE Population 29,400 in Thailand, .5% of Chinese-speaking Chinese in Thailand (1984 estimate). Alternate names CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China. Viet Nam Language name CHINESE, YUE Population 900,000 in Viet Nam (1993 Dang Nghiem Van). Alternate names SUÒNG PHÓNG, QUANG DONG, HAI NAM, HA XA PHANG, MINH HUONG, CHINESE NUNG, NUNG, LOWLAND NUNG, HOA, HAN, TRIÈU CHAU, PHÚC KIÉN, LIEM CHAU, SAMG PHANG Comments Renowned fighters. Came from Canton, China as railroad workers and soldiers several decades ago. They are not the same as the Nung in the Tai family or the Tibeto-Burman Nung (Nu) of China and Myanmar. Chinese calligraphy. Daoist, Christian. Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language: Huang Yuanwei. 1997. "The interaction between Zhuang and the Yue (Cantonese) dialects."
Shepherd. 2000. "Messages from a treasure box." _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l