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.]