On Thu, February 17, 2005 12:30 pm, Mark Williamson said:
Hi Felix,
Many of the responses there anger me because they almost go so far as to say that Cantonese is worthless as a language.
What about the guy who said something like "You will hardly get 50 characters in without wondering why Cantonese has so much 'junks'"?
Or the people who said "Cantonese should only be used for informal things." without giving a valid reason?
[snipped]
That is what I have said: I expect fierce opposition from Chinese, even native Cantonese speakers. It is not easy to unlearn. ^_^ Compared to those responses, people here are quite enlightened and respecting.
However, also look at the brighter side. If there was not such a debate, I may not have done so much research and found this group of enthusiasts: http://www.cantonese.org.cn/
There are some excellent articles on why we should encourage Cantonese speakers to write their own speeches: http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/writemyhand.htm http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/poorcantonese.htm The first one is written in Cantonese, the second in standard Chinese (Mandarin).
They have even compiled a list of Cantonese specific words, with references, and they stated on the web site to release the following two pages to the public domain: http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary1.htm http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary2.htm
Those can be a good starting point for the orthography of the potential Cantonese Wikipedia.
Felix Wan