Hello,
Sheng Jiong wrote:
But tell us how much difference are there between "Cantonese characters" and proper Chinese characters? Aren't you still using Chinese characters, with the addition of a few distinctive Cantonese characters?
I've never done a study and I don't have any reference books on that topic. But I would highly appreciate it if you drop the "proper", the word "standard" or "typical set of" would work equally well for your purpose without the connotations.
Sure I'd be using the usual Chinese characters in addition to the Cantonese/Yue characters. I can only say that whenever I type in Chinese, it's usually in Traditional Chinese and I've found all the characters I need, even the Cantonese ones, when I use the Changjie system.
please do remember. Majority of the Cantonese speakers live in Guangdong, and extremely few, if any, of these people can comprehend or write.
...write at all or write Cantonese/Yue? Again, have you done a study in this? If not, then citations please?
up if only a minority of the speakers can understand a non-standard writing system created by a few people.
I doubt it's a non--standard writing system created by a few people. Many Cantonese/Yue characters are from the ancient times; only that we've kept those characters when they fell out of use in Northern China where they speak Mandarin.
Again, only HKers can understand your "written Cantonese"! Have you forgotten your neighbours in Guangdong??
And again, you know this...how? Citations?
There is a big difference I agree. But "completely different from Mandarin"? I doubt if the grammar is different?
All right, "completely" is an overstatement, but the grammar is *definitely* different.
And I doubt how many people can really understand your Cantonese Wikipedia?
It's not just *my* Cantonese wikipedia...
There are 77 million Cantonese living in Guangdong, and how many of them can really understand "Cantonese characters"?
I don't know. And we won't know until there is a study or a trial. Can you name any studies?
And really, how many people understand *Klingon*?! Yet it was set up in the past... There are 6.8 million people in Hong Kong; even if only one percent uses the wikipedia, that's sixty thousand people. I think that's enough reason for a trial.
little Alex