Mandrin? This should be something which is documentable. Are there schools being set up to teach written vernaculars as opposed to standard Mandrin,
No, but I know plenty of HKers can write in Cantonese (with Hanzi) without having been taught.
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? And Hong Kong is not the only place that speaks Cantonese, please do remember. Majority of the Cantonese speakers live in Guangdong, and extremely few, if any, of these people can comprehend or write. Since Wikipedia is set up based on languages rather than countries, it is questionable if a Cantonese Wikipedia should be set up if only a minority of the speakers can understand a non-standard writing system created by a few people. Same objection goes for Min-nan Wikipedia, which can only be understood by a handful Taiwanese, while most Taiwanese and all native speakers of the dialect in Fujian will not have a clue of what is going on.
are there novels, dictionaries etc. being published in large numbers, is there a movement.
How large is large? Does net forums count? Especially when wikipedia started as a Internet project? Many HKers in HK net forums/boards/bbs write in Cantonese.
Again, only HKers can understand your "written Cantonese"! Have you forgotten your neighbours in Guangdong??
some degree of linguistic separationism in progress. However, a stronger case could be made for a desire to incorporate vernacular idioms into standard mandrin, or as an important cultural dialect within the whole, as there are many culturally significant dialects in English which,
The differences aren't as minimal as the differences among dialects in English. And while incorporating slang words, etc. from different "dialects" into Mandarin is possible, that doesn't stop Cantonese/Yue from being something completely different from Mandarin.
There is a big difference I agree. But "completely different from Mandarin"? I doubt if the grammar is different?
Instead of arguing with each other about what "we" would like, it seems better to spend time finding out what the readers want, and then finding a means to provide that.
Well, a wikipedia is a new enough concept to the potential users that I doubt they would be unhappy to learn that there's a Cantonese/Yue wikipedia, in addition to the "traditional" Mandarin vernacular one.
And I doubt how many people can really understand your Cantonese Wikipedia? There are 77 million Cantonese living in Guangdong, and how many of them can really understand "Cantonese characters"? If the majority of the potential readers of your Wikipedia cannot understand you, what position are you in to propose for a Wikipedia written in their native languages?
[[User:Formulax]]