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]]