On Feb 3, 2005, at 12:41 PM, Alex Kwan wrote:
Hello,
Stirling Newberry wrote:
I thought the question is what the *readers* want.
We don't have the resources to find out (I mean, do we do an Internet poll to find out, what?), so we'll probably have to stick with what the writers are willing to contribute.
I don't think an argument from ignorance works here. Is there a large body of readers who want wikipedias in vernaculars that diverge from Mandrin? This should be something which is documentable. Are there schools being set up to teach written vernaculars as opposed to standard Mandrin, are there novels, dictionaries etc. being published in large numbers, is there a movement. In short, has someone shown a notable and documentable desire to separate dialects from Chinese? My research (posted some time ago) found a case, but not an overwhelming one, for 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, never the less, are not under going the process of linguistic separation.
This resource is here to provide readers with information, those of us who write for it have our own motivations, of course, but it must be the readers interest, to the extent we can document it, which ought to be the final criterion for making decisions.
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.