Hi all,
In this e-mail I don't want to personally introduce new arguments but I want people to know that further debate on this topic is continuing at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
Some speakers of these languages have lent their support: Steve, Instantnood, and Felix Wan for Yue/Cantonese, and Nishishei, Pangguanzhe, and alaya for Wu/Shanghainese (Wu also includes the varieties of the surrounding areas including for example Suzhou).
Interestingly, on that page, no native speakers have directly condemned the idea (only direct opposition is from Shizhao), although Toytoy, a Cantonese speaker, has some concerns.
Mark
It is totally absurd to set up so many Wikipedias for various Chinese dialects. Being a native Shanghainess, my mother tongue is Wu. But I have never seen any books written in the Wu dialect in my entire life, and I have only heard of one book that was written in Wu in the 1930s, and apparently it received very limited attention. Speaking language is very different from the writing system, and in Chinese although there are hundreds of dialects there is however only one writing system. Wikipedia being a *written* encyclopedia would mean that we only need *one* Chinese Wikipedia, written in Chinese characters. Speakers of the different dialects can pronounce each characters in very different ways (A Wu speaker can hardly understand Cantonese or Min-nan, and vice versa), they all have the same grammar and similar ways of expression, after thousands years of cultural integration within the unified country. (And by the way Mandarin also has a long history of being the "offical" spoken language in China: since Qing dynasty in the 1600s it has been adopted as the language spoken in Emperor's palace, and during the Republic of China period it was selected by the parliament as the official spoken language of the government after a democratic voting.)
Different dialects of course have their own distinct cultures: in traditional Shanghainese Opera the actors speak only Wu (just like in Beijing Opera the actors speak in Mandarin); there are also other similar operas for Cantonese or other dialects and these operas still receive much attention today in China. However the writing system of China has been unified since Qing Shihuang's time in around 220BC, for the convenience of the communications among all Chinese. It will be a big joke if today someone want to return to the old days when no one can understand each other.
Interestingly also Mark seem to neglect the fact that really no native speakers of all these dialects support the proposal, knowing that it is a totally unworkable proposal.
[[User:Formulax]]
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:34:36 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
In this e-mail I don't want to personally introduce new arguments but I want people to know that further debate on this topic is continuing at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
Some speakers of these languages have lent their support: Steve, Instantnood, and Felix Wan for Yue/Cantonese, and Nishishei, Pangguanzhe, and alaya for Wu/Shanghainese (Wu also includes the varieties of the surrounding areas including for example Suzhou).
Interestingly, on that page, no native speakers have directly condemned the idea (only direct opposition is from Shizhao), although Toytoy, a Cantonese speaker, has some concerns.
Mark _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Uhh... hello, did you read my e-mail? I listed native speakers supporting a Wu Wikipedia.
Mark
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:36:57 +0800, Sheng Jiong sheng.jiong@gmail.com wrote:
It is totally absurd to set up so many Wikipedias for various Chinese dialects. Being a native Shanghainess, my mother tongue is Wu. But I have never seen any books written in the Wu dialect in my entire life, and I have only heard of one book that was written in Wu in the 1930s, and apparently it received very limited attention. Speaking language is very different from the writing system, and in Chinese although there are hundreds of dialects there is however only one writing system. Wikipedia being a *written* encyclopedia would mean that we only need *one* Chinese Wikipedia, written in Chinese characters. Speakers of the different dialects can pronounce each characters in very different ways (A Wu speaker can hardly understand Cantonese or Min-nan, and vice versa), they all have the same grammar and similar ways of expression, after thousands years of cultural integration within the unified country. (And by the way Mandarin also has a long history of being the "offical" spoken language in China: since Qing dynasty in the 1600s it has been adopted as the language spoken in Emperor's palace, and during the Republic of China period it was selected by the parliament as the official spoken language of the government after a democratic voting.)
Different dialects of course have their own distinct cultures: in traditional Shanghainese Opera the actors speak only Wu (just like in Beijing Opera the actors speak in Mandarin); there are also other similar operas for Cantonese or other dialects and these operas still receive much attention today in China. However the writing system of China has been unified since Qing Shihuang's time in around 220BC, for the convenience of the communications among all Chinese. It will be a big joke if today someone want to return to the old days when no one can understand each other.
Interestingly also Mark seem to neglect the fact that really no native speakers of all these dialects support the proposal, knowing that it is a totally unworkable proposal.
[[User:Formulax]]
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:34:36 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
In this e-mail I don't want to personally introduce new arguments but I want people to know that further debate on this topic is continuing at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
Some speakers of these languages have lent their support: Steve, Instantnood, and Felix Wan for Yue/Cantonese, and Nishishei, Pangguanzhe, and alaya for Wu/Shanghainese (Wu also includes the varieties of the surrounding areas including for example Suzhou).
Interestingly, on that page, no native speakers have directly condemned the idea (only direct opposition is from Shizhao), although Toytoy, a Cantonese speaker, has some concerns.
Mark _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Of course I read, and I checked their user pages too. Felix Wan(who was raised in Hong Kong, by the way) confests that he "occasionally" edits Chinese Wikipedia, and I doubt if he is going to edit the proposed Shanghainese Wikipedia in the future too. NiShishei basically made "no* edits at all in English Wikipedia, and he does not even have a username in Chinese Wikipedia. Pangguanzhe, again, only registered on Jan 21 2005 and made a grand total 8 edits, including 3 edits for his own user page. My suggestion: find someone who has really made contributions to Wikipedia first before setting up these totally useless Wikipedias.
[[User:Formulax]]
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:31:27 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Uhh... hello, did you read my e-mail? I listed native speakers supporting a Wu Wikipedia.
Mark
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:36:57 +0800, Sheng Jiong sheng.jiong@gmail.com wrote:
It is totally absurd to set up so many Wikipedias for various Chinese dialects. Being a native Shanghainess, my mother tongue is Wu. But I have never seen any books written in the Wu dialect in my entire life, and I have only heard of one book that was written in Wu in the 1930s, and apparently it received very limited attention. Speaking language is very different from the writing system, and in Chinese although there are hundreds of dialects there is however only one writing system. Wikipedia being a *written* encyclopedia would mean that we only need *one* Chinese Wikipedia, written in Chinese characters. Speakers of the different dialects can pronounce each characters in very different ways (A Wu speaker can hardly understand Cantonese or Min-nan, and vice versa), they all have the same grammar and similar ways of expression, after thousands years of cultural integration within the unified country. (And by the way Mandarin also has a long history of being the "offical" spoken language in China: since Qing dynasty in the 1600s it has been adopted as the language spoken in Emperor's palace, and during the Republic of China period it was selected by the parliament as the official spoken language of the government after a democratic voting.)
Different dialects of course have their own distinct cultures: in traditional Shanghainese Opera the actors speak only Wu (just like in Beijing Opera the actors speak in Mandarin); there are also other similar operas for Cantonese or other dialects and these operas still receive much attention today in China. However the writing system of China has been unified since Qing Shihuang's time in around 220BC, for the convenience of the communications among all Chinese. It will be a big joke if today someone want to return to the old days when no one can understand each other.
Interestingly also Mark seem to neglect the fact that really no native speakers of all these dialects support the proposal, knowing that it is a totally unworkable proposal.
[[User:Formulax]]
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:34:36 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
In this e-mail I don't want to personally introduce new arguments but I want people to know that further debate on this topic is continuing at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
Some speakers of these languages have lent their support: Steve, Instantnood, and Felix Wan for Yue/Cantonese, and Nishishei, Pangguanzhe, and alaya for Wu/Shanghainese (Wu also includes the varieties of the surrounding areas including for example Suzhou).
Interestingly, on that page, no native speakers have directly condemned the idea (only direct opposition is from Shizhao), although Toytoy, a Cantonese speaker, has some concerns.
Mark _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
1. That is to say nothing of Alaya
2. If we subjected all new Wikipedias to such standards, we would probably only have 20 Wikipedias
3. Why are you so much against these Wikipedias being created if they are as you say so useless? Could it hurt?
Mark
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 17:08:09 +0800, Sheng Jiong sheng.jiong@gmail.com wrote:
Of course I read, and I checked their user pages too. Felix Wan(who was raised in Hong Kong, by the way) confests that he "occasionally" edits Chinese Wikipedia, and I doubt if he is going to edit the proposed Shanghainese Wikipedia in the future too. NiShishei basically made "no* edits at all in English Wikipedia, and he does not even have a username in Chinese Wikipedia. Pangguanzhe, again, only registered on Jan 21 2005 and made a grand total 8 edits, including 3 edits for his own user page. My suggestion: find someone who has really made contributions to Wikipedia first before setting up these totally useless Wikipedias.
[[User:Formulax]]
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:31:27 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Uhh... hello, did you read my e-mail? I listed native speakers supporting a Wu Wikipedia.
Mark
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:36:57 +0800, Sheng Jiong sheng.jiong@gmail.com wrote:
It is totally absurd to set up so many Wikipedias for various Chinese dialects. Being a native Shanghainess, my mother tongue is Wu. But I have never seen any books written in the Wu dialect in my entire life, and I have only heard of one book that was written in Wu in the 1930s, and apparently it received very limited attention. Speaking language is very different from the writing system, and in Chinese although there are hundreds of dialects there is however only one writing system. Wikipedia being a *written* encyclopedia would mean that we only need *one* Chinese Wikipedia, written in Chinese characters. Speakers of the different dialects can pronounce each characters in very different ways (A Wu speaker can hardly understand Cantonese or Min-nan, and vice versa), they all have the same grammar and similar ways of expression, after thousands years of cultural integration within the unified country. (And by the way Mandarin also has a long history of being the "offical" spoken language in China: since Qing dynasty in the 1600s it has been adopted as the language spoken in Emperor's palace, and during the Republic of China period it was selected by the parliament as the official spoken language of the government after a democratic voting.)
Different dialects of course have their own distinct cultures: in traditional Shanghainese Opera the actors speak only Wu (just like in Beijing Opera the actors speak in Mandarin); there are also other similar operas for Cantonese or other dialects and these operas still receive much attention today in China. However the writing system of China has been unified since Qing Shihuang's time in around 220BC, for the convenience of the communications among all Chinese. It will be a big joke if today someone want to return to the old days when no one can understand each other.
Interestingly also Mark seem to neglect the fact that really no native speakers of all these dialects support the proposal, knowing that it is a totally unworkable proposal.
[[User:Formulax]]
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:34:36 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
In this e-mail I don't want to personally introduce new arguments but I want people to know that further debate on this topic is continuing at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
Some speakers of these languages have lent their support: Steve, Instantnood, and Felix Wan for Yue/Cantonese, and Nishishei, Pangguanzhe, and alaya for Wu/Shanghainese (Wu also includes the varieties of the surrounding areas including for example Suzhou).
Interestingly, on that page, no native speakers have directly condemned the idea (only direct opposition is from Shizhao), although Toytoy, a Cantonese speaker, has some concerns.
Mark _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
- Why are you so much against these Wikipedias being created if they
are as you say so useless? Could it hurt?
That would depend on how much difference there is in the written languages/dialects in China, wouldn't it?
Owing to my very limited knowledge of Chinese, I have to hypothesize here. It seems to have been said that Chinese writing is the same all over the country - same glyphs, same meaning attached to the glyphs. Only the spoken language appears to differ so much as to be mutually incomprehensible.
If this is indeed the case, I cannot quite see the point of different Chinese wikipedias. This would appear to me similar to having a British wikipedia, an American one, and an Australian one, on the grounds that both spelling and pronounciation varies. And that would, IMHO, hurt, because you'd have needless duplication and fragmentation of articles. It would be so much more difficult for the reader to find information on a given subject, which is after all the main point of a wikipedia.
Of course, it would be different if there were significant differences among the way the various Chinese languages/dialects were written.
Skriptor
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 10:26:43 +0100, Skriptor skriptor@jhenning.de wrote:
- Why are you so much against these Wikipedias being created if they
are as you say so useless? Could it hurt?
That would depend on how much difference there is in the written languages/dialects in China, wouldn't it?
Owing to my very limited knowledge of Chinese, I have to hypothesize here. It seems to have been said that Chinese writing is the same all over the country - same glyphs, same meaning attached to the glyphs. Only the spoken language appears to differ so much as to be mutually incomprehensible.
This is far from the truth. There is a standard written language, yes, but it is based on Mandarin. Colloquial writings in regional varieties use different grammar, different vocabulary, and even different characters. (The popular book "he zanhwa" had to be translated to Mandarin before it could be read by non-Wu speakers)
If this is indeed the case, I cannot quite see the point of different Chinese wikipedias. This would appear to me similar to having a British wikipedia, an American one, and an Australian one, on the grounds that both spelling and pronounciation varies. And that would, IMHO, hurt, because you'd have needless duplication and fragmentation of articles. It would be so much more difficult for the reader to find information on a given subject, which is after all the main point of a wikipedia.
Of course, it would be different if there were significant differences among the way the various Chinese languages/dialects were written.
Which there are, if you write them instead of an artificial written standard which is really based on the vocabulary and grammar of a different language.
This is far from the truth. There is a standard written language, yes, but it is based on Mandarin. Colloquial writings in regional varieties use different grammar, different vocabulary, and even different characters. (The popular book "he zanhwa" had to be translated to Mandarin before it could be read by non-Wu speakers)
You are discussing an extreme example. Look at all the broadsheets in Hong Kong(where most people only know how to speak Cantonese, not Mandarin), and their newspapers can still be understood by mainland Chinese. Of course some tabloids would use distinctive "Cantonese characters", but there are really not the standard.
And really what is the use of setting up a Wikipedia if only *one* user is interested?
[[User:Formulax]]
On Jan 28, 2005, at 9:02 PM, Sheng Jiong wrote:
This is far from the truth. There is a standard written language, yes, but it is based on Mandarin. Colloquial writings in regional varieties use different grammar, different vocabulary, and even different characters. (The popular book "he zanhwa" had to be translated to Mandarin before it could be read by non-Wu speakers)
You are discussing an extreme example. Look at all the broadsheets in Hong Kong(where most people only know how to speak Cantonese, not Mandarin), and their newspapers can still be understood by mainland Chinese. Of course some tabloids would use distinctive "Cantonese characters", but there are really not the standard.
And really what is the use of setting up a Wikipedia if only *one* user is interested?
[[User:Formulax]]
I would again like to propose that a "notability" standard be applied to language division - if asked to show that there is a movement to create a literature in the dialect that is distinct from the main language - including, but not limited to, the native production of dictionaries, social and literary apparatus and so on, could we do it? If a division does not meet this notability standard - separate from the desires of our users, then it should be considered only if there are other extenuating circumstances. This is an extension of the "no original research" standard.
Wikipedia should support, but not lead, the efforts to create language identity.
Hello,
Sheng Jiong wrote:
You are discussing an extreme example. Look at all the broadsheets in Hong Kong(where most people only know how to speak Cantonese, not Mandarin), and their newspapers can still be understood by mainland Chinese.
That's because we *are* trying to write in Mandarin baihua (since "formal" and "proper" writing demands so).
Of course some tabloids would use distinctive "Cantonese characters", but there are really not the standard.
No, they aren't the standard, but we're now talking about the differences between the Mandarin and Cantonese, not the value (or lack thereof) of tabloids. The tabloids write in the Cantonese vernacular. Unless you can say there's no difference between how the tabloids write and Mandarin baihua, then please, don't use how us HKers write as an example.
Just because we HKers have accepted the Northerners' monopoly on what's "proper" and "formal" writing doesn't mean there's no difference.
And really what is the use of setting up a Wikipedia if only *one* user is interested?
I used not to be interested, but seriously, the more I listen to you guys, the more I think a Cantonese/Yue wikipedia should be set up. I have yet to hear any argument other than "it's going to take away the resources from the zh.wikipedia" and "there's no difference between yue and Mandarin".
little Alex
- That is to say nothing of Alaya
Because he/she does not even have a user page! Go check on meta, en, zh, and you can find none!
- If we subjected all new Wikipedias to such standards, we would
probably only have 20 Wikipedias
Well, Shanghainese is different from Ning-bo dialect (My grandma speaks that, and believe me, sometimes I cannot comprehend her slangs), Hangzhou dialect (I have been to Hangzhou many times, and again I can catch only a few phrases), Suzhou dialect, Subei dialect (many old men in Shanghai were from Subei, and they can be easily identified once they open their mouths). That makes four varieties of Wu already, and there will be more. Considering all other dialects and their varieties, you can have hundreds of Wikipedias already. Enjoy surfing!
And why don't you set up some more Wikipedias for dialects in other languages? English, for example, has many varities too. Why not have an American English Wikipedia, British English Wikipedia, Australian English Wikipedia. And yes, even in Britain people speak different English as well. So why don't we have one Wikipedia for everybody, since we all speak the language differently?
- Why are you so much against these Wikipedias being created if they
are as you say so useless? Could it hurt?
Yes, It will turn Wikipedia into a big joke.
- That is to say nothing of Alaya
Because he/she does not even have a user page! Go check on meta, en, zh, and you can find none!
Nishishei has a userpage on en:, gives his e-mail, has a respected website on Shanghainese, and is a university student.
- If we subjected all new Wikipedias to such standards, we would
probably only have 20 Wikipedias
Well, Shanghainese is different from Ning-bo dialect (My grandma speaks that, and believe me, sometimes I cannot comprehend her slangs), Hangzhou dialect (I have been to Hangzhou many times, and again I can catch only a few phrases), Suzhou dialect, Subei dialect (many old men in Shanghai were from Subei, and they can be easily identified once they open their mouths). That makes four varieties of Wu already, and there will be more. Considering all other dialects and their varieties, you can have hundreds of Wikipedias already. Enjoy surfing!
We are talking about a Wu Wikipedia, not a Shanghainese Wikipedia. Granted Shanghainese is different from Suzhou, but they are definitely mutually intelligible.
And why don't you set up some more Wikipedias for dialects in other languages? English, for example, has many varities too. Why not have an American English Wikipedia, British English Wikipedia, Australian English Wikipedia. And yes, even in Britain people speak different English as well. So why don't we have one Wikipedia for everybody, since we all speak the language differently?
"So differently"? Because these languages, with minimal effort, are mutually intelligible, we do not need separate Wikipedias, nor has anybody seriously suggested them.
- Why are you so much against these Wikipedias being created if they
are as you say so useless? Could it hurt?
Yes, It will turn Wikipedia into a big joke.
If we create hundreds, as you suggest, yes. If we create 8 or 9 total, as I suggest (and only when ech is requested), it won't turn it into a big joke.
Mark
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 02:14:29 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
- Why are you so much against these Wikipedias being created if they
are as you say so useless? Could it hurt?
Mark, the dialect-specific Wikipedias don't "hurt" per se.
But the ZH Wikipedia is already disproportionately small, even miniscule, given the worldwide population of speakers. That's why some are afraid of splintering the effort too early.
Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado)
People like you are far too worried about the "disproportionately small"-ness of zh.wikipedia. Given the small percentage of zh.wiki users that would actually gravitate to a new Wikipedia of this type, it would make almost no difference in the size of zh.wiki, and zh.wiki is already huge (it used to have a few hundred articles, then 10k would've been huge, but now it just has got to be bigger or it is way too small) and is growing at a good enough rate that such a minor draw away from it would be compensated for completely in less than two months.
In addition, this shouldn't be the choice of zh.wikipedians or even of the speakers of these languages/dialects, but rather the native-speaking proposers who appear willing to dedicate a great deal of time (Nishishei, for one, is dependable because of his reputation). Chances are it won't affect many of the native speakers already at zh.wikipedia, and if it did they would probably edit bilingually (just as most editors on non-hi: Indic-language wikipedias edit their language AND hi: on a regular basis). Perhaps if they are a huge success they will attract more usersers from zh.wikipedia, but that wouldn't be in the very near future and ZH would be much bigger by then.
This is not like a TC/SC split where it's really a good deal of the users.
Mark
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 08:35:32 +0800, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 02:14:29 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
- Why are you so much against these Wikipedias being created if they
are as you say so useless? Could it hurt?
Mark, the dialect-specific Wikipedias don't "hurt" per se.
But the ZH Wikipedia is already disproportionately small, even miniscule, given the worldwide population of speakers. That's why some are afraid of splintering the effort too early.
Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado)
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 21:27:58 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
People like you are far too worried about the "disproportionately small"-ness of zh.wikipedia. Given the small percentage of zh.wiki users that would actually gravitate to a new Wikipedia of this type, it would make almost no difference in the size of zh.wiki, and zh.wiki is already huge (it used to have a few hundred articles, then 10k would've been huge, but now it just has got to be bigger or it is way too small) and is growing at a good enough rate that such a minor draw away from it would be compensated for completely in less than two months.
With all due respect, this is selective spin.
19,000 articles is decent, but it's not "huge."
Most everyone in the ZH community knows the periodic inaccessibility in the PRC starting in June 2004 has hurt growth, so every dedicated member is important. If you look at the stats, only at the end of last year did ZH get "active wikipedians" back to the level of May 2004. There are only about 40 "very active" Wikipedians, and the number of "new Wikipedians" has not recovered, regressing back to February 2004 levels.
A wiki with one person can be a very lonely place. Seems a better use of resources to have the Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wu (linguistics) and related pages in better shape, than to start a new Wikipedia with one person.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%8F%E5%B7%9E http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%AD%E5%B7%9E http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%B4%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80
19k articles is huge. It is more than decent. It makes zh a usable encyclopedic resource with only a few omissions in normal browsing.
With all due respect, 19k is huge because Wikipedias which actually celebrate breaking 300 or 500 are so much smaller, even Wikipedias which celebrate breaking 1k or 5k or even 10k are a great deal smaller and yet can sometimes be useful.
Your only giving actual figures for "very active" Wikipedians is also selective spin. "Active" Wikipedians are obviously much higher in number and are what makes zh.wikipedia a community rather than a closed group of friends.
You try to make it sound as if zh.wikipedia is devoid of all life except for the lone Wikipedian here and there - that's ridiculous.
If neither you, nor Yacht, nor Mountain, nor Shizhao, nor any of the other important figureheads are planning to defect to a fangyan-pedia, there's probably not much to worry about - that means that a minimal amount of "lesser" users will move rather than a significant one. (and again, I believe that especially with Wu the situation would be similar to that between hi: and kn:)
Nishishei is the head of a slowly growing online BBS about "zanhe-ëwo", so if he starts alone he wil surely find other users easily (this is how scn.wikipedia reached its present state - I motivated one person and he motivated everybody else)
If Nishishei really wants to work on a Wu Wikipedia, and he can draw other editors/readers, then why do you want to redirect his efforts to zh.wikipedia? That's a bit selfish.
Mark
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:11:49 +0800, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 21:27:58 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
People like you are far too worried about the "disproportionately small"-ness of zh.wikipedia. Given the small percentage of zh.wiki users that would actually gravitate to a new Wikipedia of this type, it would make almost no difference in the size of zh.wiki, and zh.wiki is already huge (it used to have a few hundred articles, then 10k would've been huge, but now it just has got to be bigger or it is way too small) and is growing at a good enough rate that such a minor draw away from it would be compensated for completely in less than two months.
With all due respect, this is selective spin.
19,000 articles is decent, but it's not "huge."
Most everyone in the ZH community knows the periodic inaccessibility in the PRC starting in June 2004 has hurt growth, so every dedicated member is important. If you look at the stats, only at the end of last year did ZH get "active wikipedians" back to the level of May 2004. There are only about 40 "very active" Wikipedians, and the number of "new Wikipedians" has not recovered, regressing back to February 2004 levels.
A wiki with one person can be a very lonely place. Seems a better use of resources to have the Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wu (linguistics) and related pages in better shape, than to start a new Wikipedia with one person.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%8F%E5%B7%9E http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%AD%E5%B7%9E http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%B4%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80
-- Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado)
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 00:38:38 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
19k articles is huge. It is more than decent. It makes zh a usable encyclopedic resource with only a few omissions in normal browsing.
Not wanting to debating this to death, but here are some numbers: World Book Concise Encyclopedia - 25,000 entries Britannica Concise Encycloepdia - 24,000 to 28,000 depending on edition Oxford Concise Encyclopedia, paperback - 12,000 entries
I'd consider ZH decent, not huge, considering many of the 19,000 ZH articles are not "production quality."
Following some links from today's featured article and checking on their ZH counterpart: Economics (sparse) Population (stubby) Litre (substubby) Ecology (missing)
Look, ZH is a very good achievement so far. No one is trashing it. It just can't 't be considered as on a healthy S-curve yet. Given the number of Chinese speakers, there's work to be done. I'm not the first to point this out. See this previous post and look for "zh:" http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/032596.html
Your only giving actual figures for "very active" Wikipedians is also selective spin. "Active" Wikipedians are obviously much higher in number and are what makes zh.wikipedia a community rather than a closed group of friends.
Active Wikipedians follows the same trend - ZH in December *just* climbed back to May 2004 levels in terms of active Wikipedians. See for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/ChartsWikipediaZH.htm
Calling very active Wikipedians a "closed group of friends" is inaccurate. There are plenty of active Wikipedians in EN that I can't stand. :)
You try to make it sound as if zh.wikipedia is devoid of all life except for the lone Wikipedian here and there - that's ridiculous.
Please quote anything from previous emails that comes close to saying "devoid of life."
If Nishishei really wants to work on a Wu Wikipedia, and he can draw other editors/readers, then why do you want to redirect his efforts to zh.wikipedia? That's a bit selfish.
I don't think asking someone to work on a GFDL project, putonghua or Wu, can be considered "selfish."
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 00:38:38 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
19k articles is huge. It is more than decent. It makes zh a usable encyclopedic resource with only a few omissions in normal browsing.
Not wanting to debating this to death, but here are some numbers: World Book Concise Encyclopedia - 25,000 entries Britannica Concise Encycloepdia - 24,000 to 28,000 depending on edition Oxford Concise Encyclopedia, paperback - 12,000 entries
I'd consider ZH decent, not huge, considering many of the 19,000 ZH articles are not "production quality."
Following some links from today's featured article and checking on their ZH counterpart: Economics (sparse) Population (stubby) Litre (substubby) Ecology (missing)
Look, ZH is a very good achievement so far. No one is trashing it. It just can't 't be considered as on a healthy S-curve yet. Given the number of Chinese speakers, there's work to be done. I'm not the first to point this out. See this previous post and look for "zh:" http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/032596.html
Your only giving actual figures for "very active" Wikipedians is also selective spin. "Active" Wikipedians are obviously much higher in number and are what makes zh.wikipedia a community rather than a closed group of friends.
Active Wikipedians follows the same trend - ZH in December *just* climbed back to May 2004 levels in terms of active Wikipedians. See for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/ChartsWikipediaZH.htm
Same trends, so what? There are 180 active users.
Calling very active Wikipedians a "closed group of friends" is inaccurate. There are plenty of active Wikipedians in EN that I can't stand. :)
I meant the difference between a group of 40 and a group of 180.
You try to make it sound as if zh.wikipedia is devoid of all life except for the lone Wikipedian here and there - that's ridiculous.
Please quote anything from previous emails that comes close to saying "devoid of life."
"make it sound as if" implies that you didn't say it directly.
If Nishishei really wants to work on a Wu Wikipedia, and he can draw other editors/readers, then why do you want to redirect his efforts to zh.wikipedia? That's a bit selfish.
I don't think asking someone to work on a GFDL project, putonghua or Wu, can be considered "selfish."
I think it's selfish to say "No, you cannot have a new Wikipedia because we want you to work on ours instead."
Mark
Andrew Lih wrote:
Most everyone in the ZH community knows the periodic inaccessibility
in the PRC starting in June 2004
I'm interested. Do we have a page explaining when and why Wikipedia is inaccessible from the PRC? (By "why" I don't mean "because the government blocks it", but "for which reasons does the government block it".)
http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/01/the_wikipedia_d.html
This reflects what many people in politics are starting to say. While Blogging is a news source, wikis are seen as a possible way of getting the work of governing done. Open source politics, if you will.
Andrew Lih wrote:
Mark, the dialect-specific Wikipedias don't "hurt" per se.
But the ZH Wikipedia is already disproportionately small, even miniscule, given the worldwide population of speakers. That's why some are afraid of splintering the effort too early.
What is exactly the level of compatibility *in writing* between those different dialects? Is it only a question of slightly different grammatical habits and some specific vocabulary? Or is it more diverse?
I note that some of the languages represented on WP, such as French and English, have moderate regional variations in grammar and vocabulary; but it is possible to write articles that are understable by all (by avoiding local peculiarities, for instance).
Hello,
Sheng Jiong wrote:
his own user page. My suggestion: find someone who has really made contributions to Wikipedia first before setting up these totally useless Wikipedias.
Hey, if the hosting people have space to waste...why not?
little Alex
I am replying to Sheng Jiong's opposition to the proposals for various Chinese vernaculars.
Quoting Sheng Jiong sheng.jiong@gmail.com:
It is totally absurd to set up so many Wikipedias for various Chinese dialects. Being a native Shanghainess, my mother tongue is Wu. But I have never seen any books written in the Wu dialect in my entire life, and I have only heard of one book that was written in Wu in the 1930s, and apparently it received very limited attention.
There are many novels written in Wu since the late 1800's and they were quite popular and highly acclaimed; if you are not aware of them, then selective education has played a big part in your misconceptions. Their popularity only faded with the singular promotion of vernacular Mandarin by the Republican and later Communist governments. The idea of a vernacular Wu encyclopedia is not very absurd so long as there are people willing to give the project a try.
Wikipedia being a *written* encyclopedia would mean that we only need *one* Chinese Wikipedia, written in Chinese characters. Speakers of the different dialects can pronounce each characters in very different ways (A Wu speaker can hardly understand Cantonese or Min-nan, and vice versa), they all have the same grammar and similar ways of expression, after thousands years of cultural integration within the unified country.
The grammar is different, the expressions are even more different. I want to remind you that written vernacular Chinese in *any* dialect, including Mandarin Baihua, is a relatively recent development; the "thousands years of cultural integration" mean little and can be quite frankly compared to the "cultural intergration" that is western civilization. We no longer write in Classical Literary Chinese. Currently the Chinese written form is solely based on the Mandarin vernacular; you are suggesting that it is normal for a French speaker to read and write only in English (with English grammar) but pronounce the words "as if in French," making quick mental changes for the grammar and words without equivalents along the way.
(And by the way Mandarin also has a long history of being the "offical" spoken language in China: since Qing dynasty in the 1600s it has been adopted as the language spoken in Emperor's palace, and during the Republic of China period it was selected by the parliament as the official spoken language of the government after a democratic voting.)
The officiality of a language should not be a primary reason for the opposition of any new language Wikipedia. If so, many existing Wikipedias (such as the 3 dialects of German, Esperanto, Anglo Saxon, etc) ought not to exist as well. The success of Catalan on Wikipedia is a good reason to give different vernacular Chinese languages a try; especially for a couple culturally rich and high-population Chinese languages.
Interestingly also Mark seem to neglect the fact that really no native speakers of all these dialects support the proposal, knowing that it is a totally unworkable proposal.
I am a native speaker of Shanghainese and Ningbo-hua, two very close dialects of Wu. I personally know several people willing to work on such a project, and that number will surely expand as the project grows. If my username shows only a few Wikipedia edits, it is because I have just recently signed up, but have for the past 2 years edited anonymously hundreds of China and Chinese related articles.
Best, William Yin
User:nishishei
Hi Yin,
I understand everything you say but I have a small request for you.
Can you provide a short sample in coloquial written Wu using Hanzi (if you can't find all the correct characters, I can insert them for you if need be)? I think that is wht doubters like Shizhao need, to see that there really is a huge difference between baihua and zanhe-ëwo in hanzi.
Until then Shizhao will continue to believe that Baihua is grammatically and vocabularically identical to all fengyan-kouwen because he can onlky speak and write Mandarin himself.
Mark
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 04:34:14 -0600, W Yin yin@uchicago.edu wrote:
I am replying to Sheng Jiong's opposition to the proposals for various Chinese vernaculars.
Quoting Sheng Jiong sheng.jiong@gmail.com:
It is totally absurd to set up so many Wikipedias for various Chinese dialects. Being a native Shanghainess, my mother tongue is Wu. But I have never seen any books written in the Wu dialect in my entire life, and I have only heard of one book that was written in Wu in the 1930s, and apparently it received very limited attention.
There are many novels written in Wu since the late 1800's and they were quite popular and highly acclaimed; if you are not aware of them, then selective education has played a big part in your misconceptions. Their popularity only faded with the singular promotion of vernacular Mandarin by the Republican and later Communist governments. The idea of a vernacular Wu encyclopedia is not very absurd so long as there are people willing to give the project a try.
Wikipedia being a *written* encyclopedia would mean that we only need *one* Chinese Wikipedia, written in Chinese characters. Speakers of the different dialects can pronounce each characters in very different ways (A Wu speaker can hardly understand Cantonese or Min-nan, and vice versa), they all have the same grammar and similar ways of expression, after thousands years of cultural integration within the unified country.
The grammar is different, the expressions are even more different. I want to remind you that written vernacular Chinese in *any* dialect, including Mandarin Baihua, is a relatively recent development; the "thousands years of cultural integration" mean little and can be quite frankly compared to the "cultural intergration" that is western civilization. We no longer write in Classical Literary Chinese. Currently the Chinese written form is solely based on the Mandarin vernacular; you are suggesting that it is normal for a French speaker to read and write only in English (with English grammar) but pronounce the words "as if in French," making quick mental changes for the grammar and words without equivalents along the way.
(And by the way Mandarin also has a long history of being the "offical" spoken language in China: since Qing dynasty in the 1600s it has been adopted as the language spoken in Emperor's palace, and during the Republic of China period it was selected by the parliament as the official spoken language of the government after a democratic voting.)
The officiality of a language should not be a primary reason for the opposition of any new language Wikipedia. If so, many existing Wikipedias (such as the 3 dialects of German, Esperanto, Anglo Saxon, etc) ought not to exist as well. The success of Catalan on Wikipedia is a good reason to give different vernacular Chinese languages a try; especially for a couple culturally rich and high-population Chinese languages.
Interestingly also Mark seem to neglect the fact that really no native speakers of all these dialects support the proposal, knowing that it is a totally unworkable proposal.
I am a native speaker of Shanghainese and Ningbo-hua, two very close dialects of Wu. I personally know several people willing to work on such a project, and that number will surely expand as the project grows. If my username shows only a few Wikipedia edits, it is because I have just recently signed up, but have for the past 2 years edited anonymously hundreds of China and Chinese related articles.
Best, William Yin
User:nishishei _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hi all,
I agree a lot with Mark. First of all, we need more persuasive evidence to show the gap between Wu, Cantonese and Mandarin, even when they are all transcribed in hanzi. I myself would like to see several whole articles totally in Wu or Cantonese, just to stun me how hard it is for a Mandarin speaker to understand those languages.
Shizhao's position is mainly that Mandarin Wikipedia is enough for all users of different "dialects", since hanzi can provide a common communication media among them (as Formulax has also suggested). This kind of argument can't deny that other vernaculars are actually quite different from Mandarin in speech, and in effect ignores the limited role of hanzi in zh: it denotes mainly Mandarin, and to ask speakers of other languages to use zh is to force them abandon their own tongue to use Mandarin to think and write instead; to ignore such fact is to wield the authority of the common language again.
Arguments that letting other Sinitic version establish would detract users from zh are also quite impossible. I'd like to say that this is the last thing zh users should worry about.
What we should treat seriously is what Toytoy always claims: there's no need for vernaculars to be transcribed (he did said that), or at least be used in knowledge, since what Cantonese scripts are used for is to express vulgar speech or to publish gossip magazines. Is this argument strong enough to block projects to increase texts and accumulation of knowledge written in "dialects"? I think we should spend more time reflecting such point. I agree that in history there are far less publications and works in Wu or Cantonese or Holo, but I wonder if past development of reality is the main concern of all Wikipediae. In history, too, there are never many publications in Asturianu or Plattdüütsch, do we say that "there's no need to transcribe them in the past, and no Wikipedia is allowed for them"? "The Free Encyclopedia" should encourage writing in languages which were deprived of chances of publication due to early modern development of "national language", especially regional tongues with abundant population. Hanzi is absolutely domininating China, and this helps the domination of Mandarin a lot, but such situation is mostly created by state power and should be liberated. In times before 20th century state-building, hanzi was also freely used in different vernaculars, since there were no such ideas of "Putonghua" or "Guoyu"; and in Hong Kong, a modern metropolis which stayed intact out of central control, Cantonese is not only used in popular publications, but also in almost all movie subtitles (I hope Cantonese friends could provide more usage of baihua in Hong Kong). So, stop the mirage of "language unity" in China! Mandarin Wikipedia is for Mandarin ONLY, and don't copy the government way and language nationalism on Wikipedia.
I appreciate opinions to support me or challege me:)
MilchFlasche von Hroedeboerht.
------- By the way, to reply long ago Mark's reply to me: 1. Actually I'm a Mandarin speaking Taiwanese, so "Jiang55" is enough to pronounce my family name, or to use Minnan "Gang33" --- but in Hakka, it's also "Gong24":) 2. As for I know, Toytoy is also a Taiwanese. I'm not sure how he knows about Cantonese, but he did mentioned on zh that he could have learned Wu --- his father's tongue --- but he wouldn't like to.
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:48:12 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Yin,
I understand everything you say but I have a small request for you.
Can you provide a short sample in coloquial written Wu using Hanzi (if you can't find all the correct characters, I can insert them for you if need be)? I think that is wht doubters like Shizhao need, to see that there really is a huge difference between baihua and zanhe-ëwo in hanzi.
Until then Shizhao will continue to believe that Baihua is grammatically and vocabularically identical to all fengyan-kouwen because he can onlky speak and write Mandarin himself.
Mark
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 04:34:14 -0600, W Yin <yin@uchicago.edu > wrote:
I am replying to Sheng Jiong's opposition to the proposals for various Chinese vernaculars.
Quoting Sheng Jiong <sheng.jiong@gmail.com >:
It is totally absurd to set up so many Wikipedias for various Chinese dialects. Being a native Shanghainess, my mother tongue is Wu. But I have never seen any books written in the Wu dialect in my entire life, and I have only heard of one book that was written in Wu in the 1930s, and apparently it received very limited attention.
There are many novels written in Wu since the late 1800's and they were quite popular and highly acclaimed; if you are not aware of them, then selective education has played a big part in your misconceptions. Their popularity only faded with the singular promotion of vernacular Mandarin by the Republican and later Communist governments. The idea of a vernacular Wu encyclopedia is not very absurd so long as there are people willing to give the project a try.
Wikipedia being a *written* encyclopedia would mean that we only need *one* Chinese Wikipedia, written in Chinese characters. Speakers of the different dialects can pronounce each characters in very different ways (A Wu speaker can hardly understand Cantonese or Min-nan, and vice versa), they all have the same grammar and similar ways of expression, after thousands years of cultural integration within the unified country.
The grammar is different, the expressions are even more different. I want to remind you that written vernacular Chinese in *any* dialect, including Mandarin Baihua, is a relatively recent development; the "thousands years of cultural integration" mean little and can be quite frankly compared to the "cultural intergration" that is western civilization. We no longer write in Classical Literary Chinese. Currently the Chinese written form is solely based on the Mandarin vernacular; you are suggesting that it is normal for a French speaker to read and write only in English (with English grammar) but pronounce the words "as if in French," making quick mental changes for the grammar and words without equivalents along the way.
(And by the way Mandarin also has a long history of being the "offical" spoken language in China: since Qing dynasty in the 1600s it has been adopted as the language spoken in Emperor's palace, and during the Republic of China period it was selected by the parliament as the official spoken language of the government after a democratic voting.)
The officiality of a language should not be a primary reason for the opposition of any new language Wikipedia. If so, many existing Wikipedias (such as the 3 dialects of German, Esperanto, Anglo Saxon, etc) ought not to exist as well. The success of Catalan on Wikipedia is a good reason to give different vernacular Chinese languages a try; especially for a couple culturally rich and high-population Chinese languages.
Interestingly also Mark seem to neglect the fact that really no native speakers of all these dialects support the proposal, knowing that it is a totally unworkable proposal.
I am a native speaker of Shanghainese and Ningbo-hua, two very close dialects of Wu. I personally know several people willing to work on such a project, and that number will surely expand as the project grows. If my username shows only a few Wikipedia edits, it is because I have just recently signed up, but have for the past 2 years edited anonymously hundreds of China and Chinese related articles.
Best, William Yin
User:nishishei _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hello,
MilchFlasche瑋平 wrote:
they are all transcribed in hanzi. I myself would like to see several whole articles totally in Wu or Cantonese, just to stun me how hard it is for a Mandarin speaker to understand those languages.
Give me a topic and I might try (for Cantonese/Yue).
What we should treat seriously is what Toytoy always claims: there's no need for vernaculars to be transcribed (he did said that), or at least be used in knowledge, since what Cantonese scripts are used for is to express vulgar speech or to publish gossip magazines.
Well, that is true. Currently there are quite a number novels, etc., in Hong Kong that are written Cantonese, but not much.
and in Hong Kong, a modern metropolis which stayed intact out of central control, Cantonese is not only used in popular publications, but also in almost all movie subtitles (I hope Cantonese friends could provide more usage of baihua in Hong Kong). So, stop the mirage of
Actually, I don't know why Mandarin speakers keep using the word "baihua" to describe Yue/Cantonese. I've always viewed "baihua" as the opposite of "wenyan" instead. So, "baihua" to me means the Mandarin vernacular and nothing else.
Anyway, most movies are actually subtitled in the Mandarin vernacular. Some kids movies from America and Japan are subtitled or dubbed in Cantonese. But I don't know how to provide an example...
little Alex
Kwan saamsang, Lei hou
How about writing a 5 or 6 sentence article on Hong Kong, in colloquial written HongKong Cantonese?
And milchflasche, please be clear that I do not need an example for myself - I have already seen them and I am convinced well enough. I only requested an example to show doubters like you and shizhao that there really is a difference, contrary to what you may believe.
Stirling, in both of these cases Wu and Cantonese would qualify for separate Wikipedias under your criteria, as would Hakka (I don't know about a movement for separate Hakka literature in the mainland, bt I know there is one in Taiwan).
Mark
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:49:11 +0800, Alex Kwan litalex@slashyalex.com wrote:
Hello,
MilchFlasche瑋平 wrote:
they are all transcribed in hanzi. I myself would like to see several whole articles totally in Wu or Cantonese, just to stun me how hard it is for a Mandarin speaker to understand those languages.
Give me a topic and I might try (for Cantonese/Yue).
What we should treat seriously is what Toytoy always claims: there's no need for vernaculars to be transcribed (he did said that), or at least be used in knowledge, since what Cantonese scripts are used for is to express vulgar speech or to publish gossip magazines.
Well, that is true. Currently there are quite a number novels, etc., in Hong Kong that are written Cantonese, but not much.
and in Hong Kong, a modern metropolis which stayed intact out of central control, Cantonese is not only used in popular publications, but also in almost all movie subtitles (I hope Cantonese friends could provide more usage of baihua in Hong Kong). So, stop the mirage of
Actually, I don't know why Mandarin speakers keep using the word "baihua" to describe Yue/Cantonese. I've always viewed "baihua" as the opposite of "wenyan" instead. So, "baihua" to me means the Mandarin vernacular and nothing else.
Anyway, most movies are actually subtitled in the Mandarin vernacular. Some kids movies from America and Japan are subtitled or dubbed in Cantonese. But I don't know how to provide an example...
little Alex
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Jan 29, 2005, at 12:18 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
Kwan saamsang, Lei hou
How about writing a 5 or 6 sentence article on Hong Kong, in colloquial written HongKong Cantonese?
And milchflasche, please be clear that I do not need an example for myself - I have already seen them and I am convinced well enough. I only requested an example to show doubters like you and shizhao that there really is a difference, contrary to what you may believe.
Stirling, in both of these cases Wu and Cantonese would qualify for separate Wikipedias under your criteria, as would Hakka (I don't know about a movement for separate Hakka literature in the mainland, bt I know there is one in Taiwan).
Mark
Handwaving again from a user who has been wrong over and over again. I said document, not assert.
Are you kidding me?
Even you agree that there is a movement for separate Cantonese literature, and there is definitely a gradual movement to write in vernaculars, especially in Hong Kong, and Taiwan, but also to a lesser degree in Shanghai.
You have already been provided with examples of separate Shanghainese movies and literature and music, yet you pretend it hasn't been presented and instead throw an ad-hominem attack at me. Very low class of you, Stirling.
Mark
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:41:49 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
On Jan 29, 2005, at 12:18 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
Kwan saamsang, Lei hou
How about writing a 5 or 6 sentence article on Hong Kong, in colloquial written HongKong Cantonese?
And milchflasche, please be clear that I do not need an example for myself - I have already seen them and I am convinced well enough. I only requested an example to show doubters like you and shizhao that there really is a difference, contrary to what you may believe.
Stirling, in both of these cases Wu and Cantonese would qualify for separate Wikipedias under your criteria, as would Hakka (I don't know about a movement for separate Hakka literature in the mainland, bt I know there is one in Taiwan).
Mark
Handwaving again from a user who has been wrong over and over again. I said document, not assert.
Hi Mark,
Ah no no no... I'm never a doubter more than Shizhao, Formulax or others are ^^; I was just proposing providing several examples, since I'm confident in them :) ; but for me, Cantonese texts can only be seen when HKer comes to Taiwanese forums to post articles (and are often "politely" asked to write in Mandarin instead:P) That's why I'm not so familiar with them. And Alex, I'm sorry that I was quite unsure about the terms I was using. Okay now that I know it's inproper using "baihua". I would just use "Cantonese" instead:)
[[zh:user:MilchFlasche]]
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 22:18:04 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
And milchflasche, please be clear that I do not need an example for myself - I have already seen them and I am convinced well enough. I only requested an example to show doubters like you and shizhao that there really is a difference, contrary to what you may believe. Mark
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:49:11 +0800, Alex Kwan litalex@slashyalex.com wrote:
Hello,
MilchFlasche瑋平 wrote:
they are all transcribed in hanzi. I myself would like to see several whole articles totally in Wu or Cantonese, just to stun me how hard it is for a Mandarin speaker to understand those languages.
Give me a topic and I might try (for Cantonese/Yue). little Alex
Well then... How about an entry on Faye Wong, or on "Huang Daxian"（黃大仙）? Or to take some more "formal" topic (althought I don't like the distinction between "serious" and "relaxed" topics; why should we judge topics in respect to their relation with academic or politic issues?), how about an entry for Dong Jianhua or "two systems with in one nation"（一國兩制）?
Thank you a lot!:)
I believe the term usually used in English is "One China, two systems".
Mark
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:36:54 +0800, MilchFlasche瑋平 robertus0617@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:49:11 +0800, Alex Kwan litalex@slashyalex.com wrote:
Hello,
MilchFlasche瑋平 wrote:
they are all transcribed in hanzi. I myself would like to see several whole articles totally in Wu or Cantonese, just to stun me how hard it is for a Mandarin speaker to understand those languages.
Give me a topic and I might try (for Cantonese/Yue). little Alex
Well then... How about an entry on Faye Wong, or on "Huang Daxian"（黃大仙）? Or to take some more "formal" topic (althought I don't like the distinction between "serious" and "relaxed" topics; why should we judge topics in respect to their relation with academic or politic issues?), how about an entry for Dong Jianhua or "two systems with in one nation"（一國兩制）?
Thank you a lot!:)
-- 2005, make signs happen! _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 22:46:24 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I believe the term usually used in English is "One China, two systems".
It's "One country, two systems."
There is still dispute as to whether there is "one China," w.r.t. PRC and ROC.
Mark Williamson <node.ue@...> writes:
Hi all,
In this e-mail I don't want to personally introduce new arguments but I want people to know that further debate on this topic is continuing at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
Some speakers of these languages have lent their support: Steve, Instantnood, and Felix Wan for Yue/Cantonese, and Nishishei, Pangguanzhe, and alaya for Wu/Shanghainese (Wu also includes the varieties of the surrounding areas including for example Suzhou).
Interestingly, on that page, no native speakers have directly condemned the idea (only direct opposition is from Shizhao), although Toytoy, a Cantonese speaker, has some concerns.
Mark
Or should let them write a few articles to see first how, then make the decision.I doubt the Yue very much, how does the Wu write?Also is to use Chinese?If what to use is a Chinese characters what I am a resolute objection, if be like the South Fukien dialect similar colloquially a type writings of word write I has no objection to, and approve.Just I do not know the Yue , does the Wu have to write the system otherly?
[[zh:user:shizhao]]
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org