[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia in Chinese dialects

[Stirling Newberry]

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.