[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia in Chinese dialects

[Felix Wan]

On Thu, February 3, 2005 8:54 pm, Sheng Jiong said:
>> 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.
>
> A very good point indeed. And I also agree with Andrew's view, that
> Wikipedia's chief aim is to write encyclopedias, not promoting any
> kind of promoting of languages. If any Chinese dialects any other than 
> Mandarin has received significant attention in the world, and that
> people have gotten used to writing/reading these languages, there is of
> course a need to set up a Wikipedia in this language. But the truth is,
> all Chinese dialects other than Mandarin remain a spoken language, and
> extremely few books/articles/etc. are published in dialects. In fact we do
> not even know what writing system we should use should there be a Chinese
> dialect Wikipedia.
>
Max Weinreich: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy". If we
follow that line of thinking, then yes, since there is no public education
in the world that teaches written Cantonese, we should not have an
encyclopedia in it.

Although I cannot find the official language policy of Wikipedia, but from
what I observe, Wikipedia does encourage minority languages, even allows
those without official status, even constructed and fictional ones. I
appreciate this respect of our rich human culture.

Compare to most other minority languages, Cantonese is more qualified to
have a Wikipedia. Although written Cantonese has not obtained any official
status from any government in the world, it is at least an official spoken
language in Hong Kong. Written Cantonese is used in police reports to
record words of witnesses verbatim. The *official* language policy of Hong
Kong recognizes "2 wen 3 yu" - 2 written languages (wen): Standard British
English and Standard Chinese (Mandarin vernacular); 3 spoken languages (yu):
British English, Cantonese Chinese and Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua).

Compared to the huge amount of publication in Standard Vernacular Chinese
(Mandarin baihua), publication in Cantonese appears to be few, but the
number is significant. There are more and more articles and novels written
in Cantonese. People have gotten used to writing and reading in Cantonese,
especially among the younger generation of Hong Kong. They discuss in Net
forums in Cantonese. Sometimes they receive requests from Mandarin speakers
to translate what they are talking about. Who say those two are the same
when written?

Although most Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong knows how to read and write
in Cantonese if written in traditional Hanzi, many people do not find it a
serious language just because writing in it has been discouraged in schools.
However, even that is changing. There has always been dictionaries on how
to pronounce Chinese characters in Cantonese. There are more publications
on the study of Cantonese vocabulary, grammar, and most importantly, on
orthography of Hanzi to represent Cantonese words not found in Mandarin.
Those publications are, however, written in Standard Vernacular Chinese.

Writing something as serious as an encyclopedia in Cantonese will be
unprecedented, and will not gain any support from a government in today's
political climate, but I do not think denying it with that reason is
consistent with the policy of setting up Wikipedia in a new language.

> And to Mark: please do note that I speak Shanghainese rather than
> Min-nan. Therefore among those opposers there is also a native speaker
> of the language. It is not as you wrote that only those who do not speak
> the language oppose the proposal. I am still strongly opposed to the set
> up of any Chinese dialect Wikipedias. And I am not actually glad to see
> the Min-nan Wikipedia too. I simply doubt if any Min-nan speakers can
> understand the current Min-nan Wikipedia.
>
Actually, I appreciate that the setting up of the Min-nan Wikipedia in
spite of opposition from unglad Chinese speakers. I can read peh-oe-ji,
and I can find enough cognates to understand what is going on, but I just
do not know enough Min-nan to contribute. The complete Bible has been
translated into Min-nan using peh-oe-ji and many Min-nan speakers can read
it. Surely ZH-MIN-NAN people need to get more Min-nan speakers involved.

There is one complication about Chinese dialects though: every literate
Chinese can read Standard Vernacular Chinese, even if they cannot speak
Mandarin. Probably no one has ever spoken Classical Chinese, yet it has
been the standard written language for thousands of years. Chinese are
so accustomed to writing in a common language they never speak that some
do oppose writing in their own dialect. In the early 20th century the
literate elite strongly opposed writing in Vernacular Mandarin for similar
reasons: vernaculars are not for serious literature and so on. So don't be
surprised if we find Cantonese speakers strongly oppose written Cantonese.

Let's do a thought experiment. How much linguistic difference from standard
English dialects is required for a Wikipedia to be set up in a new English
dialect? While previous examples like "British vs. American English" or
"New York English" fail to illustrate the point, if there is a request for
a Wikipedia in "Ebonics" (African American Vernacular English), or 
"Singlish" (Singaporean Vernacular English), will it be strongly opposed?
That's about how those strong opponents feel against written Cantonese. We
need to understand their concern to communicate with them effectively.

That is why the concern that written Cantonese on a serious subject may look
too similar to that in written Mandarin have really got my attention, so I proposed an experiment. So far no one opposed the experiment. I will go
ahead and try.

I consider myself a strong proponent for common languages: Putonghua,
English as an international language, even constructed IAL, because they
are useful for mutual understanding and communication. But I just do not
believe we need to suppress minor dialects to achieve the goal.

So my stand point is still this: if there is enough interest in a Wikipedia
in a Chinese dialect, let them try.

Felix Wan