On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 12:03:45 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan
<felixwiki(a)earthsphere.org> wrote:
Even though I support the creation of a Cantonese Wikipedia, I will oppose
writing Cantonese in zh: for the obvious pragmatic reason: every literate
Cantonese speaker can read written Mandarin (standard Chinese), but the
reverse is not true. Unfair, but that is the fact of life.
My primary concern is that everyone here understand the facts before
making the decision. We live in a real world. We may deny Cantonese
Wikipedia due to political, public relation, or pragmatic reasons, but
let's be honest and state the reason. If we pretend that it is just
because the two writing systems are the same, people will come again and
again to demonstrate that they are different.
The community should nurture folks starting a new Wikipedia in a
different dialect/language, as long as there is a critical mass of
people, articles and interface translation. Again, my main concern has
always been that a wiki with one person can be a lonely place. For
example around SE Asia, I've been evangelizing for the smaller
Wikipedias. Some have been successful, such as Malay, but sadly others
have not, like Khmer (Cambodia).
Let's reframe this discussion not as the desire to "deny" a Wikipedia,
but rather a way to be good stewards of new Wikipedias and launch them
in good stead. The problem I have is in language enthusiasts (ie.
Mark) encouraging the creation of new Wikipedias left-and-right just
to get another notch on the post without regard to sustainability.
Remember this is not an either/or proposition - folks can work on zh:
and work on a dialect-specific version as well.
The honest dialogue is welcome given the bizarre sensational comments
such as "eventually under increasing pressure from linguistic
imperialists like Andrew, local Chinese vernaculars will be gone
completely."
As there are five Chinese dialects represented among my immediate
relatives, I got a chuckle out of it.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)