[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request, and Chinese Wikipedia again

[Mark Williamson]

Right, so it is up to the entire community rather than just the
speakers of a language whether or not they get a separate Wikipedia?

So if Scots requests a separate Wikipedia from English, but
en.wikipedia votes against it, we tell them they can't have it?

If I recall correctly there was never a consensus in zh.wikipedia that
a Minnan Wikipedia should be created.

Its original creation was as an entirely separate project "Holopedia"
due to extreme community opposition from zh.wikipedia and the
probability that people like Jimbo would at the time have been
unwilling to consider it if his anonymous Chinese advisors said
"閩南話與白話文是統一語言".

As it was eventually turned into a small Wikipedia with a small number
of articles (rather than 0), the general Wikipedia community accepted
it somewhat hesitatingly although on zh.wikipedia it was widely
disputed as to whether it should exist.

Especially different in this case is use of Cantonese characters
instead of Whites' languages' characters. Some people will ask "What
is the difference?" but many of these people are the same people who
would "correct" vernacular content posted to zh.wikipedia itself,
showing that there really is a difference (I tried it once - it kept
being reverted to the "correct" grammar ie baihuawen).

This is the issue of self-determination of this community of people
writing colloquial Cantonese, it is not fair to let others decide to
make them choose between writing Baihuawen or not write at all.

As for the bible in Cantonese, yes there are, and they are still used.

There are also versions in Hakka (kejiahua), Wu, Minnan, and all other
Chinese vernaculars. Most of them use hanzi, but some use Whites'
languages' characters, and some use a mixture (representing only some
functions words with the roman letters).

I daresay that most of these aren't widely used but this is for the
alternative reason that Christianity is, for various reasons, not well
tolerated in China (except in ethnic minorities), and outside the
mainland most Chinese speak Cantonese, Minnan, and Hakka besides
Mandarin. Thusly Minnan and Hakka bibles are used by some peoples in
Taiwan, and Cantonese and Hakka bibles is used by some people in
Hongkong and maybe Macao.

This delves into the debate on whether the Bible should be written in
an extra formal literary language that is difficult to imagine
happening (in most of the widely-used English translations, it's
difficult to imagine real people in real situations speaking that
way), or to use a colloquial style that is easier for people to
understand and relate to.

I, not being religious (and what religion I do have is an amalgamy of
Judaism and Christianity but with more Atheism than either), don't
have a preference, but in Bible translation it is always a
consideration.

Some Arabic churches prefer to read the Bible with God's speech in a
formal manner, while others use local colloquial forms because it is
easy to imagine people saying the words, in real life, although I
think most Arab churches use vernacular versions (the exception would
be churches where there is populations from many different dialects -
it would be difficult to read vernacular Bibles in a church which is
25% Algerian, 25% Yemeni, 25% Lebanese, and 25% Bahraini, you would
need 4 different bibles)

Mark

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 18:18:47 +0800, Sheng Jiong <sheng.jiong at gmail.com> wrote:
> Guys, I do admire your passion and your enthusiasm (although I have no
> idea how long will that last). I am not against you having a try on
> writing serious things in Cantonese (which you have not yet quite
> started, as far as I know, since till now all you have written are
> just stubs less than even 200 characters). I still hold my opinion
> that there is not a necissity for a Cantonese Wikipedia(or any other
> Chinese dialect Wikipedias) to exist, but I encourage helpful
> discussions and even a vote if necessary should you decide to formally
> propose setting up one. What I do not want to see is the set up of a
> Cantonese Wikipedia without the consent of the entire Wikipedia
> community, especially the Chinese Wikipedia community (as in the case
> of Ming-nan Wikipedia).
> 
> (Someone mentioned about Bible translated into Algerian Arabic. I just
> wonder: is there any Cantonese translations of Bible, and if there is,
> is anybody still uses this version?)
> 
> [[User:Formulax]]
>