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

[Felix Wan]

On Thu, February 17, 2005 9:11 pm, Cathy Ma said:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm a native HK-Cantonese speaker - as I have been intrigued by your
> intense discussion I have been asking my friends around - 'have you ever
> seen/written an article in full Cantonese?'
>
Yes, I have.  I invite you to follow the links I posted in my last email.
This article is written in full Cantonese:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/writemyhand.htm

> The answers vary but in sum, none of us have ever written anything in
> full Cantonese in the context of article-writing.  Contrary to what you
> may believe, it is actually hard to write in full-Cantonese without
> mixing in formal Chinese in a passage.  But on an interpersonal level -
> that is much easier and we do write short memos an notes to one another
> in Cantonese.
>
I am a native HK Cantonese speaker too.  I have tried to write in full
Cantonese, and it becomes easy after some practice.  I will try to write
longer and longer articles in the test site.  Are you interested to take
just a look?

> On the other hand, in Hong Kong, most subtitles we have on TV or
> movies are in formal Chinese, which can be another example showing how 
> accustomed we are to converging from Cantonese to formal Chinese and vice
> versa.
>
We are accustomed only because we are educated that way.  I had the
advantage of having Mandarin as the medium of instruction when I was in
primary school.  I speak fluent Mandarin and fluent Cantonese when I was
in secondary school, which uses Cantonese in Chinese and Chinese History
lessons.

The teacher still needed to correct written Chinese by the students to
conform with the vocabulary and grammar of Mandarin, but both the teacher
and most of the students were unaware of the fact that they are actually
writing in a variety of Chinese different from Cantonese.  I was aware of
the fact, so when I wrote Chinese, I always thought in Mandarin, so my
written Chinese was always "correct".

Actually, I prefer subtitles written in standard Chinese (Mandarin)
because other Chinese who do not speak Cantonese may understand what is
going on.  That is the whole purpose of subtitles.  Have you ever seen
English subtitles on an English movie?

Standard written Chinese will always be more important than written
Cantonese.  I strongly support standard written Chinese and Putonghua,
but I do not understand why some people are so emotional against writing
in Cantonese.

> Of course my perspective can be skewed - but from the perspective of a
> native speaker, it is hard to write in full Cantonese.
>
You need to try.  Please also see our test sites and see if those articles
are written in full Cantonese:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-WP/zh-yue

> And btw, mainland Cantonese is not the same as HK Cantonese.  We have
> extra terms that mainland Cantonese wouldn't understand and vice versa.
> So my belief is that unless we are talking about a cultural jamming hub,
> it will not be too hard to foresee that the Cantonese page will have a
> hard time in retaining the critical mass in sustaining a viable Cantonese
> page.
>
Mainland Cantonese and HK Cantonese are close enough if we write articles
in Wikipedia.  The difference is smaller than that between British and
American English.

> Finally, we were taught Classical and formal Chinese in Cantonese -
> and actually some of the famous ancient poems which still recited by most
> of us were written by Cantonese.  I am proud of my mother-tongue and at
> the same time I do not see that having to write in formal-chinese is an
> insult to us.  Simply because there are some terms in Cantonese we don't
> even know how to write -  Cantonese is a verbal language and we base on
> the tone to communication.  But of course, I love to see more Cantonese
> speakers voice out their opinions on this.
>
Do you know that recently many scholars are finding out how to write those
terms?  You have to visit the links I posted last time and may be this
whole site:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/

Felix Wan