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

[Felix Wan]

On Fri, February 18, 2005 6:22 pm, Sheng Jiong said:
>
> That is why it has made Minnan Wikipedia a big joke. Extremely few
> Minnan speakers (even in Taiwan) can understand what the hack these
> guys are writing about in their Minnan Wikipedia. Because Minnan simply do
> not yet have a standardised writing system (despite Taiwanese government's
> effort to establish one, most grown-ups in Taiwan sitll cannot comprehend
> written Minnan, and there is no Minnan newspaper, only one TV channel)
>
Here, I invite people from zh-min-nan: to speak.

People who know written Chinese may read this nice article at zh:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BD%E8%A9%B1%E5%AD%97

Of course, even that level of usage will not meet the popularity
requirement of Sheng Jiong, so actually I am inviting other people to
read and to judge if we can call that a standardized writing system.

> There are not standard. No one has formalised these "characters", not
> the Hong Kong government (both before and after 1997), not the Guangdong
> government, not any governments in the world. There is also not a standard
> developed by any influential non-government organizations.
>
Does the work of respected scholars count?  See the reference section
of the second link below.  The following pages are in Chinese.
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary1.htm
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary2.htm

I believe that does not count according to Sheng Jiong's standard, but I
invite other people to make a fair judgement.

> Your edit is reverted because you used these non-standard characters.
> But put characters aside, the grammar is the same for Cantonese and
> Chinese.
>
Sheng Jiong has ignored all the examples given in this list.  They are
not the same.  Cantonese speakers can testify that for a passage written
in Baihuawen, even if we replace all the non-cognate functional words with
their equivalent ones, e.g., dik1 with ge3, liu2 with zo2, zoi6 with hai2, etc.  The passage still does not sound like natural Cantonese.  The
statement that "the grammar is the same for Cantonese and Mandarin" is
plain wrong.

People who are interested to learn the facts may read this book:
Gao Huanian, /Guangzhou Fangyan Yanjiu/, Commerce Press, Hong Kong, 1984
ISBN: 962-07-4003-3  (In Chinese)

(Sorry, my email client does not process Unicode characters correctly,
so I will have to stick to Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin, and Jyutping for
Cantonese.)

The stand point of that author was that "Chinese is one language" and
"Cantonese is a dialect", but he honestly said that "Guangzhou fangyan
he xiandai Hanyu yiji Hanyu de qita fangyan dou you hen da de chabie."
(The Cantonese dialect is very different from modern [standard] Chinese
and other Chinese dialects.)

That book go on to explain the sound system, grammar and vocabulary of
Cantonese.  He collected 2400 commonly used words and expressions that
are distinct from modern [standard] Chinese.  Distinct meant different
even when written.

He also acknowledges that most Cantonese specific words has customary
written forms in Cantonese communities.  Those forms are used in his
book.

That book is full of examples, and there are several prolonged passages
at the end.  The first one is a translation of the first chapter from Lu Xun's novel /Kong yiji/.

> We are now seeing a small portion of Cantonese speakers who believe
> that there should be something as a Cantonese Wikipedia. But for most 
> Cantonese speakers (even if you just limit that to Hong Kongers), most
> people object such proposals because most people know that Cantonese is
> NOT a written language. Again I want you to show me evidence that
> Cantonese IS a written language (do not tell me X books are written in
> Cantonese, because these are just 1 or 2 exceptions. What I want to see
> is 1) has any school began teaching WRITTEN CANTONESE; 2) has any
> newspapers/magazines started writing in Cantonese)
>
I wonder how Sheng Jiong know that most people from Hong Kong will object
such proposals.  I believe there are some support and some opposition, but
most people are indifferent.  We never know unless we can do a scientific
poll.

I believe that earlier on Sheng Jiong claimed that there is not even one
book written entirely in Cantonese.  Now obviously he has raised the bar:
even if X books are written in Cantonese, those are exceptions.  I don't
know how many will be significant.

Even if we can find a school teaching written cantonese, I believe that
will be an exception.  He may require that it must happen in government
sponsored grade schools.

If we can many articles written in Cantonese, he may require a newspaper
or magazine written completely in Cantonese.  And if there is one, then
of course that on newspaper is an exception.

I understand that the main point of Sheng Jiong is that Cantonese has to
be widely accepted as a written language before we consider using it to
write Wikipedia.  However, we all understand that there are different
degrees of acceptance.  How much acceptance is enough?

Written Cantonese does not have an official status, but it surely exists
and is practiced by many.  It is not taught in grade schools, but every
literate Cantonese speakers can understand it without much training.
It is not a prestige written language, so there is always a risk that
someone will ridicule Wikimedia foundation if Cantonese Wikipedia is
allowed.

To avoid controversy, perhaps Wikimedia should disallow new Wikipedia
whenever there is opposition, and set that as a policy.  That may not
sound good, but that could be a prudent decision.  But if that is not
the goal, I will invite the board to read all the arguments, learn the
facts, weigh the pros and cons, and make the best decision.

Felix Wan