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

[Alex Y. Kwan]

Hello,

Sheng Jiong wrote:
> Because people choose to igonore it, and because it is just so small
> and it is almost non-existent. But I am not prepared to accept another
> Cantonese Wikipedia, and then Shanghainese, and then whatsoever trash.

I would appreciate it if you can argue using facts and not simply call 
other people's proposals trash. It's highly disrespectful.

> There are not standard. No one has formalised these "characters", not
> the Hong Kong government (both before and after 1997),

The HK government has a page explaining and giving links to a code that 
has all the Cantonese/Hong Kong-specific characters that the standard 
Big5 code might not have. I don't know what is formalising if this isn't.

Here, you can see for yourself:
http://www.info.gov.hk/digital21/chi/structure/cli_main.html

> But put characters aside, the grammar is the same for Cantonese and
> Chinese.

That's...incorrect, to say the least.

> 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.

All languages can be written down in one way or another, if the language 
speakers want to.

And there's no evidence that most Cantonese speakers would object such a 
  proposal. The three Cantonese speakers who had said anything here are 
Felix, Cathy, and I. I doubt we three are the only Cantonese speakers on 
this list or on zh.wikipedia.org.

> Again I want you to show me evidence that
> Cantonese IS a written language (do not tell me X books are written in

I'm now beginning to think that showing you the evidence when we find it 
is pointless, since you seem to be holding onto your stance based on 
emotions rather than facts. Any time Felix or I try (tries?) to show you 
something, your reply is the same: oh, that doesn't count, that's just 
an exception.

little Alex