[Wikipedia-l] Request for classical Chinese

[Mark Williamson]

Well, I meant it as a joke, with a true mixing of different languages.

But the problem you mention may exist too. There are slightly
different "dialects" of wenyan that developed in Japan, Vietnam,
Korea, China, and elsewhere where it was used.

In fact, in Japan sometimes special characters called "kanbun" were
used to assist in comprehension of the text. These would be nonsense
to most Chinese-educated readers and editors.

But in general I think that the differences are very small.

Mark

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 15:11:45 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan
<felixwiki at earthsphere.org> wrote:
> On Tue, March 1, 2005 12:54 pm, Mark Williamson said:
> > Indeed: Such a Wikipedia would be chaos.
> >
> > It does mirror the proposal from Meta however of a Wikipedia where
> > Cantonese and Mandarin and English, in characters and in romanisation
> > (any romanisation of your choosing, no specific one) are all mixed
> > together in one Wikipedia... except even MORE confusing!
> >
> > Mark
> >
> OK, now I get your point.  You mean that Classical Chinese interpreted
> by Chinese should not be mixed with kanbun (Classical Chinese interpreted
> by Japanese) and other versions of Classical Chinese, don't you?
> 
> I am not sure about that.  My impression is that there was only one
> written tradition.  However, because most people are not fluent enough
> in it, actual writings in it could differ.  Do we have similar problems
> with the Latin Wikipedia?
> 
> However, I have seen the different dialects of English coexist in en:
> and the two scripts of Chinese coexists in zh:, I think if there is a
> will, there is a way.  Say, we may collaborate to set a phonetic
> transliteration guideline which everyone should follow.
> 
> I want to ask abc_root how many supporters do you expect to find for
> that project.  I know some enthusiasts from a Classical Chinese forum
> and I can ask them if they are interested in the project.  We can test
> out the idea at Meta or Wikicities and see how compatible are the modern
> Chinese and modern Japanese perception of Classical Chinese.
> 
> I am not for splitting the existing zh:.  I am just excited by new
> ideas and enjoy the diversity of Wikipedia.
> 
> Felix Wan
> 
>