View source for Proposal for Sinitic linguistic policy

[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:Multilingualism]]

<font color=blue>'''''<big><big><big>F</big></big></big>'''''</font>ollowing a heated debate on Wikipedia-l, everybody mostly just forgot about the requests for Wikipedias in different Sinitic languages.

== Background reading ==
=== In English ===
Wikipedia articles:
*Written Chinese
**[[w:Chinese written language|Chinese written language]]
**[[w:Vernacular Chinese|Vernacular Chinese]]
**[[w:Written Cantonese|Written Cantonese]]
**[[w:Classical Chinese|Literary/Classical Chinese]]
*Spoken Chinese
**[[w:Chinese language|Chinese language]]
**[[w:Cantonese (linguistics)|Cantonese]]
**[[w:Mandarin (linguistics)|Mandarin]]
**[[w:Wu (linguistics)|Wu]]
**[[w:Hakka (linguistics)|Hakka]]
**[[w:Minnan (linguistics)|Minnan]]

=== 中文 ===
*維基百科
**[[w:zh:粵語白話文|粵語白話文]]
**[[w:zh:白話文|白話文]]
**[[w:zh:文言文|文言文]]
**[[w:zh:中文|中文]]
**[[w:zh:粵語|粵語]]
**[[w:zh:吳語|吳語]]
**[[w:zh:客家話|客家話]]
**[[w:zh:閩南話|閩南話]]
**[[w:zh:北方話|北方話]]
*[http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ Cantonese Organisation (in Cantonese)]
*[http://www.wu-chinese.org/ 吳語]

== Details ==
11 people voted for the creation of a Cantonese Wikipedia. Explicit opposition came from Shizhao, Fuzheado, and ???.
14 people voted for the creation of a Wu Wikipedia. Explicit opposition came from Shizhao, Fuzheado, and ???. 3 out of the 14 voters were possibly fake.
2 people voted for the creation of a Hakka Wikipedia. Nobody expressed opposition, though it was not a widely-publicised request.

'''Proposal''': To create a Cantonese Wikipedia (in 粵語白話文) right away at http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/ , and to create a Wu Wikipedia in the near future. Do not exclude the possibility of Wikipedias in other Sinitic languages.

=== Voting trends ===
In the past 40 days or so whilst the vote has been going on, there seems to be a general pattern of (number of nays) &times; 3 is about equal to (number of ayes).  Whether this can be extrapolated when the sample size is around one billion is debatable.

The geographical, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds of "support" votes is widely varied, including native speakers of Cantonese, Mandarin, Minnan, English, Dutch, Tagalog, and many others, from at least 4 continents<!-- (Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia -- if there are more, please feel free to correct)-->. However, the background of "oppose" votes seems to be limited to native speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin, with the exception of one German mothertongue speaker. However, this may partially be due to the much smaller number of "oppose" votes.

It also appears that people who use enwiki more frequently than zhwiki are more likely to vote "support" than those who use zhwiki more frequently than enwiki.

== Vote - 投票 ==
This is a vote for the creation of these Wikipedias. The options are "support" and "oppose". If you wish to choose on a case-by-case basis, please vote in both sections but note which requests you support and which you oppose. The vote does not have a closing date, as its results will only act as a suggestion. If these Wikipedias are created, however, the poll may be closed.

=== Support - 贊成/赞成 ===
# [[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 08:15, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Harvzsf|Harvzsf]] 08:43, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Pektiong|Pektiong]] 11:23, 29 July 2005 (UTC) (I support the creation of Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), and Wu (zh-wuu) wikipedia)
# [[User:Waerth|Waerth]] 11:59, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:The Epopt|The Epopt]] 13:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Chun-hian|Chun-hian]] 16:18, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Arbeo|Arbeo]] 19:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Lankiveil|Lankiveil]] 22:07, July 29, 2005 (UTC) (I support Cantonese and Wu.  Hakka will have to be more thoroughly investigated to see if there's sufficient interest before I support that, however).
# [[User:Jasonzhuocn|Jasonzhuocn]] 15:40, 30 July 2005 (UTC)I support Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), Wu (zh-wuu) ,and Classical Chinese.
#: Now there is an idea: a classical Chinese wiki!  Too bad there is no [[:en:ISO 639|ISO 639]] code for classical Chinese, as there is for Greek (grc for ancient, gre/ell for modern).  What would be the target year for classical/literary Chinese, though?  [[:en:Tang dynasty|Tang dynasty]]? or perhaps [[:en:Ming dynasty|Ming dynasty]] is more appropriate as the canonical era?  Not that I can write fluently in either style....  I think at least it should aim so that people with Japanese [[:en:Kanbun|Kanbun]] training (and of course those with training in the Korean and Vietnamese traditions) should be able to read it as much as people with training in literary Chinese in Taiwan or in China. &ndash; [[User:Kaihsu|Kaihsu]] 16:22, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Kaihsu|Kaihsu]] 17:40, 30 July 2005 (UTC): support Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), and Wu (zh-wuu).
# [[User:bourquie|Bourquie]] 21:22 UTC, 30 Jul 2005
# [[User:Connie|Connie]] 21:01, 30 July 2005 (UTC) (Although I support the creation of Cantonese Wikipedia, I think we should develop a standard system of some Cantonese words. For example, some people would use "le" instead of "呢", "ge" instead of "嘅". Therefore develop a system is necessary.)
# [[User:Eternal|Eternal]] 22:12, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Jogloran|Jogloran]] 00:54, 31 July 2005 (UTC) (I support the concept of dialect Wikipedias including Yue, Hakka and Wu. However, I strongly believe that if we intend to start '''any''' dialect projects we need to standardise the use of dialect characters, as the lack of a written standard can cause considerable variability in the way these characters are rendered.) Who knows? This might be a chance to boost the profile of Chinese 'dialects' and demonstrate that they are more than their label!
# [[User:Felix Wan|Felix Wan]] 18:00, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:MilchFlasche|MilchFlasche]] 03:40, 2 August 2005 (UTC) (I support the creation of Cantonese, Wu, and Hakka. I also urge that future contributors recruit more people who might be interested in "dialects" writing to join the projects, and discuss more about writing standards most people could accept.)
# [[:w:User:Nat Krause]] 13:45, August {{CURRENTDAY}}, 2005 - I support the creation of a Cantonese Wikipedia. I have no opinion about other dialects (besides Minnan), although I certainly agree with "not exclud[ing] the possibility" of including them. Mark or someone else involved in the proposal might want to clarify whether the idea of a Wu Wikipedia would be to have it written in Chinese characters or in Roman letters (I'm assuming that the Cantonese would be in characters). Personally, I would like to see much higher restrictions placed on the creation of new Wikipedias in terms of commitments from prospective editors, but, until that change is made, I'd say Cantonese has met the standing requirements.
#--[[User:Ffaarr|Ffaarr]] 07:11, 3 August 2005 (UTC)I think it's a very good thing that everyone can get knowledge through his or her own language.The differences between mandarin chinese and the languages like Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, minnan  etc. are as much as or even more than between Italian and Spanish. There is no reason that we exclude them from wikipedia.
# '''Support'''. Most worthy of inclusion. [[User:Enochlau|Enochlau]] 10:20, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
# Support to Cantonese Wikipedia and Classical Written Chinese Wikipedia, but oppose the code zh-yue. We should instead use separate codes for each of the languages. No comment to Shanghainese and Hakka at the time being. Would like to see a Min Nan version written in Chinese characters. - [[Commons:User:CantoneseWiki|CantoneseWiki]] 19:24, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
#: discussion moved to [[Talk:Proposal_for_Sinitic_linguistic_policy#Discussion about a code for Cantonese]]
#*I will consider withdraw my support vote if zh-yue is chosen as the domain name. Zh-yue is not neutral. It implies Cantonese is a variant or a dialect. The fact is Cantonese versus written modern Chinese and Mandarin is more notable than Norwegian versus Danish. The neutral way is to use "cantonese" as the domain. See [[Talk:Proposal for Sinitic linguistic policy#Discussion about a code for Cantonese]] for the discussion. &mdash; [[Commons:User:CantoneseWiki|CantoneseWiki]] 11:36, 16 September 2005 (UTC) 
#**Hi CantoneseWiki, it's also possible to use ISO/DIS-3 code "yue". --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 00:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Satyadasa|Satyadasa]] 05:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:katimawan2005|katimawan2005]] 09:40, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Christopher Sundita|Chris]] 06:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC) Yes, of course.
#--[[User:KaurJmeb|KaurJmeb]] 10:13, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Chamdarae|Chamdarae]] 13:18, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
# All, immediately. It's ridiculous they've been blocked this long, and querulous proposals with tremendous collateral damage floated for the specific purpose of blocking them - [[User:David Gerard|David Gerard]] 20:59, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Caesarion|Caesarion]] 15:37, 21 August 2005 (UTC) Yes, I support it. I can think of no other reason for opposing than a political conviction.
# [[User:Jiminy Krikkitt|'''J''']].'''[[w:en:User talk:Jiminy Krikkitt|K]]'''. 12:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC) Never understood the case against, frankly. If you can scrape a decent number of contributors together, why ''not'', regardless of the language in question? Cantonese definitely, other languages subject to there being at least, say, five regular editors.
# [[User:Xingmu|Xingmu]] 08:08, 4 September 2005 (UTC) I have been thrilled to see the possibility of a Cantonese wikipedia come to light.  But after watching the ongoing discussions, I don't really understand what's taking so long.  Hasn't the opposition lost steam for its arguments?  I had put my arguments on my [[User talk:xingmu|talk page]].
# The ideal is that all people have Wikipedia is their own native language. --[[User:Millosh|Millosh]] 00:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
#:I '''write''' Wikipedia, not record my voice. And Chinese can read Chinese characters out in their accents. --[[User:Alexcn|Alexcn]] 09:01, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
#::As I saw from discussion, Cantonese has it's own writing system. Cantonese Wikipedia has more sense then zh-tw. --[[User:Millosh|Millosh]] 19:31, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
# --[[User:E2m|E2m]] 01:02, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
# --[[User:Tnssh|Tnssh]] 03:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
# --[[User:Ffootballchu|者尺 ]] [[image:Jason.GIF|20px]] [[User_talk:Ffootballchu|跟我談一談]] 09:07, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
# [[User:Oscar|<font color="red">o</font><font color="orange">s</font><font color="yellow">c</font><font color="green">a</font><font color="blue">r</font>]] 13:13, 6 September 2005 (UTC) imho any language with sufficient support (here) deserves its own wiki.
# --[[User:EssO|EssO]] 13:36, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
# --[[User:向柏霖|向柏霖]]
# --[[User:Theodoranian|theodoranian]] 09:01, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
#If someone is willing to write an article in dialects and if it is different from standard Chinese, we should respect that. If it doesn't do any harm to Standard Chinese Wikipedia, it should not bother Chinese Wikipedian in anyway. [[User:seasurfer|阿仁]]--[[User:Seasurfer|Seasurfer]] 11:10, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
# Recent nationalist propaganda aside, Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), Wu (zh-wuu), etc. are languages each with its own spectrum of dialects.  Historically the Chinese described them as ''fangyan'', or "regional tongues", an analysis not inconsistent with them being languages in Western linguistic terms.  Cantonese, in particular, has a strong and lively tradition of vernacular writing.  [[User:A-giâu|A-giâu]] 18:00, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
#[[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 19:33, 10 September 2005 (UTC) For the same reason we don't have 'Germanic' and 'Romantic' with 1.2 billion potential editors each.
# Agree with [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]]. --[[User:Willtron|Willtron]] 09:45, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
#[[User:Cicero|Cicero]] 10:32, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
#[[User:Pérez|Pérez]] 20:07, 12 September 2005 (UTC) (I support the creation of Cantonese (zh-yue), Hakka (zh-hakka), and Wu (zh-wuu)
# --[[User:Ilai|ian]] 18:15, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

=== Oppose - 反對/反对 ===
#I support any Chinese languages. But I think that developing Translation System is more effective. After all, the difference of languages is not very much.[[User:59.116.161.144|59.116.161.144]] 13:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
#:Please log in. That's not to say your vote won't be counted if you don't, just that it would be better if you did.
#:------
#:The same could be said of, say, Spanish and Portuguese.  While it is possible to write Sinitic languages in such a way as to make machine translation easier (mainly by imposing a strict syntatical structure), in general the more the style is speech-like, the more difficult it is to translate.  In Southern Min 我要打你 is "góa beh kā lí phah" (我卜共汝扑), or translated syllable by syllable into Mandarin: "我要給(?)你打", where 給 is a very rough (and ultimately incorrect) translation of "kā".  [[User:A-giâu|A-giâu]] 19:56, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
#Creating wikipedias for Cantonese and Wu dialects is just similar to creating wikipedias for British English, Canadian English and Australian English. Wikipedia is a written project, not spoken (at least at present). The difference between writing down Cantonese, Wu and Putonghua in Hanzi script is much less than recording their pronunciations. Just an example, we won't create two wikipedias just because one pronounces the English word "either" as [aIðər] and another one pronounces it as [I:ðər] --[[User:Sl|Hello World!]] 16:53, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
#:Do some homework and [http://www.pinyin.info/readings/ read some books on the topic].  Anyone who says that Cantonese written down is not much different from Mandarin has not seriously tried to write Cantonese down oneself. &ndash; [[User:Kaihsu|Kaihsu]] 18:15, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
#:Hi Hello World!, we aren't talking about Mandarin-based "baihuawen", but rather 粵語白話文 (Cantonese written vernacular), and a similar equivalent for Wu. It would indeed be pointless to create a Wikipedia for Cantonese in Baihuawen (Bakwahbun in Cantonese I think). --Node
#:Being a native Cantonese person, I often write Cantonese-style language in somewhere like discussion forum and chat rooms. In most languages, the written form is not 100% equal to the colloquial form. The difference bet0ween Mandarin-based ''baihuawen'' and Cantonese, like "的" and "嘅", "這個" and "呢個", is not justifiable enough to establish a different version of Wikipedia. Wikipedia should not be a place to '''promote''' certain style of writing.--[[User:Sl|Hello World!]] 08:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
#:: You are right that "[i]n most languages, the written form is not 100% equal to the colloquial form" (e.g. written Arabic vs. spoken Arabic).  But the difference is more than one of "style" ([[:en:Register (linguistics)]] is a better term).  In this case one would, at the very least, have to learn a separate set of vocabulary, both content and grammatical words.  [[User:A-giâu|A-giâu]] 20:13, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
#What is the point of making a new wikipedia for a prounoucation? Agreed to "Hello World!", it's pointless, unless wikipedia evlove to a standard enable sound as output. Also consider the following problems: '''1'''. The effort of making the chinese wikipedia will be diverted (if we had different wikipedia on it, also considering on redunancy). '''2'''. The Chinese wikipedia's content detail is already fall much behind from the english one, should we concenrate the efforts on creating or may be tranalting it, rather than making another sub-wikipedia? '''3'''. Will it ever grow? creating a wikipedia requires a lot of effort, and since there is already one Chinese-Wikipedia will other user bother to creating a cantonese one from scratch? I doubted.. '''Conclude''' Other than pride of having a wikipedia of our own language, I can't see any reason of creating such wikipedia  --[[User:Zektonic|Zektonic]] 17:51, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
#:Hi Zektonic, we aren't talking about Mandarin-based "baihuawen", but rather 粵語白話文 (Cantonese written vernacular), and a similar equivalent for Wu. It would indeed be pointless to create a Wikipedia for Cantonese in Baihuawen (Bakwahbun in Cantonese I think). --Node
#The official written language is the same throughout China: 白話文. The only difference is 繁體 (in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan) and 簡體(in mainland China). The current Chinese wikipedia already features a translator to suit these needs, so basically the whole population in understanding the materials. The spoken language, unarguably, is differented in regions; however, we're dealing with the written language, which the whole population that speaks Chinese should have learnt. So, I see that it does not come to importance to actually create different Wikipedias featuring only the spoken language.[[User:Crosstimer|Crosstimer]] 03:51, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
#:Hello there. I was under the impression that a dialect Wikipedia would not be rendered simply in 白話文 but, in the case of Cantonese for example, be rendered in a mesolect of the kind you see in glossy magazines - a form which is usually closer to the spoken language. If this is the case, then surely this involves more than the re-mapping of characters. [[User:Jogloran|Jogloran]] 07:25, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
#::This is correct Jogloran. It is for the variety used in some magazines, tabloids, some websites, etc;. See [[Test-wp/Zh-yue/|here]] for a preview. --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 07:42, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
#I agree with '''Hello World!''' I think it's '''useless''' & just a '''waste of time''' to creat versions for different Chinese dialects, '''especially for Cantonese'''. It's because though the spoken vocabulary can be very different between the dialects, the written vocabulary is almost the same. It's almost the same, just few different characters.  On the other hand, most of Hong Kong's & Guangdong's printing materials are written in Mandarin-based texts. As a Cantonese Native speaker, I'd like to tell you guys that we're able to & used to get information from reading Mandarin-based texts. Be honest, I find it really weird when I reading the Sample Articles. [[User:Yuyu|Jeromy~Yuyu]] 17:06, 31 July 2005 (UTC) 
#:Yes but wasn't the motto of the BakWaMaan movement "我手寫我口"? But they only considered it for people who speak Mandarin, not for others -- Cantonese people certainly aren't writing as they speak. Why is it that people modify, first their writing, and then even their speech to match Mandarin? What happens if we change English, so that it's Swedish with each word translated separately? This is simply not natural, and in my view it is a bad thing. I think it would've been better if people kept Classical Chinese writing (MaanJinMaan) -- that is more unified, and is not anybody's native language. But, now the monster has been set free, and if Mandarin speakers can "write their mouths", why shouldn't other people too?? --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 06:31, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
#:Even Beijing spoken language does not exactly match ''baihuawen''. There are lots of slangs in Beijing language that are not comprehensible by other Chinese people. Is it justifiable to create a Pekingese Wikipedia? If Cantonese language gets an individual version of Wikipedia, I think there should be over 100 versions of Chinese dialects Wikipedia, over 10 versions of English Wikipedias, and about 20 versions of German dialects Wikipedia. --[[User:Sl|Hello World!]] 10:41, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
#::Cantonese is unique in that it _does_ appear in print. It is lucky enough to have something approximating a written standard of colloquial speech. [[User:Jogloran|Jogloran]] 11:01, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
#::It Does, but not the Mainstream..........[[User:Yuyu|Yuyu]] 09:41, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
#:::I find it odd that entertainment news sold just about everywhere in Hong Kong is considered "not the Mainstream".  [[User:A-giâu|A-giâu]] 20:23, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
#::Cantonese is a bigger group than Beijing dialect. Cantonese includes the speech of Hongkong, Macao, Guangzhou, Zhongshan... Beijing is just the dialect of Beijing. It should compare Mandarin and Cantonese, excluding perhaps such outlying varieties as Toisan, Pinghua, Jinhua, etc. This way we only need maybe 10 to 15 separate Wikipedias at the most -- Cantonese, Wu, Kejia, "New Xiang", "Old Xiang", Gan... except right now probably only Cantonese, Wu, and Kejia could be created since the others aren't ever written (Wu and Kejia aren't often written, but they are written more often than Xiang and Gan). Also it is absurd to say Beijing spoken language does not match baihuawen. Yes, there are a couple of differences, but these are the small differences between different Mandarin dialects, nothing like the difference between colloquial Cantonese writing and baihuawen. --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 23:15, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
#:: I think the motto "我手寫我口" is really silly. Their must be some difference between Baihuawen & Manderin/ Putonghua all the time......... also, Cantonese has no such "Standard Grammar" as Manderin/Putonghua has. Everyone will have their own Standard, & will cause lots of fusions & conflict on editing.
#:: In fact, in both Hong Kong, Macau & Guangdong, the written baihuawen is actually Manderin-based. Only some entertainment material will use the Cantonese-base Baihuawen. If a sperate Cantonese Wikipedia will just a repeat of the Maderine with just few-word-difference, exp. "of", "he", "what"......Actually, most the traslation of names are the same.
#:: After all, if Cantonese can archieve an seperate Wikipedia Status, Well, all Chinese dialects should get one.... & there are more than '''600 Chinese Dialect'''. [[User:Yuyu|Yuyu]] 09:39, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
#::: Yuyu, there are only 600 dialects if you consider it at a city-by-city basis. Cantonese is not on that basis. If you consider it on the level of Cantonese, there are definitely less than '''20 Chinese languages'''. --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 17:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
# Chinese characters as well as most grammar are common for all these dialects, so differences between pronunciation is not necessary to separate different dialects as European languages, as they have differences in spelling. In most cases, we share a writing system but read as we like. Separate zh-wiki will strongly divide the power for writing. Zh-wiki is not a testing-field for fewly-used and immature written system. But as old Chinese (文言文) has a quite different grammar and writing manner, as well as bridge between Chinese and Japan, Korea etc., as Latin in Europe or Samskrit in India, I agree to set only old Chinese. --[[zh:User:Polyhedron|polyhedron(古韻)]] 07:48, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
#: Hi, I think you're right about one thing, which is that writing systems for all these languages (well you may regard them as "dialects", while I would dub them "languages"; anyway we all know what we mean) are quite immature now, especially for Hakka and Wu --- but you gotta believe that Cantonese can really be written with very few difficulty, if you see enough Hong Kong forums. And there's something most people who oppose to Sinitic Languages particularity tend to ignore: the difference between these dialects/languages is not only in pronunciation of the reservoir of the whole Hanzi characters, but also in a lot of daily expressions and funcion words. Take Cantonese and Minnan for example, many words they use have no correspondences in Hanzi, and they have etymologies quite different than Medieval Chinese. Therefore, it's quite useful to reconsider the concept of "Chinese dialects", because they do have differences bigger than many European "languages". Don't let the term tease us, and don't ignore linguistic varieties because of political unity. :) --[[User:MilchFlasche|MilchFlasche]] 05:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
#:: And one more thing. My ''mother tongue'' is Cantonese, not Mandarin, not 'Chinese', but specifically Cantonese. When I read through the sample articles in Cantonese linked above, I was struck by how much clearer it was to my mind. When I read a text written in standard language, it takes a little longer for the exact meaning to become apparent. [[User:Jogloran|Jogloran]] 15:32, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
#There is no need making a new wikipedia for a prounoucation.--[[User:Zy26|[[w:zh:User:zy26|zy26]] [[w:zh:User_talk:zy26|(Talk)]]]] 02:12, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
#:Have you read the test wikipedia of Cantonese? It is so different from the Chinese that in many places I can't understand. The difference from the two language(even in written form) is much more than pronunciation. The difference is simply provable by the fact that if someone write Cantonese in Zh wikipedia, the article will be deleted or modified into Chinese.--[[User:Ffaarr|Ffaarr]] 08:34, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
#::maybe we can modify the policy of Zh wikipedia.--[[User:Zy26|[[w:zh:User:zy26|zy26]] [[w:zh:User_talk:zy26|(Talk)]]]] 02:02, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
#--[[User:Elian|Elian]] 03:04, 6 September 2005 (UTC) 
#:Elian, I am curious as to the rationale of your vote...? --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
#Almost the same.--[[User:Truth|Truth]] 11:10, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
#:Please see [[w:zh:粵語白話文|粵語白話文]]. --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
#I just can't understand why some people try hard to devide Chinese into pieces.--[[User:BenBenI|BenBenI]] 12:55, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
#:why not oppose  after understanding it?--[[User:Ffaarr|Ffaarr]] 14:18, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
#There are no standard writting systems for Chinese dialects. The existing Contonese and Minnan wikis are difficult to understand even by the most of people who speak the same dialets.  If a wiki only used by a few people there would be no need to create it. --[[User:Fanghong|Fanghong]] 09:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
#:Do YOU speak Cantonese or Minnan? Did you know that no Cantonese Wikipedia exists yet?? With regards to standard writing systems, please see Chinese Wikipedia article [[w:zh:粵語白話文|粵語白話文]] --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
#::Better you read [[w:zh:粵語白話文|粵語白話文]] carefully, the artical said there is no '''standard''' writing systems and there are a lot ambiguous and confuse characters even used English words. There is a Japanese word (玄关) used as "Main Page" in existing Cantonese test Wikipedia .--[[User:Fanghong|Fanghong]] 02:04, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
#:::You said "are difficult to understand even by the most of people who speak the same dialets". This is not true. Most Cantonese speakers can read in [[w:zh:粵語白話文|粵語白話文]]. The majority of characters in YueYuBaiHuaWen are not difficult or ambiguous, that is a small minority only. 玄关 is not Japanese, it's Cantonese. --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 05:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
#:::I have a partial list here of Japanese words borrowed into Mandarin Chinese over the course of a century.  It runs dozens of pages long and has words like ''jingji'' (economy) and ''wenhua'' (culture) [the latter existed in ancient Chinese texts but had a different meaning.  The Japanese attached the current meaning to it, which was later imported back to China].  Suffice it to say that were these words to be deleted from Chinese, all newspapers and textbooks would be riddled with blanks.  [[User:A-giâu|A-giâu]] 10:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
#:::See the meaning of [http://140.111.34.46/cgi-bin/dict/GetContent.cgi?Database=dict&DocNum=103642&GraphicWord=yes 玄關] and [http://140.111.34.46/cgi-bin/dict/GetContent.cgi?Database=dict&DocNum=103643&GraphicWord=yes 玄關妙理]. - [[:Commons:User:CantoneseWiki|CantoneseWiki]] 12:07, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
#Nonstandardized pronunciations differ even in one dialect. Such difference would be a hazard if these new wikipedia adopt phonetic written systems. And it would be meaningfulless if they prefer Chinese characters. --[[User:Alexcn|Alexcn]] 08:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
#:See zh.wp article [[w:zh:粵語白話文|粵語白話文]] --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
#I will have to vote against it, as I find it absurd to create a seperate wiki from American/British/Australian/Indian/Singaporean English, the same for creating dialect variations of Chinese pages. I was not active in Wiki when zh-min-nan was set up. If I was, I would have voted against the establishment of zh-min-nan as well. These are just variations of the same language--[[User:Kren|Kren]] 00:21, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
#:See zh.wp article [[w:zh:粵語白話文|粵語白話文]] --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
#:These two situations are different at all.Why not read some articles in wikipedia about these languages?  Users of these languages can't communicate with users of Mandarin Chinese at all.But the user of British, American, Austalian...etc. English  all can talk with each other with little difficulty.--[[User:Ffaarr|Ffaarr]] 00:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC) 
#::Indeed. I'm beginning to wonder if these people here are all from up North?? --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 03:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
#:::You're right.  I wonder if the real reason behind the opposition is not so much linguistic as political.  Probably because they "oppose threats to the motherland" real or imagined from alleged "splitists".  --[[User:Harvzsf|Harvzsf]] 07:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)  
#::::Well I'm afraid all of you are wrong. I am not from up north, but rather more south than you. I am opposing to this due to linguistic considerations and not political... and you are the people who are politicizing it. May I ask, if you have been actively lobbying for people to come and vote and the reason you get them here is political or linguistic?--[[User:Kren|Kren]] 12:11, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
#:::::Yes, it's quite easy to find out that you're from Singapore. But attitudes of Singaporeans have been shaped (in large part by massive gahmen popplerganda) to the position that is prevalent in Beijing, which coincidentally seems to be your current place of residence. But other than you, the most recent voters against it are all from Mandarin-speaking places: Chengdu, Nanjing, "Northeast China"... As to your accusation of vote-stacking, I sent e-mails to ALL Cantonese speakers on en.wiki, and in fact some of them voted against it (for example Sl, Hello World!, or Jeromy~Yuyu), but the majority voted for it -- Connie, Enochlau, Jogloran, and quite a few others... -- Node
#:::::::You are making too many assumptions and not all your facts are correct. As for vote-stacking, its against web-community's current ettiqutte, and especially so for a academic based project like wikipedia. --[[User:Kren|Kren]] 01:36, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
#::::::::1) Which facts are incorrect? Am I wrong that you are from Singapore, and you have lied on your userpage?? 2) Please read my previous message again. Quite obviously vote stacking is bad. '''BUT I DID NOT STACK VOTES AS YOU ACCUSED ME'''. --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 05:01, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
#::::::::: Vote is vote, every one has the right to express his opinion. You have right to support but you have no right to use political or localist prejudice against people who have different opinian. Almost all Chinese Singapornese are Cantonese speaking. and there are a lot Cantonese speaking people live in different area. --[[User:Fanghong|Fanghong]] 02:20, 12 September 2005 (UTC) 
#:::::::::: Where are you getting your information? The vast majority of Chinese Singaporeans speak Hokkien (FuJianHua) or Teochew (ChaoZhouHua), not Cantonese. Cantonese is a minority in Singapore. Next time, read up a bit on a subject before saying such wildly inaccurate things. --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 04:52, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
#Oppose. Resources are limited, in particular time. It would be better to build up a good baihua written Chinese wiki now, instead of fragmenting into different wikis that all lack enough support to sustain it. I foresee a written cantonese wiki dying off very soon, mostly because the effort that will go into it, will go to waste. It is one thing to have specific cantonese entries (for), it is another thing to reproduce a whole wiki into written cantonese (totally against), considering the work that needs to be done yet. 
#:Just to note:  Two of the 10 largest Wikipedias (Swedish and Dutch) are from languages with under 5 million speakers.  Even if the Chinese language family was divided up into 100 sublanguages, you'd have enough speakers in each to make a full Wikipedia.  [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 22:25, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
#I think we should work together in Chinese Wikipedia, Cantonese is a part of Chinese. Also Cantonese is not a written language, but I think Cantonese would be a part of spoken article project in Chinese Wikipedia.--[[User:Simon Shek|Simon Shek]] 13:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
#:Cantonese ''is'' a written language... 粵語白話文. Did you look at the test-wikipedia?? --[[User:Node ue|Node ue]] 09:15, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
#::I think we should try to use Cantonese in spoken article at zh:wikipedia, instead of create new language version. We should put more time on Chinese wikipedia. Encyclopedia is for knowledge, not for preserving a language. School in Hong Kong would not accept an essay which is writing in Cantonese Chinese. Writing an encyclopedia article should use formal style.--[[User:Simon Shek|Simon Shek]] 15:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

==Reference==
The romanization of "白話文" in Cantonese is <span lang="en" style="font-family:'Arial Unicode MS';">"bɑk9 wɑ2 mɐn4" or "ˍbɑk ˊwɑ ˌmɐn"</span>.--[[User:Sl|Hello World!]] 11:26, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
#  some Sl --[[User:Shizhao|Shizhao]] 01:49, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

*[[w:zh:Wikipedia:聚会/2005香港維基人聚會|HK Wikipedia meetup 2005 summary]]