[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia in Chinese dialects

Thu Feb 3 21:30:45 UTC 2005

On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 01:41:43 +0800, Alex Kwan <litalex at slashyalex.com> wrote:
> 
> And even going from your perspective, waving around the figure of 1
> billion+ people in China doesn't work that well. How many of those 1
> billion+ people have frequent access to a computer, to the net? And can
> find their way to the wikipedias?

One of Wikipedia's goals is to provide the source for CD, DVD and
print editions, so that it's not just people who have computer and net
access.

(From Guardian UK, October 26, 2004, http://tinyurl.com/5z937):
'However, Wales and his community of volunteers are not resting on
their laurels. He is in negotiations to print part of the content, and
distribute it in Africa as part of their ambition to "put a free
encyclopedia in the hands of every person on the planet".'

Also, see: [[en:Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team]]

> I don't know how to find out, but there is a possibility that the
> percentage of Cantonese/Yue and Wu speakers who have frequent access to
> the net is higher than the purely Mandarin speakers... Because some of
> the fastest growing/most developed regions are Guangdong and Jiangsu
> province. And Jiangsu is specialising in computer chips, etc.

Interesting point, though in the PRC, not sure what "purely Mandarin
speakers" refers to. For most PRC folks, there is the local dialect
for the household and community, and putonghua for schooling and
formal business. I gave a talk to Jiangsu Media Group last year (part
of it about Wikipedia) and the majority of regional radio and
television content is not in the local dialect, but in putonghua. For
Guangdong's local media, it's largely the same case.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)