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

Fri Feb 18 05:11:35 UTC 2005

Hi all,

I'm a native HK-Cantonese speaker - as I have been intrigued by your
intense discussion I have been asking my friends around - 'have you
ever seen/written an article in full Cantonese?'

The answers vary but in sum, none of us have ever written anything in
full Cantonese in the context of article-writing.  Contrary to what
you may believe, it is actually hard to write in full-Cantonese
without mixing in formal Chinese in a passage.  But on an
interpersonal level - that is much easier and we do write short memos
an notes to one another in Cantonese.

On the other hand, in Hong Kong, most subtitles we have on TV or
movies are in formal Chinese, which can be another example showing how
accustomed we are to converging from Cantonese to formal Chinese and
vice versa.

Of course my perspective can be skewed - but from the perspective of a
native speaker, it is hard to write in full Cantonese.

And btw, mainland Cantonese is not the same as HK Cantonese.  We have
extra terms that mainland Cantonese wouldn't understand and vice
versa.  So my belief is that unless we are talking about a cultural
jamming hub, it will not be too hard to foresee that the Cantonese
page will have a hard time in retaining the critical mass in
sustaining a viable Cantonese page.

Finally, we were taught Classical and formal Chinese in Cantonese -
and actually some of the famous ancient poems which still recited by
most of us were written by Cantonese.  I am proud of my mother-tongue
and at the same time I do not see that having to write in
formal-chinese is an insult to us.  Simply because there are some
terms in Cantonese we don't even know how to write -  Cantonese is a
verbal language and we base on the tone to communication.  But of
course, I love to see more Cantonese speakers voice out their opinions
on this.

-cathy

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:37:41 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan
<felixwiki at earthsphere.org> wrote:
> On Thu, February 17, 2005 12:30 pm, Mark Williamson said:
> > Hi Felix,
> >
> > Many of the responses there anger me because they almost go so far as
> > to say that Cantonese is worthless as a language.
> >
> > What about the guy who said something like "You will hardly get 50
> > characters in without wondering why Cantonese has so much 'junks'"?
> >
> > Or the people who said "Cantonese should only be used for informal
> > things." without giving a valid reason?
> >
> [snipped]
> 
> That is what I have said: I expect fierce opposition from Chinese, even
> native Cantonese speakers.  It is not easy to unlearn. ^_^  Compared to
> those responses, people here are quite enlightened and respecting.
> 
> However, also look at the brighter side.  If there was not such a debate,
> I may not have done so much research and found this group of enthusiasts:
> http://www.cantonese.org.cn/
> 
> There are some excellent articles on why we should encourage Cantonese
> speakers to write their own speeches:
> http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/writemyhand.htm
> http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/poorcantonese.htm
> The first one is written in Cantonese, the second in standard Chinese
> (Mandarin).
> 
> They have even compiled a list of Cantonese specific words, with
> references, and they stated on the web site to release the following
> two pages to the public domain:
> http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary1.htm
> http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary2.htm
> 
> Those can be a good starting point for the orthography of the potential
> Cantonese Wikipedia.
> 
> Felix Wan
> 
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