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

Sat Feb 19 02:35:43 UTC 2005

Now I just want to do a summary of my opinions, and I hope
pro-Cantonese Wikipedians can offer good and sensible answers to my
doubts.

1) Cantonese is not a written language. It is a spoken dialect(or
language, whatever you call it). The current Chinese Wikipedia is
written in standard Chinese language, which can be read in Mandarin or
Cantonese or whaever dialect you choose. Not everybody can speak
Mandarin, but most Chinese can read standard Chinese written language.
Therefore Cantonese Wikipedia should not exist because it is not a
written language and Cantonese speakers can understand Chinese
Wikipedia.

2) Even if Cantonese is, as some insist, a written language, it does
not yet have a standardised writing system. There is not a definite
grammar, not a definite set of distinct Cantonese characters to be
used. It would be hard even for native Cantonese speakers to
understand Cantonese articles that try to explain such sophiscated
topics like Theory of Relativity.

3) It is not easy to write entirely in Cantonese, as some of you have
already discovered. And neither has anyone written anything in
Cantonese entirely that has been accepted by the general public.

4) Wikipedia is a serious collaborative encyclopedia project. We are
not advocating the use of Cantonese as a written language. The fact is
hardly anyone today write in Cantonese, and so let it be. It is not
Wikipedia's responsibility to educate the public or to change their
behaviours. If one day Cantonese has indeed become a widely accepted
written language I would not oppose the set up of a Cantonese
Wikipedia.

And lastly I just want to clarity Wikipedia's policy on setting up a
new Wikipedia: if a group of native speakers want to set up a
Wikipedia despite the fact that majority of the speakers of that
language do not wish to do so, should we allow them to have a new
Wikipedia? As in the case of Cantonese, even Hong Kongers are
generally opposed to the idea, and should we still allow few advocates
to have it?

[[User:Formulax]]