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

Sun Feb 20 07:02:19 UTC 2005

Hello,

Sheng Jiong wrote:
> Yes, I know that Cantonese has slight differences in the order of
> words compared with Mandarin.

That's like saying English has slight differences in the order of words 
compared with Latin. That's part of the grammatical difference. It *is* 
a different sentence structure.

> But again you are mixing Mandarin with Baihuawen.

Baihuawen is more or less the Mandarin vernacular, the grammar, the 
syntax, sentence structure, etc. are based on the Mandarin vernacular.

> Hong Kongers speak only Cantonese, but they write in
> Baihuawen.

a) Many HKers also speak a smattering of Mandarin (and English) and we 
*do* write in Cantonese for memos and for online BBS, etc. The common is 
practice is use baihuawen for serious/complicated articles, but that's 
because it was considered proper. Just because it's a long-held 
tradition doesn't mean it's inherently right.

> English (Take Singapore English as a best example: "Would you be able
> to attend?" in English would become "You can go or not?" in Singlish.
> Totally different grammar, but is Singlish a written language? No. It
> is still a dialect in English).

I doubt "Singlish" and English is the best analogy.

little Alex