[Wikipedia-l] Individual Wikipedias for different Sinitic vernaculars (Cantonese debate) - update

Thu Jan 27 09:26:43 UTC 2005

> 3. Why are you so much against these Wikipedias being created if they
> are as you say so useless? Could it hurt?

That would depend on how much difference there is in the written 
languages/dialects in China, wouldn't it?

Owing to my very limited knowledge of Chinese, I have to hypothesize 
here. It seems to have been said that Chinese writing is the same all 
over the country - same glyphs, same meaning attached to the glyphs. 
Only the spoken language appears to differ so much as to be mutually 
incomprehensible.

If this is indeed the case, I cannot quite see the point of different 
Chinese wikipedias. This would appear to me similar to having a British 
wikipedia, an American one, and an Australian one, on the grounds that 
both spelling and pronounciation varies. And that would, IMHO, hurt, 
because you'd have needless duplication and fragmentation of articles. 
It would be so much more difficult for the reader to find information 
on a given subject, which is after all the main point of a wikipedia.

Of course, it would be different if there were significant differences 
among the way the various Chinese languages/dialects were written.

Skriptor