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Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Cantonese 2

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Cantonese Wikipedia

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submitted verification final decision
  This proposal has been approved.
The Board of Trustees and language committee have deemed that there is sufficient grounds and community to create the new language project.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

The requested project was created at zh-yue: at an indeterminate date. Note that this request was approved before the implementation of the standardised Language proposal policy, and should not be used as a model for future requests. Shanel 01:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal summary
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  • Notes/comments:
    • A language spoken in Hong Kong, one of the two official languages, together with English. Not intelligible to speakers of other Chinese languages.
    • Proposed for the same status as Min-nan Wikipedia, but based on a Standard Chinese characters interface
    • Oppose. Can #REDIRECT zh.--Shizhao 15:43, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Oppose Shizhao's opposition. Cantonese cannot redirect to zh:. Please quit harassing people.
      • Oppose Shizhao's opposition. Cantonese vocabulary is quite different from Standard Mandarin.
    • zh is now dominated by Altered Chinese characters, a version with a Standard Chinese characters is necessary, with context written in a en:Hong Kong language style.--Steve 16:29, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I am not opposing it. However, I have to make it clear that Cantonese is not a written language that its speakers would use for educational, research, legal or most serious communication purposes. You use it to gossip. Current Cantonese publications are mostly tabloids and other less-intellectual materials. In a Cantonese publication, you may see written Cantonese and nearly standard written Chinese co-exist (sometimes within an article or a sentence). In this case, the former is usually devoted for playful subjects. You may teach physics or mathematics in Cantonese, but the textbooks are possibly all in Chinese. People in Hong Kong use Chinese in their serious writings. Actually, people all over China have their dialects and they all use the same Chinese in writing. It is a part of our education. You may use Cantonese to do business. You just don't use its colloquial form to draft a contract. You may speak Jamaican English, but you don't usually write it unless you're a Reggae singer. Now please use your common sense. -- Toytoy 05:27, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • While this may be true, all over the world the vernacular is gaining power, for example Haitian Creole is official language now in Haiti, Jamaican Creole is becoming more and more respected slowly, and the same is true with Cantonese, Wu, etc. and it wouldn't hurt to try to write a Wikipedia in it (we already have a Wikipedia in Haitian Creole)
    • Proposal: Pages in UTF-8 encoding. Interface, article titles and articls in Traditional Chinese characters initially, and a Simplified characters version can be added.
    • Details of the language: Cantonese, Standard Cantonese,
    • Over 60 million native speakers in Hong Kong, Macao, Guangdong, Southeast Asia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Mutually unintelligible with other Han Chinese languages.
    • I appreciate that Wikimedia allows setting up Wikipedias in minority languages and even constructed experimental languages. Based on that, an encyclopedia based on vernacular Cantonese should be more viable. We have sizable native speakers. Yes, Cantonese speaking people are forced to write and read in vernacular Mandarin when dealing with more serious subjects, but why can't we write what the Physics teacher says word by word in Cantonese? The whole Bible has been translated into Cantonese and there is nothing playful about it. It may still sound experimental or politically incorrect, but let's make a try. I believe we can outgrow zh-min-nan very quickly. -- Felix Wan 19:53, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Also, in the Penkyamp edition, there should be Chinese character hyperlinks leading the Chinese character notes to their Chinese character articles. Penkyamp Cantonese will be like Hangul Korean, with words explained in Chinese characters in brackets when necessary. Pangguanzhe 23:36, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Wow! Now that's quite confident of Felix Wan:P But your arguments is feasible. We should make breakthrough for vernaculars; even what Toytoy has mentioned reflects the reality, let us appreciate that Wikimedia is always encouraging in face of minority languages. And I'm willing to see the well-minded competition among different vernaculars:)-- zh:user:MilchFlasche 08:22, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • I am confident in the growth of the Cantonese version based on traditional Han script because people in Hong Kong are already writing in it in various situations. It is even gaining popularity in Guangdong province, China. This .cn site is wriiten in it.[1] I can see the advantages of a version based on Latin script, and I will support it, but I do not think there will be wide enough support to sustain it. Cantonese still does not have a Latin script that is as popular as Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin. Which romanization scheme should we use then? A site with mixed schemes simply will not work. -- Felix Wan 00:28, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • A word to Chinese speakers uncomfortable with dialect versions: I strongly support Standard Chinese (Putonghua/Guoyu) and writing in regulated Standard Vernacular Chinese. I support the zh Wikipedia, which is written in it. It is essential for the communication among speakers of unintelligible dialects of China. However, supporting the standard dialect does not mean that we must oppose literary works in other dialects. Although they are not as widely accepted as Standard Chinese, let's allow projects that may sound experimental. Will those other Wikipedias draw human resources from the Standard Chinese Wikipedia? Let's remember the motto on Chinese Wikipedia: "海納百川, 有容乃大". Wikimedia is great because it encourages diversity. Those new Wikipedias may turn out to be attractors of new editors. -- Felix Wan 00:28, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Propose : two editions 1)Chinese Character Edition (mainly Traditional, including simplified. Sometime a simple "redirect" will eliminate the inconsistencies between trad and simp) 2)more importantly, a Penkyamp edition (mainly Penkyamp, Yale, Tongwa Lomaji). Latinization is essential to the standardization of Written Cantonese---its style, grammar, tones, vocabularies. It is not that Latinized Cantonese is widely used. Quite the contrary, it is not. But still, Latinized Cantonese is THE MOST INSTRUMENTAL WAY to codify Cantonese spoken as a standard language independent from Modern Standard Chinese which is based on Colloquial Mandarin. I hope you all understand this. Pangguanzhe 23:23, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC) Please also note that "I oppose a separate Simplified Chinese edition"
    • I noticed something interesting in this discussion. First of all, someone else added me to the "proposer" list. What is the difference between a "proposer" and a "person interested joining"? Then when I re-read the comments and profiles of the supporters, I discovered that we have very different ideas about how the Cantonese Wikipedia should look like:
      1. Steve's Cantonese page suggests that he wants a Wikipedia for Hong Kong, free from the administrators from the current zh. The language can be a mixture of Standard Chinese (Mandarin vernacular), Cantonese and English. I do not agree with that. I think the spirit of multiligual Wikipedias is division by language, not by geographical location or political views. We Chinese speakers of different political background should learn to share one Wikipedia just as different English speakers do.
      2. Pangguanzhe appears to want two Wikipedias written in vernacular Cantonese, one in Han script with simplified and traditional characters mixed like the current zh, and another one in mixed Latin script. While the zh domain is doing an experiment on auto translation between the scripts, I think mixing romanization schemes will be disastrous.
      3. My idea is to have a Wikipedia written in Cantonese using traditional Han script, as the title of this section says. Quotation of other Chinese dialects/languages or foreign languages are allowed but the main text should follow the vocabulary and grammar of en:Standard Cantonese.
    • Perhaps that is why we three were put on the "proposer" list in the first place. ^_^ I am writing this because I think I need to clarify what kind of project I am supporting. -- Felix Wan 00:32, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • I oppose making a Simplified Hanzi edition separate from the Traditional edition, for the reason that many essential Cantonese characters such as 嗰 and 喺 have no Simplified Hanzi equivalents. And it is important that we should use the standard written Cantonese in writing the Cantonese Wikipedia, for example, 重有 vs 仲有. We may need to discuss and elaborate more on this in order to reach consensus. -- Desmond 06:12, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Support.Cantonese vocabulary is quite different from Chinese.We should have a Wikipedia in our own language.Traditional Chinese Script based Written Cantonese(粵語白話文) exists for quite a long time. It's been widely used by people of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong. I strongly support Cantonese wikipedia.
    • Strong support. I think we should get this set up as soon as possible. The test-wikipedia was going well, and it clearly proved its feasibility. Chamdarae 09:32, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong support. --Harvzsf 05:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong support.--Ivyst 06:21, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong support. I speak and write and type Cantonese in my daily life. HenryLi 15:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strongest Support --Taichi - (^_^) 18:15, 21 November 2005 (UTC): Totally necessary.[reply]
    • strong support--Ffaarr 01:44, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am sorry. I am oppose to build a Cantonese WP. Since Cantonese is a spoken language, but not a type of writing system. Also teacher in school would not teach student Cantonese. In meta testing wp, I can see the type of Cantonese maybe is call "ICQ" language. Moreover, Cantonese is not use in formal article.--Simon Shek 12:30, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am strongly opposed to a Cantonese wikipedia in a Chinese script, unless I have seen adequate evidence that it is significantly different from Mandarin in a Chinese script. However, I am neutral in regards to creation of a Cantonese Wikipedia in a different (phonetic) script. Jade Knight 18:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support Servien 19:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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