Cantonese Wikipedia 粵語維基百科 and written Cantonese

[rose~]

Looking at Wikipedia it seems that there is now a Cantonese version. I found it surprising to see whole articles written using Cantonese-specific characters and reflecting Cantonese speech. I have seen that kind of writing in magazines, instant messaging and email, but never in a formal context. When I was learning Shangahinese I found that despite its wide usage, there were almost zero formal media sources for me to study; and television, radio and public speech in Shanghainese is restricted. In contrast Cantonese which has many films, songs and an official presence in Hong Kong ("兩文三語“).

I suppose it raises the question of what forms the foundation of the concept that written modern Chinese ought to be based on Mandarin. When I began learning Cantonese, I wondered how having a writing system so distant from the spoken language would feel to Cantonese speakers. If it is not an important factor for a written language to reflect its spoken form, then why was [pop=vernacular/báihuà]白話[/pop] advocated in the first place?

On the other hand I suppose increasing the usage of a different way of writing might be a divisive force in Chinese society. It would make life difficult for immigrants who only knew standard Chinese, and those using it might become less proficient at writing in standard Chinese.

Is a Cantonese Wikipedia necessary or even desirable?

[atitarev]

Cantonese speakers will not like it but I agree with you, Rose. It is creating a new written Chinese standard. Other dialects don't have this privilege and many dialect speakers think (I talked to them) say this is the way it should be, they only want to know one Chinese written language. I think it's somewhat arrogant but that's the way it is. That's why many foreigners think there are only 2 equal Chinese dialects - Mandarin and Cantonese.

[skylee]

兩文三語

兩文are standard Chinese and English. Cantonese in written form is not included.

When I began learning Cantonese, I wondered how having a writing system so distant from the spoken language would feel to Cantonese speakers.

Personally I feel OK.

[gato]

I think it's duplicative to have a separate Cantonese Wikipedia since the vocabulary is almost the same. Even the written grammar is not that different from Mandarin. Just some functional words are different like係, 喺,嘅,同埋,佢. I guess these are efforts by language advocates who feel having a written form is the best way to preserve and develop the language.

Notice there's a new Wikipedia in Shanghainese, too.

http://wuu.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%81%E9%9D%A2

Currently, there are 2094 articles in Cantonese, 112,125 in standard written Chinese (Mandarin), 255 in Shanghainese, 1,641,379 in English, and 328,009 in Japanese. I think efforts should be concentrated on increasing the number of articles in standard written Chinese if possible.

See this entry on 自由主義 (liberalism) in Cantonese.

http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%87%AA%E7%94%B1%E4%B8%BB%E7%BE%A9

自由主義係一種思想流派，存在喺政治、經濟等領域。喺政治同埋社會生活方面，佢主張通過法律賦予嘅權利系統令個人自由最大化；喺經濟領域，佢主張喺一定嘅框架裏面令到經濟同埋商業自由競爭最大化。

Compare with the Mandarin version.

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%87%AA%E7%94%B1%E4%B8%BB%E4%B9%89

自由主义是一種意識形態、哲學，以自由作為主要政治價值的一系列思想流派的集合[1]。

[Jive Turkey]

If you're interested in written Cantonese, then you might want to have a look at Cantonese as written language : the growth of a written Chinese vernacular by Don Snow, published by HKU Press in 2004.

I'm not bothered at all by dialect writing and I can understand why a lot of HKers like to write their own dialect. They usually only use it for certain genre's of writing, especially those containing a lot of dialogue and a focus on local things. Make no mistake about it, for certain written genres, it is a lot harder for a dialect speaker to write as well in SMC as a northerner since the dialect speaker's vocabulary preferences are likely to be proscribed from SMC and Putonghua. Those vocabulary differences ARE NOT just limited to grammar words, although those are the most noticeable. I think when Canto writers try to write about heavier things, their writing inevitably looks more and more like SMC with Cantonese grammar words, but when they write within less restrictive or lighter genres, it can be damn near incomprehensible to the SMC reader who isn't familiar with Cantonese. I'm not advocating a switch to dialect writing for all written language in HK or other dialect areas, but I do think dialect writing should be allowed its place.

[Mugi]

Let's not forget the Mindong 閩東 (Fuzhou) and Minnan 閩南 (Xiamen/Taiwan) wikipedias, although they have opted to essentially only use romanization.

Then there's the classical Chinese version! There's also been talk about starting a Hakka version, but I don't think it has got off the ground.