Chinese dialects?

[Ducie]

Hello,

registered here as I've been wondering these 2 questions for a while now.

This picture has two different chinese writings, I think the other (in the top right corner) is standard mandarin with simplified characters but what's the other one with traditional characters? Notice how it doesn't have the same number of characters so I guess it's not just mandarin written with traditional characters?

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/news4vip2/imgs/6/1/617d1fd3.jpg

Also, is there a reason why wikipedia shows the articles with traditional characters by default instead of simplified? Is it because it's the standard on the internet or because most people in the world who use simplified can read traditional too (and because the opposite is not true) ?

Thanks in advance!

[anonymoose]

Yes, it is just mandarin with traditional characters. For whatever reason, the wording used in the simplified and traditional is slightly different, hence the different number of characters, but the meaning is still roughly the same.

[Lu]

Anonymoose is right.

My guess would be that they sent the original to a translator in China and another translator in Taiwan (or Hong Kong), who both used slightly different wording to say the same thing. It may be a little confusing, but actually I like how in this way they avoided saying the same exact thing twice (although probably it was unintentionally).

[Ducie]

Ah that's how it is, thank you!

So most of the time if you see 2 different chinese texts it's just mandarin with both simplified & traditional characters because standard written mandarin is de facto in all chinese communities?

In wikipedia, for each article there are localized pages for hong kong, taiwan, singapore & standard mandarin (simplified) in addition to the default page which shows standard mandarin with traditional characters.

HK & taiwan pages are 99-100% equal, same goes for singapore & standard mandarin.

For example for http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/電子計算機 there are only few characters that differ between HK & taiwan pages. Why is this so? These are of course computer-generated localizations?

Taiwan version: ...工業機器人還是數位相機。

HK version: ...工業機械人還是數碼相機。

Do a taiwanese and a hong kong native both read the text in the same way? Or does the hong kong guy read the text in cantonese?

[Lu]

So most of the time if you see 2 different chinese texts it's just mandarin with both simplified & traditional characters because standard written mandarin is de facto in all chinese communities?

Yes, usually it's the same text, just in a different character system. Sometimes a few words or phrases are different, because usage is slightly different in, for example, China and Taiwan.

The Hong Kong question I'll leave to others to answer, I don't know enough about that. I would guess that it's also related to slightly different usage.

[renzhe]

I haven't done a detailed examination, but I think that the major differences between the versions (other than the simp/trad character set) are slight differences in vocabulary.

For example, 工業機器人 and 工業機械人 both mean "industrial robot", but the latter seems to be usage specific to Hong Kong. At least I've never heard it before.

As for traditional characters on wikipedia (in other languages), I think it depends on whoever writes the page. I've seen simplified characters too, or both. There is no internet standard.

In general, though, traditional characters are often used when discussing classical Chinese, old classics and historical events before the 20th century. But in general, people will use whichever set they are more familiar with, and will usually be sufficiently familiar with the other set. This goes both ways.

[chrix]

I'd disagree with renzhe. Not just vocabulary, but also the way certain things are phrased, for instance Taiwanese tend to use more Classicised language in writing in general. But of course it's hard to pinpoint the differences exactly because stark variation exists in both standards.

That said, I still think that a company marketing to both sides of the Strait should try and get different translators for simplified and traditional.

EDIT: Also, renzhe, it's not whoever writes the wikipedia page. Chinese-language editors after long negotiations have reached some agreement, and are trying to implement this auto-switch engine thing, so if you click on Taiwan-traditional, it should switch to the right expressions and you shouldn't see any simplified characters (and people are encouraged to do a lot of manual coding as well). Maybe someone more familiar with the details can explain this better than me.

Edited February 23, 2010 at 02:38 PM by chrix

[Ducie]

As for traditional characters on wikipedia (in other languages), I think it depends on whoever writes the page. I've seen simplified characters too, or both. There is no internet standard.

Thanks for pointing this out, I made a hasty conclusion

For example this article is written with simplified characters: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows

For detailed explanation please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Wikipedia#Automatic_conversion_between_Traditional_and_Simplified_Chinese

"due to the lack of communication and separate systems, many proper names are quite different in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. For instance, a computer printer is called 打印机 in mainland China, but 印表機 in Taiwan."

Thanks everyone, this greatly helped to understand the language situation in China.

[renzhe]

EDIT: Also, renzhe, it's not whoever writes the wikipedia page.

I was referring to the Chinese snippets in non-Chinese articles. For example, this.

Not zh.wikipedia.org, which have their own policy, plus the automated translation between the four standards. The automated stuff is not perfect, BTW, I've run into traditional characters in simplified pages and vice-versa, but it generally works quite well.

[chrix]

OK, fair enough, but the OP was in fact talking about the Chinese-language wikipedia....