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Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Mandarin

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Mandarin Wikipedia edit

submitted verification final decision
  This proposal has been rejected.
This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy based on the discussion on this page.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

Vernacular and Mandarin Chinese don't have significant written differences and Wikipedia is about written language. If you really need somewhat different written form, please consider Automatic conversion between simplified and traditional Chinese. Millosh 05:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal summary
Please read the handbook for requesters for help using this template correctly.
  • Speakers: ~885 milliom. [3]
  • Location(s) spoken: China: Every single province.

|iso1=zh|iso2b=chi|iso2t=zho|iso3=cmn

Arguments in favour edit

 
The eight main dialect areas of Mandarin in Mainland China. THey are very different in variation, as only Standard mandarin is allowed on zh-wikipedia, its only fair the other mandarin languages get their own wiki like all the different yue dialects are in one wiki. only standard mandarin is allowed on zh-wiki so don't even talk about trying to argue that.

大天王皇子 23:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Due to differences in pronunciation, not all variations of spoken Mandarin are readily mutually intelligible. Specifically, according to SIL International [4]:

Mandarin varieties in the Lower Plateau in Shaanxi are not readily intelligible with Putonghua [Standard Mandarin]. Mandarin varieties of Guilin and Kunming are inherently unintelligible to speakers of Putonghua.

In addition, persons speaking forms of Mandarin which are not completely intelligible with Standard Mandarin will often conceptualize their speech as distinct from Standard Mandarin. Educated speakers of the official language of instruction living in southwestern cities such as Guilin and Kunming will be found to speak quite adequate Standard Mandarin, as well as their own mother tongue. However, they will conceptualize their mother tongue to be different from Standard Mandarin.

In addition, it is not uncommon for two speakers who both think of themselves as speaking Standard Mandarin to find it difficult to understand each other.

Canotese has its own wiki

Gan has its own wikipedia

mindong has its own wikipedia

even wenyanwen has its own wikpedia

I am well aware zh-wikipedia is De Facto mandarin wikipedia, however, it is only STANDARD MANDARIn allowed on there. Other mandarin dialects, like ones spoken in sichuan and nanjing are DIFFERENT than standard mandarin. Since the yue, wu, hakka, and min nan dialects all have their own wikipedias, in which every single variant of those dialects are allowed in there, its only fair that the other mandarin dialects other than standard mandarin get a wiki. Zh-wikipedia only allows standard mandarin, don't even try to argue about turning that into a wiki for ALL mandarin dialects.

to the people below, you ahave no understanding of the mutual inteligibilty between mandarin dialects, a person from sichuan cannot even comprehend what a person talking in standard mandarin is saying.大天王皇子 21:09, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

to the below peoples, go choke on a piece of glass. the different variations are MUTUALLY UNINTELLIGIBLE. any linguist will tell you southwest mandarin people CANNOT understand beijing mandarin.大天王皇子 21:27, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i was personally told by a person speaking anhui mandarin (now deseased) that its very differenr from standard mandarin and i heard it and i agree.大天王皇子 02:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments against edit

This proposal is largely unfounded and misleading. These different 'dialects' are little more than different accents of the same language/dialect when spoken. When spoken they are mutually intelligible and communicable. When written down, they are virtually identical. In terms of vocabulary, there may be a few dozens of special phrases or expressions particular to each region. However, this is no more than we see in any language being used by hundreds of millions of people. Words in English such as "brolly" "fag" "teetotal" are not necessarily understood or widely used in all English-speaking regions. And how many people complained about the accent of Scots or Scousers? Are we going to have En-Liverpool or En-Jamaica next?

For whoever is supporting this idea, I think there can be an easy way to test whether any of these "dialects" deserve a separate Wikipedia. Try writing a decent size article on a general topic using any of these "dialects", and see if anyone from outside the region can understand it. For example, I am from Shanghai and clearly outside any of these "dialect" regions on the map. If I am able to read almost everything you write in this new "mandarin", then why bother? --Msuker 08:25, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose per Msuker. This proposal seemed preposterous and presumptuous to me. Please note that mutual unintelligibility is prerequisite to opening a new language subdomain, which means that written forms of regional dialects like variants of Mandarin are generally unqualified for this. The proposer could not explain how the language he applied for was sufficiently distinct from the existing Wikipedia, and was ambiguous and self-contradictory on this mutual intelligibility issue (see below). --Choij 07:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
you are apprently woefully ignorant of how DIFFERENT the different variations of mandarin are. i have not even edited at zh-wp and the different variations of mandarin are TOTALLY MUTUALLY UNINTELLIGIBLE!162.83.158.90 21:13, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Msuker, a person from sichuan cannot understand a person from beijing when speaking dialect! watch your mouth!大天王皇子 21:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What 大天王皇子 claims is not true and not to the point(I'm a Sichuan native). This is probably something unique about Chinese. There are probably dozens of major dialects in China. But, difference of dialects mainly exist in speaking. In formal writing, stuff you read in newspaper or books, there are only 1 form of Chinese. There is no difficulty of someone from the very north of China to understand someone from the very south when they write stuff down. This has been the way for thousands of years. Actually, Chinese characters was borrowed by Korean, Japanese, Vietnanmese to use in their writing before they created their own writing form. As Wikipedia is in writing, there is no use of creating such dialect branches. -Munford 01:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
we base wikis off language, not writing. Wuu, cantonese, and gan wikis are all written in Hanzi, but we have seperate ones, for seperate languages.大天王皇子 01:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
and plus in case you didn't notice, we base wikipedia's off ISO's and NOT scripts. thats why wuu, gan, and cantonese wikipedias appeared, even though all were written in hanzi. Thats also why traditional and simplified wikipedias were merged.大天王皇子 02:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The reason why wuu or yue dialects are treated differently have been explained below in the section titled "some basics of Chinese language". Quote

Dialects such as zh-wuu and zh-yue are slightly different from other dialects in that they have through hundred of years developed their own vocabulary and expression to certain extent. So even when written down, a non-Shanghainese speaker for example can read all characters of a Shanghainese sentence, but unable to comprehend the meaning. For example, in Shanghai a roof window is called 老虎窗, which if read as mandarin will mean "tiger window". Every Chinese will be able to read and understand the three characters, they just could not understand its meaning unless they know Shanghainese.

--Msuker 07:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RE: I am Sichuanese, but I am not fond of creating a Sichuan dialect based wikis. 1) Actually, writing form of Sichuan dialect is almost the same with mandarin. 2) Not too many ppl from Sichuan in wiki right now. 3) You can expand Sichuan dialect related in zh.wiki --Loihsin 01:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose Actually zh.wiki is Mandarin Wikipedia already. Other Chinese dialects/languages such as Wu, Min or Cantonese (except proper nouns) are not used in zh.wiki. Cantonese, Mandarin, Wu, Gan, Hakka, Min, etc, are branches of Chinese. On the other hand, Southwestern tongue in Sichuan, Northeastern tongue in Heilongjiang, are branches of Mandarin. The differences of these Mandarins are mainly sound shift of some sounds, and the level of evolution of entering tone which are still existed in some Chinese speech. These kind of differences are common in most languages, like BrE, AmE, NZ English, or Kantō Japanese and Kansai Japanese -- only considered dialects by most people. Creating another version of non-standard-Mandarin Wikiproject is just the same as creating a version of Cockney Wikiproject, since New Zealanders hardly know Cockney English. -✉Hello World! 16:23, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral edit

In my understanding of the history of Chinese Wikipedia, the first argument about splitting Chinese Wikipedia is about splitting it into Traditional Script Wikipedia and Simplified Script Wikipedia (I call it "Dualists") or keep it as a single Wikipedia (I call it "Unitarians"). The result was Unitarians won and Dualists lose.

How the Dualists dual with this result? Dualists found that Wikimedia recognize SIL language codes, not political identity. Then zh-yue Wikipedia (de facto Hong Kong Cantonese Chinese Wikipedia, traditional script used), zh-min-nan Wikipedia (de facto Taiwan Tai-gu Chinese Wikipedia, Romanized script used), wuu Wikipedia, gan Wikipedia ... appeared. So, I'm not surprise that somebody now ask for a Mandarin Wikipedia.

If from the very beginning, Chinese Wikipedia is wisely divided into four: the China Chinese Wikipedia, the Taiwan Chinese Wikipedia, the Hong Kong Chinese Wikipedia, and the classical Chinese Wikipedia. All these should must likely ended at that level. Wikimedia did not understand Chinese live in mainland China always say "unification": they would say all these wuu, gan ... are Chinese, so NO splitting.

There are 13 or 14 ISO639-3 codes in Chinese language family. Wikimedia please prepare to open them all. I don't want to see a so called "Mandarin Wikipedia", but I have no strong reason to stop it. If I say no to it, I must ask for the closing of all these zh-yue, zh-min-nan, wuu ... Wikipedias. I keep neutral. --Uncyc 10:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are certainly significant differences between zh and other zh-variants currently on wikipedia. A Chinese speaker who does not know Cantonese (which amount to more than 90% of all mainland Chinese) will not be able to understand zh-yue. A Chinese who does not know Shanghainese (which amount to more than 95% of all Chinese) will not be able to understand zh-wuu. On the other hand, any Chinese who can read and write in the current zh will have no problem in understanding the prposed zh-mandarin. So in what ways is this NOT a replica of the current zh wikipedia?
Whether zh-yue zh-wuu should have been opened or should be maintainted for 10% or less of Chinese speakers is a different issue. On the one hand, 10% amounts to more than 100 million people. On the other hand these zh-variants have only a fraction of the information contained in the main zh wikipedia. Actually some Cantonese speakers prefer to write Cantonese or use Cantonese phrases and translations in the main zh instead of zh-yue, although this is clearly opposed to by the general zh community.--Msuker 11:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
wuu and cantonese spearkers are more than 10% of the chinese population.大天王皇子 21:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion edit

The mandarin dialects are TOTALLY MUTUALLY UNINTELLIGIBLE AND VERY DIFFERENT-

Msuker abd choij are TOTALLY WRONG

read the follwing

Due to differences in pronunciation, not all variations of spoken Mandarin are readily mutually intelligible. Specifically, according to SIL International [5]:

Mandarin varieties in the Lower Plateau in Shaanxi are not readily intelligible with Putonghua [Standard Mandarin]. Mandarin varieties of Guilin and Kunming are inherently unintelligible to speakers of Putonghua.

In addition, persons speaking forms of Mandarin which are not completely intelligible with Standard Mandarin will often conceptualize their speech as distinct from Standard Mandarin. Educated speakers of the official language of instruction living in southwestern cities such as Guilin and Kunming will be found to speak quite adequate Standard Mandarin, as well as their own mother tongue. However, they will conceptualize their mother tongue to be different from Standard Mandarin.

In addition, it is not uncommon for two speakers who both think of themselves as speaking Standard Mandarin to find it difficult to understand each other.

OWNED.大天王皇子 21:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Canotese has its own wiki

Gan has its own wikipedia

mindong has its own wikipedia

even wenyanwen has its own wikpedia

大天王皇子 22:49, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are certainly significant differences between zh and other zh-variants currently on wikipedia. A Chinese speaker who does not know Cantonese (which amount to more than 90% of all mainland Chinese) will not be able to understand zh-yue. A Chinese who does not know Shanghainese (which amount to more than 95% of all Chinese) will not be able to understand zh-wuu. On the other hand, any Chinese who can read and write in the current zh will have no problem in understanding the prposed zh-mandarin. So in what ways is this NOT a replica of the current zh wikipedia?

I clearly stated above that existing zh-variants are very different from zh. But the one your are proposing is not different enough, which is why it should not become a separate version.--Msuker 22:59, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
the wenzhou dialect, which is classified as wuu, is so different than shanghaines they can barely understand each other! you are very wrong.大天王皇子 23:02, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
some dialects of wuu can barely undertand each other, likewenzhou dialect and shanghainese.
  • Qián,nǎiróng (1992). Dāngdài Wúyǔ yánjiū. (Contemporary Wu linguistics studies). Shànghǎi: shànghǎi jiāoyù chūbǎnshè. (錢乃榮. 1992. 當代吳語研究. 上海敎育出版社) ISBN 7532023559

its the same case as mandarin dialects.

Are you proposing that Wenzhou dialects should be separated from zh-wuu, which is dominated by Shanghainese at the moment, as well? How many different zh-wikipedia do you want? Because last time I heard, China has over 80 dialects.--Msuker 23:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
tit should be seperated, if wenzhou editors come here and request it.大天王皇子 23:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why pretending being a Shanghainese speaker? edit

Why do you delete comments from both yourself and me?

Is it because you claimed to understand Shanghainese and when I actually write something in Shanghainese you do not have a clue what I was saying?--Msuker 22:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  1. 1, i actialy responded before deleting
  1. 2 i speak another variant of wu and did ntoo say it was shanghainese
  1. 3, shanghainese is not mutually intelligible with mandarin

Shanghainese is not mutually intelligible with any dialect of Mandarin. It is around 50% intelligible (with 28.9% lexical similarity with the Mandarin heard in Beijing) with standard Mandarin[1]. This roughly corresponds to the lexical similarity between German and French.[2]

  1. 4, it is irrelevant to the discussion.
  1. 4, you were writing in mandarin, not shanghainese

大天王皇子 23:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Take this to zh-wuu. They, who do not pretend to understand Shanghainese, will have no problem translating it for you.--Msuker 23:09, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And I am writing in Shanghainese for sure. Every native Shanghainese will have no problem understanding this. Mandarin speakers from outside of the region will be as clueless as you. How is that not Shanghainese?--Msuker 23:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i can count from 1 to nineteen in wuu

yeh, ni, seh, szi, ng, luo, che, buh , jiu, suo, suoyeh, suoni, suoseh, suoszi, suong, suoluo, suo che, suo buh, suo jiu,

nong=you

ngau= i

ngmuh= mother

o=poop

boli= glass

wasung=monkey. 大天王皇子 23:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further Discussion edit

The source you've given commented on one region in one province, and two cities in other two provinces, out of 40+ provincial-level areas in China, with the overall caveat that further investigation is needed. On the other hand, I have never heard any Chinese going to Kunming or Guilin needed an interpretor or having to rely on sign language.

As I have said, try writing an article in your imaginary "different language" and see if others can actually understand it. If that's too much for you, how about writing a sentence that only people from lower plateau of Shaanxi, Kunming or Guilin can understand? Or is that beyond you as well? --Msuker 22:54, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

they don't realy on sign language because they KNOW standard mandarin after learning it in school, just like how wuu people in shanghai KNOW standard mandarin after going to school大天王皇子 23:09, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

my source stated that even speakers of standard mandarin cannot understand each other, i will find more

and your wrong again, check out cantonese wikipdia, then gan, then mandarin to see if they are at all identical in their articles.大天王皇子 22:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

zh-yue zh-gan zh-wuu are all different from zh, which is why they are allowed their separate wikipedia. The zh-mandarin you are proposing on the contrary is not different because the current zh is zh-mandarin. Prove me wrong by writing something in your fancy language which I as a zh editor will not understand.--Msuker 23:03, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
some dialects of wuu can barely undertand each other, likewenzhou dialect and shanghainese.
  • Qián,nǎiróng (1992). Dāngdài Wúyǔ yánjiū. (Contemporary Wu linguistics studies). Shànghǎi: shànghǎi jiāoyù chūbǎnshè. (錢乃榮. 1992. 當代吳語研究. 上海敎育出版社) ISBN 7532023559

its the same case as mandarin dialects. do you have any idea WHY mandarin is classified as several regional dialects? (which are further and further subdivided). 大天王皇子 23:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course Wuu dialects are very different. It is described as "十里不同音", if you can read this at all. Which is why mandarin is used as the opposite of dialects. Why do you think it is called mandarin?--Msuker 23:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
your wrong. thats why mandarin is classifed into regional dialects, and find a source rebutting me. and i can read the first one, it says "ten".大天王皇子 23:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, deity. Five of the easiest Chinese characters, which any mentally sound 7-year-old in China will be able to understand, individually or collectively. And you were able to understand the first one. Congratulations.
Maybe I should propose a new Wikipedia for Spanish. At least I know "hola" and "el classico". Anyone second?--Msuker 23:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i can count from 1 to nineteen in wuu

yeh, ni, seh, szi, ng, luo, che, buh , jiu, suo, suoyeh, suoni, suoseh, suoszi, suong, suoluo, suo che, suo buh, suo jiu,

nong=you

ngau= i

ngmuh= mother

o=poop

boli= glass

wasung=monkey.

大天王皇子 23:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the math lesson. And you certainly beat my Spanish. Unfortunately, I think it is obvious that if you do not understand simplest Chinese characters such as "十里不同音" there will never be a Chinese wikipedia in whatever form for you or anyone in your position.--Msuker 23:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
unfortunetly for you, several chinese wikis use latin alphabet.大天王皇子 00:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Only when they cannot find the appropriate character in modern Chinese vocabulary or computer input method, not when they don't even understand basic Chinese characters. And FYI, almost all character needed in Shanghainese can be found in 康熙字典. --Msuker 00:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

大天王皇子, please rectify your understanding of "Mandarin" and "Chinese dialects". I think you are a bit off the track. It's true that some dialects of Mandarin are mutual unintelligible to each other as you claimed, but the language you proposed was Mandarin, so why did you keep proving that the inherent differences between dialects of Mandarin were so enormous that speakers of Mandarin couldn't even understand each other? Are you proposing a new Wikipedia for a dialect of Mandarin or something? --Choij 23:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i proposed we created this so all the different mandarin dialects can be used in here. I don't think they would tolerate other unintelligible mandarin dialects on zh-wikpedia.

just like there is one wuu wikipedia, but several different unintelligible wuu dialects, and its free for everyone to use their dialect there.大天王皇子 23:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i did propose mandarin dialects, i did not write "putonghua" in the request.大天王皇子 23:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is the basis of your proposed Mandarin Wikipedia? Is it designed to be a place where people can use their versions of Mandarin and get confused by what others are saying, because "the mandarin dialects are TOTALLY MUTUALLY UNINTELLIGIBLE AND VERY DIFFERENT"? Well then, set up an online forum, it would be heaps better. --Choij 00:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
actually, if a wenzhou speaking person started articles on zh-wuu they would be just as confused, so it doesn't really matter how confused they get, it would actualy be amusing.大天王皇子 00:16, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think, he is actually proposing a zh-variant wikipedia, which does not use Chinese characters and uses his weird latin alphabet expression above instead.--Msuker 23:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Invited opinion

大天王皇子, I doubt you're going to get very far with such a combative and insulting attitude. But here are my 2¢, without having read much of the discussion above: Yes, the more divergent dialects of Mandarin are not all mutually intelligible. The same is true of German, Italian (?), "Hindi", Wuu, Minnan, Arabic, and lots of other languages.

However, your zh-mandardin is not distinct from the current zh. Which dialect are you proposing? zh-shaanxi? zh-yunnan? Those would be more coherent proposals. I can't see a new Mandarin Wikipedia being separate from current Mandarin Wikipedia unless it's a specific dialect unintelligible to Northeast Mandarin, which is what we have now. Another point to keep in mind is that much of the unintelligibility is in the spoken language. In writing (at least if using hanzi), the dialects will be much more intelligible, just as dialects of English that I have a difficult time understanding in speech become much more intelligible in writing.

The second question, since AFAIK (which isn't very far) none of these dialects except Sichuanese have a written tradition (and I believe Sichuanese and Beijing are largely intelligible; both were contenders for Putonghua in the 1920s) is, who would write such an encyclopedia? Is there any demand? Or is this a single person who is not getting his way on Chinese Wikipedia and wants his own forum? —Kwamikagami 00:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

actually ive never edited a single article on zh-wikipedia, ive only recently did mass canvasing.大天王皇子 00:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
how did zh-wuu get past when there are several different unintelligible wuu dialects? its just like mandarin dialects.大天王皇子 00:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
ive had anhui mandarin on my mind when proposing this. i dont speak it but i know a recently deceased person who has, and its very different from northeast mandarin. but since wuu managed to get into one wikipedia i decided to go for the whole thing.大天王皇子 00:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

zh-mandarin is not actualy named zh-mandarin. if the name is changed i think it settles it.大天王皇子 00:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This whole thing is a naming dispute? Then you're not actually proposing a new wikipedia, and this whole discussion is a huge waste of time. I'm outa here. Kwamikagami 00:16, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
AND i forgot to mention, if someone writes an article on there in a mutually uninteligible mandarin dialect on zh and it gets through, it would be fine.大天王皇子 00:18, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some Basics of Chinese Language edit

It seems to me obvious that User:大天王皇子 is firstly not a native Chinese speaker and secondly has not lived substantially in any Chinese-speaking region. He was taught a handful of Chinese phrases in one dialect orally, with no basic ability to understand any written Chinese. He could not possibly read a Chinese newspaper or watch Chinese television. But he wants a Chinese wikipedia which he can understand and even contribute. (Oh, you know what, I like to write Spanish wikipedia even if I don't understand it.)--Msuker 00:32, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

and plus in case you didn't notice, we base wikipedia's off ISO's and NOT scripts. thats why wuu, gan, and cantonese wikipedias appeared, even though all were written in hanzi. Thats also why traditional and simplified wikipedias were merged.大天王皇子 02:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"But he wants a Chinese wikipedia which he can understand and even contribute."

WRONG. if i did, i would be badgering the people at wuu wikipedia to turn eerything to latin alphabet so i could write as much crap as i want. and i actualy can contribute to spanish wikipedia.

大天王皇子 00:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The basic of Chinese language, and the reason why Chinese is still one language while there are many mutually unintellgible dialects, is this: 书同文 (literally "writing the same characters"). This has been the case since about 221 BC when the first emperor unified much of the modern day China and abolished all other previous forms of characters and adoped a unified set of fonts. So while a modern day Chinese may pronunciate a common word such as 汽车 ('car') differently when communicating in their choosen dialect, they all understand the word when written down.

Dialects such as zh-wuu and zh-yue are slightly different from other dialects in that they have through hundred of years developed their own vocabulary and expression to certain extent. So even when written down, a non-Shanghainese speaker for example can read all characters of a Shanghainese sentence, but unable to comprehend the meaning. For example, in Shanghai a roof window is called 老虎窗, which if read as mandarin will mean "tiger window". Every Chinese will be able to read and understand the three characters, they just could not understand its meaning unless they know Shanghainese.

However, after everything, Chinese language are still written in the same set of Chinese characters, as it has been for more than 2,000 years. This has also been the basis on which zh-wikipedia has operated. Zh editors may not understand each other orally if they actually meet, but they will be able to communicate with each other in writing in some form of Mandarin, albeit with noticeable differences in choice of words and other linguistic preferences.--Msuker 00:32, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i beleive your talking about wenyanwen when you mean they can communicate wit each other. adn i know some mandarin and can understand 45% of everyday conversation in mandarin, and i know from memory 30 characters, and recognize many more if im reading them.

and lol not many people know wenyanwen anymore. 大天王皇子 00:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For your information, Wenyanwen is part of the Chinese language exam in the University Entrace Examinations. So considering more than 10 million Chinese students now take this exam every year, you can do the math yourself. Also it is on the curriculum of all Chinese secondary schools for at least six years as required by the education authority. In other words every person receiving full time education beyond the age of 10 to 12 would have had Wenyanwen stuffed down their throat whether they liked it or not. And this is only the "compulsory" population. Many people have found the knowledge of our past and tradition extremely valuable and the learning experience enjoyable.

Why I am talking about Chinese education and language with someone who wants to write Chinese wikipedia without understanding the language, I do not know. So I am going to bed.--Msuker 00:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

actually your wrong, alot of people suck at it so much once they get out of school, they forget.大天王皇子 00:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
and alot of people still live in caves and mud huts, and have no way of learning wenyanwen, and do not want to because it is no longer used in official governemtn documents! you must still be in qing dynasty if your thinking this way.大天王皇子 00:58, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

plus your wrong, Qin dynasty used zhuan ti, as did early han dynasty. modern charaters were established only in late han dynasty.大天王皇子 00:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

and your not making any sense at all, i totally cannot contribute to any mandarin wikipedia in ANY way, including latin alphabet, ive already told you i don't know the other mandarin variants.大天王皇子 00:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot contribute to any Chinese wikipedia or even read any of them, because you do not understand Chinese. Surprise surprise. Oh, I am so going to bed. See ya.--Msuker 00:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i wonder why i didn't put my name in the template. (sarcasm).大天王皇子 00:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

according to Msuker's logic, since we have zh-classical, which is wenyanwen, we should shut down all other chinese wikipedias because everyone learns wenyanwen?大天王皇子 01:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

response to mksuer

ji= third person

shou li pau= ***** sexual organ

liu guo guo= ***** sexual organ

tzai wei= good bye

gah bung= stupid

kuo kuo= go to sleep

bo chi lai= wake up

uhbuh= father

ahnmei= alternate word for mother

szi= to be

i know alot more than you think i do.大天王皇子 03:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mastering such vocabulary is certainly very impressive until you get to about three years old. However, am I correct in my conclusion that:
1. You are not a native Chinese speaker.
2. You have never lived substantially in any Chinese-speaking region, for example anywhere in mainland China.
3. You have never been to full-time education conducted in Chinese.
4. You have not even attended decent Chinese classes for beginners and foreigners, which are becoming ever more popular everywhere in the world nowadays.
5. You cannot read any Chinese book, newspaper or any zh-wikipedia article.
6. You cannot understand television or radio programmes or movies or songs in Chinese.
7. Your only remote acquitance with Chinese language has been via some other persons, orally, in a dialect of some kind. They managed to impress about 30 phrases on you, including number 1-19 and human genitals.
8. Consequently you have no clue whatsoever how different any dialect in China is from any other, because you do not speak or understand any of them, at least not beyond the level of a three-year-old child as we can see so far.
If I misunderstood anything, please forgive me as you have been extremely economical with the truth. But I am sure I have got the big picture right after wasting so much time. You see, if you have revealed most of these points upfront, the community would have had a much better idea of dealing with your proposal. They would have thrown it out in five minutes. Which is exactly the reason why I do not propose a new wikipedia of any language unless I understand the language first.--Msuker 07:48, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

99% of the people on wuu wikipedia perhaps mostly speak mandarin. a vandal even crossed into there from cantonese wikipedia. no body cares what language you speak as long as you have technical skills and can contribute.大天王皇子 20:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Consequently you have no clue whatsoever how different any dialect in China is from any other, because you do not speak or understand any of them, at least not beyond the level of a three-year-old child as we can see so far."Msuker

"an educated person can tell the difference between french and german even if he speaks neither. end of story msuker,"大天王皇子 20:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

theres even a bearacrat/admin on wuu wikipedia who doesn't speak a single word of wuu. hes there for his technical skills.大天王皇子 20:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I knew someone who spoke anhui mandarin, if someone thinks anhui mandarin (jianghuai) is intelligible with standard mandarin, he must be on crack.大天王皇子 20:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another informed opinion edit

Mandarin is no more diverse dialectally than English or German are. There are extremes on the ends of the dialect chains are are barely intelligible. There are sections of the film Trainspotting that I could not comprehend even after several viewings. But the written language is quite comprehensible. The same is true for written Mandarin--while there are different pronunciations that must be mastered between some widely separated dialects, the written language is virtually identical from one dialect of Mandarin to another. It seems in scanning the previous argument that there is general consensus against whatever proposal is being put forward (my impression is that it is for a "dialectal" Mandarin Wikipedia). We might as well have separate Wikipedias for Australian English, West Virginia English, Bavarian German, Hamburg German, etc. (71.32.199.220 04:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)) ((Actually, this is Taivo.))[reply]

Actually there are Wikis for Bavarian and some other German "dialects". But it has long been a moot point in German "dialectology" whether from a purely linguistic POV these are actually languages or dialects. But coming back to the point - and perhaps trying to calm things down a bit - because modern Putonghua is based largely on Beijing Mandarin, a new Wiki written in Hanzi for specific Mandarin dialects - while perhaps not pointless - would be largely invisible. I agree that there are substantial differences between the spoken forms of it, but since Hanzi are largely independent of pronunciation nuances, you would hardly notice the difference (this is where it would differ from the Bavarian or Platt Wiki which is immediately visually different from the Standard German one). Certainly not as obvious as - for example - the difference between 他吃(了) and 佢食咗. However, since there are romanised Wikis for Chinese languages, you could, in my view, make a case for a Mandarin dialect Wiki. But I feel that to set one up, you ought to (no idea what policy is but this seems like common sense to me...):
  • specify which dialect exactly
  • have a standard romanisation for the dialect in question, just made up romanisation without tone marks won't work
  • have a group of editors willing to participate in such a Wiki (at least a small one)
That's my tuppence anyway. 79.69.164.202 12:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC) Urr my signature here doesn't work LOL I'm Akerbeltz[reply]

read the follwing

Due to differences in pronunciation, not all variations of spoken Mandarin are readily mutually intelligible. Specifically, according to SIL International [6]:

Mandarin varieties in the Lower Plateau in Shaanxi are not readily intelligible with Putonghua [Standard Mandarin]. Mandarin varieties of Guilin and Kunming are inherently unintelligible to speakers of Putonghua.

In addition, persons speaking forms of Mandarin which are not completely intelligible with Standard Mandarin will often conceptualize their speech as distinct from Standard Mandarin. Educated speakers of the official language of instruction living in southwestern cities such as Guilin and Kunming will be found to speak quite adequate Standard Mandarin, as well as their own mother tongue. However, they will conceptualize their mother tongue to be different from Standard Mandarin.

In addition, it is not uncommon for two speakers who both think of themselves as speaking Standard Mandarin to find it difficult to understand each other.

anhui mandarin is th specific one. i think i can find someone who speaks it quickly.大天王皇子 20:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Consequently you have no clue whatsoever how different any dialect in China is from any other, because you do not speak or understand any of them, at least not beyond the level of a three-year-old child as we can see so far."Msuker

"an educated person can tell the difference between french and german even if he speaks neither. end of story msuker,"大天王皇子 20:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

王大天皇子, I KNOW that. If you read my last post carefully, you will see that I AGREE with the point that from a spoken POV, not all Mandarin dialects are mutually intelligible. No need to chuck Ethnologue at me. The point you are totally ignoring is, how are you going to show the difference between standard mandarin and mandarin dialects? Are you proposing a new Wiki using a dialect form of Pinyin? It's a simple technical question :) 79.69.164.202 03:33, 22 December 2008 (UTC) Akerbeltz[reply]
IF its the only way to tell the difference, then it should use latin alphabet. Jianghuai mandarin is mutuabally unintelligible with standard mandarin, i know this for a fact. It shouldn't be too hard to find and editor on zh-wikipedia大天王皇子 21:23, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In which case you need a proper Latin based Pinyin which can deal with all the tones/phonemes in the dialect you are aiming for. Is there such a system for Jianguai Mandarin? Can you give us any examples? 79.69.247.166 00:41, 23 December 2008 (UTC) Akerbeltz[reply]
actually one can do it in zhuyin fuhao.大天王皇子 03:26, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i beleive zhuyin fuhao has 3 extra letters, displayed on its wikipedia articles specifically for writing in OTHER dialects of Mandarin.大天王皇子 03:27, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

 

jianghuai is light blue, the one in northern jiangsu and anhui, i don't have any character inputing software, if you can get me the characters then i think i know how to find a fluent speaker.大天王皇子 03:33, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Zhuyin Fuhao

Extra Letters for other Mandarin Dialects

even if the speaker of jianghuai doesn't know zhuyin, he can give me the latin alphabet equivalents and i can convert it all to zhuyin.大天王皇子 03:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i beleive the difference will be signifigant if shown in zhuyin fuhao, which is an easy to learn script that fits chinese languages better than latin alphabet. latin alphabet doesn't even fit enlgish properly, look at english's messed up orthography.大天王皇子 03:58, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

大天王皇子 you need to start thinking about relevant and not so relevant information - that map didn't help except to take up space >.< Anyway.
Ok, so we have it narrowed down a bit now. You want a Zhuyin version of Wikipedia for the Jianghuai dialect of Mandarin.
English spelling IS messy but that doesn't make the Latin alphabet bad. The older a writing system, for a language, the more it tends to reflect historical aspects rather than up-to-date pronunciation. New Zealand Maori is written with the Latin alphabet and is very phonemic and the Vietnamese have shown for many years that an isolating tone language CAN be written efficiently in the Latin alphabet. Either way, that swipe at English falls under "not so relevant".
Can you give some examples of how this would look different? For example, can you convert this short piece on Maori from the Hanzi Wiki into Zhuyin for Jianghuai (side by side with Standard Mandarin) so one can see the difference?
毛利語是紐西蘭原住民毛利人的語言、也是紐西蘭的三種官方語言之一，另两种是英语和手语。毛利人從太平洋诸岛來到紐西蘭之後、語音基本上變化很少。基本上各地的人都可以溝通无碍。
79.69.247.166 11:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)Akerbeltz[reply]
dude, the reason i showed you the map was for you to get me the characters for jianghuai mandarin. i don't have an input software installed. then i can look in its zh-wiki entry and find fluent speakers.大天王皇子 20:08, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
this is going to take a while to type the zhuyin up. i'll use a pinyin-zhuyin converter, ill be back.大天王皇子 20:17, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
ok the converter isn't working. ill have to type in manually.大天王皇子 20:18, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


毛利語是紐西蘭原住民毛利人的語言

ㄇㄠˊ ㄌㄧˋ ㄩˇ ㄕˋ ㄋㄧㄡˇ ㄒㄧ ㄌㄢˊ ㄩㄢˊ ㄓㄨˋ ㄇㄧㄣˊ ㄇㄠˊ ㄌㄧˋ ㄖㄣˊ ㄉㄜ˙ ㄩˇ ㄧㄢˊ

this part is completed in standard mandarin.大天王皇子 20:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Found something comparing southern and northern mandarin. i beleived nanjing mandarin is jianghuai mandarin, if you read on in the book it shows exapmples in both latin alphabet and zhuyin about the difference between jianghuai and standard mandarin. it appears the extra letters were specifically developed for jianghuai when zhuyin was made. check out especially page 220 in this book preview. check out page 236, page 217-218. actually check the whole thing out.大天王皇子 20:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also sort of relevant on explainging the differences.大天王皇子 20:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

huang=ㄏㄨㄤ

Jianghuai Mandarin=xuaŋ=ㄒㄨㄤ

大天王皇子 21:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

nanjing mandarin is the prestige jianghuai mandarin dialect. it was even used in the imperial court and affected early romanization systems.大天王皇子 21:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

like wade-giles i beleive. thats why it looks so terrible at representing standard mandarin, actually i think it can be used for jianghuai mandarin.大天王皇子 21:10, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well - and remember I'm trying to be helpful here - you still have several problems. These are mainland dialects you're dealing with and you're proposing Zhuyin which is, afaik, mainly a Taiwanese system. Add that to the fact you don't seem to have a team of editors (yet). I think for this proposal to have any chance of succeeding you probably ought to find a group of interested people before you take this any further since your laudable efforts at broadening the scope of Wikipedia seem to be hampered by a lack of linguistic skills in the target dialect/language. This may sound like less of a problem that it actually is. Many chinese people are highly reluctant to write in non-standard writing systems. Getting my own mother to write Cantonese outside highly personal communications for example is a major task. So getting editors who are a) fluent b) interested c) capable of doing Zhuyin/Pinyin and d) willing to write their own dialect should be your first priority. And yes, Wade-Giles IS terrible. If you're looking at romanisation, I'd recommend a Pinyin based system. It's concise, accurate and shouldn't be too hard to adapt. (PS you can just copy and paste the characters for the dialects names from the table in [7]) Happy New Year ;) Akerbeltz

应该听听当事人的意见 edit

一群不会说地道中国话的人在讨论是否要把某方言加入维基百科，实在可笑。其实把吴语、贛語列入维基百科已经是十分荒唐的事情了，因为只会有少数方言狂热分子才会抱着玩玩看的心态去用这些语言编辑。最后我想申明一点：无论是四川话、云南话，贵州话都只是发音不同的普通话，它们的写法和语序都与普通话无异。Rain5467 00:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree there is no need to add dialect of Chinese, since all Chinese dialects have different tones but in same writing, we share the same writing since 200BC. since wikipedia is based on text, there is no need to add dialects community. Unless you can write a different Chinese(traditional or simplified Chinese are still same Chinese, Japanese/Korean are the language that build based on Chinese characters but still a new language. Vietnamese used to be a dialect but become a language after they write in Latin characters--24.43.79.3 23:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

我认为Rain5467的发言表明了他至少不是四川话或者云南话的使用者，其次他也不熟悉这两种方言，西南官话的语法与词汇都是和普通话有很大差异的。

In fact, all the chinese dialects have different writings, I think the user from 24.43.79.3 doesn't recognize the characters, at least he doesn't recognzie characters from dialects. e.g the characters 冇 覅 凼 囡 囝, they are from dialects and not used in Mandarine, there are also some characters from Mandarine which never used in dialects.

我想告诉那位不愿留名的朋友，本人土生土长在中国西南地区，能说地道的四川话，如果要问四川话跟普通话的区别，那做一个最好的比喻就如美国英语跟英国英语的区别，除了少数词汇和发音有不一样之外，其它大体相同。如果你本人没有在西南地区生活过的话，请你不要妄加揣测。Rain5467 05:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ↑ Glossika's index of mutual intelligibility
  2. ↑ Ethnologue: German
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