Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Wu

Wu Wikipedia edit

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 wuu: 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 04:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal summary
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  • Notes/comments:
    • Over 80 million native speakers, including 14 million speakers from China's largest city of Shanghai. Mutually unintelligible with other dialect groups of Chinese. Can be phonetically romanized if necessary.
    • Oppose. Wu or Shanghai dialect 都是使用汉字en:han zi来表达的, 没有什么差别--Shizhao 07:19, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • The reasons given for the above opposition are invalid. Shizhao above argues that Wu uses Chinese characters and there is not much difference when written. Counter: The core vocabulary of Wu is significantly different from Mandarin. Wu dialects share just 31.1% lexical intelligibility with Mandarin and is more polysyllabic than Mandarin. Even if Wu uses Chinese characters, the characters used would be different enough from Mandarin to warrant a separate language domain. Also there exists a formal written tradition in vernacular Wu, the most famous work being Flowers of Shanghai (Shanghai Demi-monde) written in the 19th century by Han Bangqing. This late Qing Dynasty masterpiece is practically incomprehensible to non-Wu speakers even though it was written using Chinese characters. The early 20th century Shanghai-born romantic writer Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing) had to completely translate the work from Wu to Mandarin so that Mandarin speakers could read it. --nishishei 18:35, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • There is a recent film in Shanghainese based on the novel by Han Bangqing, it's also titled Flowers of Shanghai, directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou, starring Michelle Reis, Michiko Hada, Tony Leung, Annie Shizuka Inoh.
    • Proposal plans: All pages in UTF-8 encoding. Interface, article titles and article must use the Simplified Chinese script. Romanizations for each article can be optionally added in the same page, (or better, on a specialized "romanized page" of the same article accessible by a tab in the Quickbar) -21 Jan 2005
      • Support for the second option: "Romanized pages". Romanized pages are INDISPENSIBLE in distinguishing colloquial Sinitic languages from Modern Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Mandarin, since MSC can be onyomied in the colloquial language. The consequence of this is that many colloquial language speakers, when expressing more complex ideas, resort to writing in a style little different from MSC. But this is not to say that colloquial dialects and MSC are ALWAYS that close in grammar and vocab, but only in SOME SITUATIONS.Pangguanzhe
    • I would love to see the Wu wikipedia as well as Cantonese, Hakka wikipedia. Pektiong 07:32, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Second a Hakka Wikipedia. – Kaihsu 17:31, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Shanghainese is one of the most important dialects of Chinese. It is worth of adding. I like this idea! User:Daic
      • In fact, Wu is the second most widely used Chinese language, after only Mandarin - cantonese is actually third. (Minnan is fourth)
    • Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world, Suzhou is considered one of the most cultured cities in China with a long literary history that predates Shanghai's existence, and the dialect is significantly different from Mandarin, Cantonese or Fujian dialect. Support. Fire Star 13:08, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • What Script of Shanghainese? just the same en:han zi--Shizhao 03:38, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Ok. Proposal write interface, article titles and articls in Shanghainese, no write in Chinese. haha...--Shizhao 03:44, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Hahahaha! Hahahahaha! Soo soo funny! hahaha! NOT!
    • You have to image "Han character" as a general writting system. Using Hanzi system to write a language does NOT mean that language IS Mandarin. 61.30.127.4 06:35, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I know moderate Shanghainese (zh-wuu) and I know that it is not mutually intelligible with zh, zh-yue or zh-min-nan. Even if all the four languages are written using the same Han script, traditional or simplified, there may be more cognates, but the written scripts are still not mutually intelligible. I think the articles should be written in vernacular Shanghainese. Quotation of Classical Chinese, other Chinese languages should be allowed, just as quotation of foreign languages should be allowed. The main body should adhere to Shanghainese vocabulary and grammar. -- Felix Wan 20:18, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong support. This is another language which should have its own wikipedia in the near future. We should start a test-wikipedia straight away. Chamdarae 09:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support aswell. Considering the language has 80 million native speakers I was really surprised to find this language does not have its own wikipedia yet. CyeZ (nl) 15:44, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. --Harvzsf 05:27, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support --Taichi - (^_^) 18:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support--Ffaarr 01:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I strongly support to a Wu wikipedia in a Chinese script, since 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 Wu Wikipedia in a different (phonetic) script. Jade Knight 18:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. --ng_iman@USA
  • Support I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that it would be the same as the Mandarin version because they're both in Hanzi. Shanghainese/Wu uses different characters for things. --68.171.134.68 06:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I support a Wu Wikipedia in principle, but Wu is a pretty big language group with significant variation between different areas. The differences between the dialects of Shanghai and Jinhua, for example, are quite big. Since there has never been a standardised version of Wu, there's the problem of what Wu dialect we use. Yeu Ninje 02:54, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support--Jasonzhuocn...._交流19:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opposes, see my explanation here in the opposing section(#21). --Shibo77 21:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. We already have wikipedias in Taiwanese and Cantonese. So why not Wu? Kneiphof 16:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support --Arbeo 13:09, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support --Node ue 21:13, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly Support. WU is my mother tongue. Anyone who opposes the idea of writing WU with Chinese Characters should really make it clear whether the characters only belong to Mandarin. Mandarin is in a degree like one of the romance languages today, so is Wu. French can use latin alphabet ,so can Italian. Wtzdj 1:18, 13 May 2006 (UTC)