Talk:Yue Chinese/Archive 2

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Cantonese is NOT prevalent

First of all, Catonese is a different language from Mandrian. Second of all, the term "prestigious" refers to the romantization of the words. Third of all, the Chinese main language is Mandrian, and people from Guangdong are encouraged to learn Mandrian. The future of the world economy of China will be Mandrian, and not Cantonese. -Intranetusa

"cantonese is not prevalent in china but very prevalent in usa, canada, australia, new zealand, south africa, viet nam, and hong kong sar. "

--Cantonese, as part of the Chinese language. But so is Mandrian.

"a lot of movies and television is also produced in cantonese and some of the most sophisticated oriental film and tv is made in cantonese and translated into mandarin. " Hong Kong is the movie hub of China, and the majority of people in Hong Kong & the souther provinces speak Cantonese.

"there is also canto pop which is listened to not only by chinese but filipino, taiwanese, etc." Very rarely. People in Taiwan speak Min Nah and Mandrian, and the majority of Taiwanese do not understand Cantonese at all. And the predominant "sino" language in the Phillipines is Min Nan and not Cantonese.

The fact remains that Cantonese is spoken mostly in Hong Kong and Southern China.

-intranetusa

I think the fact that there's a disperportionally large numbers of Cantonese speakers in America and Canada gave the false sense to Americans/Canadians that there are more Cantonese speakers than Mandarin speakers. However, Mandarin is by far the most spoken language in the world and that will not change for some years.

Cantonese is prevalent

Cantonese will always be a prestigious dialect. There are many Cantonese living oversea and the prevalence of Hong Kong's popular culture and movies has spurred some Chinese in other regions to learn Cantonese. Also the fact that in mainland China, Guangdong people are having more children than the northern people. Therefore, the future of Cantonese language and culture will still be dominant. Sonic99 02:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Probably the biggest threat to the long-term survival of Cantonese came in 1997. I'm sure there are many who fantasize at night about the death of Cantonese, but if it does go extinct, I doubt it'll happen as quickly as Tibetan or Uyghur; Hong Kong by itself outnumbers the entire Tibetan population. Languages die unless they're spoken, and they're not spoken if not percieved as useful or respectable. But I think there's reason to be optimistic: there's a Hong Kong culture producing a thriving Cantonese movie, television, radio, and pop music industry, which is more than can be said for say Shanghainese or Hokkien. (I know of only a single Shanghainese movie, and it was made in Hong Kong) I don't think this culture is popular enough that it would make others want to learn Cantonese, but it would stop or slow down native speakers from losing Cantonese. But I find it understandable why a lot of Taiwanese fear the possible damage to their language and culture if unification happens, and why the independence movement heavily promotes Taiwanese language. --Yuje 08:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

reply to first comment by Sonic99, not Yuje: Wow...thanks for letting us share your amazing insights!!! I too also hope the Cantonese language will continue to be prestigious, dominant and prevalent amongst Cantonese-speaking people!!! I didn't realise that the 1,000,000,000 (that's one billion for those who can't count:-) Chinese people who do not speak Cantonese are so eager to join Cantonese language classes just so that they can understand Hong Kong pop music and films in the authentic original language. Obviously, reading subtitles or watching dubbed films, or listening to putonghua versions of Hong Kong pop music would just be so tiresome!!! Also I suppose schools all across China are introducing Cantonese language classes, and that parents are making sure their children are going to be fluent in Cantonese, just for the sake of their future of course!!! LDHan 04:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Sources, please? ;) Seriously, no sane speaker of any language or dialect will go to that extent in proclaiming his language or dialect as "prestigious" and that its "dominance will still prevail"...unless both are under contestation. Your action actually vindicates the later.--Huaiwei 02:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

So cantonese will go the way of Akkadian, Latin,Sumerian etc, as they use to be the lingua franca at some point but are extinct now. Enlil Ninlil 05:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Quite unlike languages like Latin, however, Cantonese has never been the lingua franca for diverse peoples in any significantly-sized society except those in, or with an ancestry tracing back to the Guangdong region. Still, it will be interesting to see it go the way of Latin. :D--Huaiwei 06:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, most movies made in Hong Kong are now in Mandrian and Cantonese. Most Cantonese speakers know Mandrian so movies produced around the HK area such as Crouching Tiger are in Mandrian & also translated to Cantonese.

-intranetusa

Hong Kong girls

Why do fresh off the boat Honger girls don't date western-born Chinese, mainland Chinese and Vietnamese Chinese(Hoa) guys? Can someone tell me why. 69.159.203.22 22:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

>>>>>WTF are you talking about?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Intranetusa (talk • contribs)

Hay each girl is diffenrent and will date who they want!!!!!!!!!! Some like foregners like my love, and some dont. Enlil Ninlil 05:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The keywords here is not "honger" girl. The key is in "fresh off the boat". I'd bet if a fresh off the boat Mexican girl would date someone who can speak Spanish. Kowloonese 02:01, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey Kowloonese, he said that Hong Kong girls don't date mainland Chinese and Vietnamese-Chinese. That means they don't like fresh off the boat Guangdong Cantonese men and Cantonese-speaking men from Vietnam. It's not a language barrier. 73.150.235.202 01:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

i dont know but why would anyone want to date a hong girl anyway? vietnamese girls are way cuter. im quite surprised hong girls can choose at all. theyre not terribly cute, and their personalities arent very attractive either.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.50.24 (talk • contribs)

>>>>> Someone delete this section. This is off topic and the creator is a tard. -intranetusa

If you want to delete this inappropriate section, ask the Wikipedia Administrator to remove it. Sonic99 02:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Hong Kong girls prefer Hong Kong boys. 81.159.80.210 22:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Romanization

It looks like a paragraph about Cantonese Romanization is missing (or maybe an article). There is a category Category:Cantonese (linguistics) romanisation, but no article or anything that I can find in Wikipedia to make sense of the different articles about the topic. Maybe someone who knows the topic could start something? olivier 17:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you could start it with the information from wiki pages and your resources? Enlil Ninlil 05:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I am actually wondering why such a summary doesn't seem to exist, while the article seems to be already quite detailed. olivier 08:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I've just added some relevant Wikilinks in "See also." See if these have what you need. Badagnani 09:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That's a beginning. I guess that a next step will be to compare them, explain where and when each of them is used and why. olivier 09:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Cellophane noodles question

Hello, there's some controversy about the origin of the name saifun to refer to cellophane noodles. It was earlier thought that this was a Japanese name (i.e. harusame saifun) but it now seems it might be from Chinese, maybe related to the Mandarin "fen si." Is it possible that "saifun" is a Min Nan pronunciation? It doesn't seem to be Cantonese. Thank you, Badagnani 22:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I grew up in Hong Kong. No one there call that thing saifun. It is called fun see in Hong Kong. I later learned that they are also called "細粉" (sai fun in Cantonese pronunication, or xi4 fen3 in Mandarin) in some Mandarin restaurants. I would say 細粉 is not Cantonese, or at least not HongKongese. However, saifun may still be a Cantonese pronuciation of a non-Cantonese term. Kowloonese 02:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm very happy to know that your help has led to the solving of this question. This website offers proof that these characters are used, and the explanation that this is a "Cantonesization" of a Mandarin term may very well be the case. Would you please take a look at Cellophane noodles and see what you think of my newest edit? Thank you, Badagnani 03:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Example of 我

Beijing Mandarin pronunciation of wǒ is irregular, ě is expected.

That's interesting, can anyone explain a bit more? Is it "ě" in other dialects of the Mandarin group (spoken in northern and southwestern China)? Or is it that it should be "ě" according to some theory, but in actual normal speech it's "wo3"? LDHan 16:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

It's according to the regular sound change from Middle Chinese to Modern Chinese. However, pronouns, particles and adverbs are known to be influenced by things other than regular sound changes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Changeup (talk • contribs) 15:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

According to my Chinese dictionary (Far East), ě is listed as an alternate pronunciation. But (rather unhelpfully), it doesn't say where. --Yuje 00:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

New box

This edit http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Cantonese_%28linguistics%29&curid=147533&diff=79802330&oldid=78980419 doesn't make for a very attractive page. Badagnani 06:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Quite a few users have commented on the unattractiveness of that box. To date, it's only being proselytized by a single, dedicated Wikipedian. --Yuje 10:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The box has apparently been re-added. It remains as unattractive and off-center as it was before. Can't something be done about this? Badagnani 21:08, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a good solution to simply move the box down lower, keeping the important information about the Chinese names of the language out of the first paragraph. http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Cantonese_%28linguistics%29&curid=147533&diff=80153727&oldid=80144137 Badagnani 05:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Better red and well-fed

I have no idea whether this is due to an elaborate behind-the-scenes mythology to which viewers are not privy, or it's just some closed-caption transcriptionist's idea of a joke, but on closed-captioned American episodes of Teletubbies, Po (the little red one) is said to be "speaking Cantonese" when she talks. None of the other 'tubbies have their babling mentioned at all in the captioning, though it all sounds the same. That is just plain weird. --— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.119.52 (talk • contribs)

See [1] and [2] Badagnani 23:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Spoken in...

The box that reads that Cantonese is spoken in: "Southern China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and other Asian countries" is stretching it a bit - and last time I looked, The UK, The US, Canada etc are not Asian Countries :) . I know how it is supposed to be read, but I suggest to clarify things, this should be changed to "Southern China, Hong Kong and Macau" only, as it is the main (or one of the main) languages spoken there. Any objections?

Taishan Ted sez: For clarity, one could change "other Asian Countries" to "various Asian countries," or the sentence could be rephrased: "Cantonese is the native language of many Chinese in Hong Kong, Macau and the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. It is spoken by some ethnic Chinese in Asian countries including (but not limited to): Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Cantonese is also commonly spoken by many overseas Chinese living in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand." It's possible to do more to satisfy the pedants, but, after a while, that effort becomes tedious.

Cantonese remains the lingua franca of San Francisco's Chinatown and the Chinese neighborhoods in that city. Cantonese isn't likely to become an extinct language in this century. (That can't happen until the current generation of Cantonese-speaking children have grown old and died.) Mandarin speakers seem to dominate Chinese communities in Silicon Valley and the southern S.F. Bay Area. This old ABC (3rd generation) never heard much Mandarin spoken anywhere in the Bay Area until the 1970s.

its spoken in the chinatowns there. its definitely not the main languages there, considering the chinese population is under 1% compared to 25% of malaysia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.14.222 (talk • contribs)

People in Taiwan (ROC) speak Min Nah and Mandrian, and the majority of Taiwanese do not understand Cantonese at all. You will find more Cantonese speakers in Manchuria than in Taiwan.

And the predominant "sino-Chinese" language in the Phillipines is Min Nan, a variant of Taiwanese-Mandrian and not Cantonese. The most widely spoken Chinese language outside of China is Mandrian, and not Cantonese. Most of the 7 million world wide Cantonese speakers are in Hong Kong and Southern China. Mandrian remains the most spoken "sino" language in Asia. -intranetusa

I think you meant 70 million instead of 7 million right? When you say "most widely spoken Chinese language outside of China", do you mean by magnitude alone, or by dispersion? Whatever you are refering to, please cite your resources for our reference, thank you. To give a general idea of how many people speak Cantonese as their mother tongue in North America, the most recent available set of statistics is the 2001 Canadian Census. In which the results were that 322,315 people speak Cantonese and 101,790 speak Mandarin. [3]. I have heard from a few people that the situation "is now changing, and more and more people are speaking Mandarin, and Mandarin is taking over Cantonese overseas". The fact is, this is a place where we base things on facts, not opinions. For now, all we have is the available census data, and until new sets of data are available, it would be irrelevant for people to start stating otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miracleman123 (talk • contribs) 04:21, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The most widely spread Chinese language until recently (ie before China opened up) was not Mandarin (Putonghua) but Hakka. Hakka people are generally multi-lingual so would also speak other Chinese languages. 81.159.80.210 23:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

There are about 1 million Cantonese speakers in Vietnam. There are also Cantonese speakers in Malaysia and Indonesia. Most of the Filipino-Chinese in the Phillipines, have assimilated and most don't speak Min Nan anymore. They don't even have chinese last names. In Canada, Cantonese is the dominant chinese dialect and in United States, Mandarin is the dominant chinese dialect. Do some research. Sonic99 20:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The example of Chinese speakers in Canada is not representative of the overseas Chinese worldwide. Over 80 % of the overseas Chinese are in south east Asia, the few hundred thousand Chinese in Canada make up a tiny proportion of the total number of overseas Chinese.
Quote "The most widely spread Chinese language until recently (ie before China opened up) was not Mandarin (Putonghua) but Hakka.", this would of course depend on the definition of "most widely spread". LDHan 17:13, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course the census data for Canada does not represent the whole overseas Chinese community, I never said it did. I was stating a fact about the situation in North America. As I was saying, whenever someone would like to make a sweeping statement as to which Chinese dialect is more widely spoken outside of China, e.g. a few posts above: "The most widely spoken Chinese language outside of China is Mandrian" , please have sources to back up those claims. --99.243.250.180 21:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

San Diu Dialect in Vietnam

San Diu people are ethnic mountain chinese who live in Northern Vietnam and they speak an archaic variant of Cantonese. They are believed to have migrated from the Guangdong province in 1600. How close is San Diu dialect to Standard Cantonese? Sonic99 06:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Welcome

Welcome, User:221.126.142.153 -- your extensive edits were quite good! Badagnani 19:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

More information on Cantonese usage in countries other than the United States needed

This article is excellent but the discussion of Cantonese usage outside of the traditional Cantonese-speaking area shows a heavy bias toward the United States. There is little or no mention of Cantonese in Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain et al. This must be a high priority for anyone improving this article. Wikipedia is used the world over and is edited likewise: content biased toward the United States does not place an article in its proper context. (I know too little about Cantonese to add anything myself.)193.61.176.108 13:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Kowloonese

Is there a dialect called Kowloonese? (I think it was mentioned in the Wayne's World 2 film with Tia Carrere). Badagnani 01:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Kowloon is part of Hong Kong and doesn't have its' own dialect. Enlil Ninlil 04:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A bit more precise: Hong Kong does not have geographical dialects, slangs or languages. I saw Wayne's World too and it was joke were the guy wanted to show of his knowledge.

Yes, but he detected something in her accent that he said showed she was from Kowloon Bay as opposed to Hong Kong proper. Taishanese sounds different than Standard Cantonese, so wouldn't Kowloonese have a slightly different accent? Badagnani 01:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I think when you say "Hong Kong proper", you actually mean HK Island, the whole territory is "Hong Kong". Refering to "Kowloonese" could have been a simple error, but if it was intentional then it was a pretty subtle joke. There are accents other than the HK standard, but they're in the old villages in the New Territories, and then it's probably only the older generation who'll have it. LDHan 18:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Michael Myers didn't say "Kowloonese," just that her accent showed that she was from Kowloon Bay rather than HK island proper. I just looked on a map and see that Kowloon Bay is directly north of HK island, and that Kowloon is just a few miles north of HK island. So the joke is that it's so close, so the accents can't be that different. But can one detect any difference between speakers from those two places? I guess it would be similar to the difference between a Manhattan and a New Jersey accent, or a Manhattan and Brooklyn accent. Badagnani 18:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Neither of them knew Cantonese. The sounds spoken were mimicked, and could hardly be understood by a Cantonese person. It was just a film. HK people and population are very mobile, and significant proportion of the population speak other dialects at home, so the overall effect is that there is no micro-regional accent that could be associated with a particular district, although there tends to be an educated and an 'uneducated' accent, and accents which give away other parts of China some of the people's families originated from. 81.159.80.210 22:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

"Cantonese (linguistics)"??

Is there any reason why the basic page is titled in this way, and not "Cantonese language", as it is for virtually every other language? Thefamouseccles 01:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Beats me, but we need to chang it, and to stop refering to it as a dialect, thats just crap commie propaganda. Enlil Ninlil 04:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In fact it's Chinese nationalist propaganda ("nationalist" as in Chinese nationalism, not Guomingdang/KMT). The article already mentions this, Like other major varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is often considered a dialect of a single Chinese language for cultural or nationalistic reasons, though in practice Cantonese, like many other Chinese language varieties, is mutually unintelligible with many other Chinese "dialects". See Identification of the varieties of Chinese. "Cantonese (linguistics)" avoids this issue and is consistent with other Chinese language/dialect wikipedia articles. LDHan 16:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The Singapore government similarly considers Mandarin as equal to the Chinese language, and the rest as Chinese dialects not fit for use in classrooms. Commie propaganda? Please convince me that I am living in a communist state all these while!--Huaiwei 19:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Any real specialists in the area would not consider this a dialect but a language, many languages share writing systems and the lingustic categorization is not based on writen scrips. Enlil Ninlil 06:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Any real specialists in the area would not think the Chinese dialects are related due to writtern scripts alone. Do you know enough of Chinese grammar and semantics to form this simplistic assumption?--Huaiwei 08:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

You know it was very confusing navigating to this page. Since sometimes I get too lazy go navigate to wikipedia to search, i just type the language on google.is and the number 1 result is Wiki. The thing is, I type in Cantonese and I was so confused cause I was looking for Cantonese language. Linguistics is the study of the science of a language, so I figured okay, Cantonese linguistics is not what I need since that article would just give the things like Labeals and Nasal sounds and so on. Pfft, thus, I think we all agree it needs to be changed. :) --Girdi 06:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Population of Cantonese speakers severely underestimated

The source citing the number of Cantonese speakers at 71 million was using data from 1984. Back then China had just broken the 1 billion person mark and now its at around 1.3 billion. Furthermore, GuangDong became the most populous province two years ago. Thus the inaccuracy is even greater proportionally.

The estimated population for GuangDong, is 110 million. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-01/29/content_413299.htm In addition there is a significant population of Cantonese speakers in Guangxi.

To this we must add overseas Chinese in both the Western world and SE Asia. Furthermore HK and Macau are not insignificant populations. The previous estimation of Cantonese speakers made in 1984 and listed on this website estimate the number of overseas speakers to have been 20 million. I could not find data on how much it has grown in the last 20 odd years.

And to everyone who is writing one of the many topic headlines on how Mandarin is overtaking... Yes, they teach Mandarin in the schools. But if you look more deeply into the reality of the situation, you see that Cantonese is far and away the primary language for life. Mandarin is still definitively a second language for a vast majority of these people. But regardless, how much or what percentage of life is conducting in Mandarin or Cantonese is irrelevant. The number of Cantonese speakers is simply the number that know how to use it and do use it sometimes.

The previous source merely added the 20 million overseas figure to the 51 million population of Guangdong in 1984. Thus is seems clear to me that the population estimate should be revised considering the outdatedness of the data. Around 140 million seems more reasonable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.77.167 (talk) 20:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The number of Cantonese (including all varieties) speakers does not not equal the population of Guangdong + number of Cantonese speakers elsewhere. A large proportion of the current population of Guangdong are not Guangdong natives, also not even all Guangdong natives are Cantonese speakers. As you know Wikipedia is based on information already published elsewhere, not on original research. LDHan 23:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You are correct. I am just saying that the number listed is wrong and we should look for a more accurate approximation or delete it. I found a much more recent statistic from a reputable source. http://www.oclc.org/languagesets/educational/languages/asia.htm. The speaking population in East and Southeast Asia is 100 million according to the site.

That web page is hardly a well researched and referenced piece of writing, what are the sources of the figures? The "Chinese" section is actually about Cantonese, a language/dialect spoken by c. 6% of Chinese speakers, it is also full of factual errors. This earlier version of this article [4] contains a paragraph that is almost word for word exactly the same as a paragraph on that web page. I don't know which article copied from which article, but it has been removed from this article because it is simply full of errors. A "reputable source" ideally should be a peer-reviewed academic journal or equivalent. Www.oclc.org seems to be merely an organisation that catalogues and indexes library material. LDHan 23:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted to the earlier figures which are more authoritative and reliable. Both [5] and [6] do not state their sources. Www.oclc.org seems to be merely an organisation that catalogues and indexes library material, and [7] seems to be a page of information about Cantonese classes with what I guess are a few ad hoc sentences written by the class teacher. Both pages are not well researched and referenced piece of writing. I have also removed other assertions supported by those two sources. LDHan 19:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

In reply to your claim that "One of the two references is not sourced, but the other one has a clear source" http://www.oclc.org/languagesets/educational/languages/asia.htm in fact does not state its source. It merely has a link to another website with the following words: "Other source and map: The World Bank Group, data and statistics", meaning that the website is another source and has a map, not that it is the source of the figures and facts presented on http://www.oclc.org/languagesets/educational/languages/asia.htm LDHan 12:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

If you looked at the old reference's source does not even say 71 million. It just pulls that number out of thin air. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.77.167 (talk) 01:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The old reference website is just a program to link up translators with customers

How about we put 71 million and date that to 1984 and put estimated 100 million today? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Snarfendu (talk • contribs) 01:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia rules, unless a piece of information is properly sourced, it can't be used in an article. It seems an anon user:128.12.17.101 tried to make a similar assertion using the same web page as a reference before in this article's talk page: [8]. Wikipedia articles are not a reliable source. So please do not make edits based on unsourced information, making the same unconstructive edits repeatedly will be regarded as vandalism. [9] states that their figures are based on figures from Ethnologue, although Ethnologue [10] itself quotes the figure of 55 million. I recognise that Ethnologue has been critcised for errors, inaccuracies, out of date data and their language and dialect classifications, but in the absence of official figures e.g. based on censuses or surveys, it is all we have for the meantime. LDHan 13:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You act as if the reference [11] that you've been repeatedly changing is sourced. If the reference cites a source and that source does not say the same thing as the reference then it is a not a legitimate reference. The source never mentions the 71m figure so the reference is a misstatement. Moreover you never mention the fact anywhere that this information is supposedly from 1984. So the fact you cite has no real source, and even if it did it would be out of date and inapplicable without saying so. When saying that Cantonese is spoken by X amount of people, you are using the present tense. Trying to say that 71m people speak it is simply false due to the fact that that figure was only possibly true 20 odd years ago. If you want to leave the figure, then you must have a reference with a legitimate source and you must use the past tense and state the period in which is was applicable. Snarfendu —Preceding comment was added at 21:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want want to use Ethnologue's figure then you need to say it's 55 million, it states "Population total all countries: 54,810,598" and does not give a date. It does give a figure for 1984 but it is "52,000,000 in mainland China (1984)". Yes I'm aware that the figures don't add up, but Wikipedia is not about truth but verifiability [12]. nvtc gov in fact does not state what year its figure is for, merely that it is based on Ethnologue's, but does not say how it arrived at its figure of 71 million, therefore it might be seen as less reliable, but this is not much different from Ethnologue, ultimately both sites do not state exactly where their figures come from. Ethnologue at least has some degree of reliability and reputation, but http://www.oclc.org/languagesets/educational/languages/asia.htm is completely unreliable and it cannot be used as a reference in Wikipedia articles because it is copied from previous versions of Wikipedia articles. LDHan 22:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Number of speakers means current speakers not past number. Not 10 years ago, not 20 years ago. If you want to put those statistics you must label what those statistics are for. Otherwise they are meaningless. Your statistics come from a jumble of unreliable sources. One of them is some random guy's personal webpage.

Here is a section from that webpage: "status: single and looking - 'I got a lot of love to give, I just don't know where to put it all' character: happy go lucky, hard working, driven philosopher personality profile: (IPIP NEO) temperament: mix of ENTJ (fieldmarshall) & INTP(systems builder)fantasy/scifi character: Yoda." [[13]].

Are you honestly trying to say thats a verifiable source? Just because he supposedly copied and pasted that data from the 1996 Ethnologue (which oddly isn't even on the Ethnologue website)? Snarfendu 00:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Also I looked into the OCLC information and at anon user:128.12.17.101's edits. It is obvious that the OCLC website did not copy wikipedia. That user copied that information from wikipedia. If you checked the history of this article you could clearly see that. Snarfendu 00:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Out of [14], [15] and [16], the last one is the least reliable because, as you have said and I agree with you, it is "some random guy's personal webpage", but at least it states where its figures supposedly come from, what is the source of the figure on [17]?

To answer your edit summary: "Listing a statistic from 1984 as a statistic for today is not a matter of inaccuracy; it is misleading and false." and to repeat what I have already written, both Ethnologue and nvtc.gov do not give a date for their figures quoted in this article.

If you disagree with what is and what is not a reliable source, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources or perhaps you might like to make a post on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. LDHan 10:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The Ethnologue clearly says 1984. The NVTC.gov website clearly lists its source as the Ethnologue and the Ethnologue does not say what NVTC cites it as saying. Furthermore, since both of those references ultimately cite the Ethnologue, there is no reason to put both figures down. Especially without the dates. Lastly, the OCLC clearly cites its source at the top of the page, but exactly like the Ethnologue, the original source material is not published for free. You have been warned for vandalism and you continue to unilaterally revert and change this article. You have been reported for Administrator Intervention. I ask that you please stop repeatedly reverting other people's changes until those admins come to handle the situation.Snarfendu 05:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

This is what is currently stated on Ethnologue: "Population: 52,000,000 in mainland China (1984). Population includes 498,000 in Macau. Population total all countries: 54,810,598." It does not state 55 million (54,810,598 rounded up) is clearly a 1984 figure.

Where does OCLC "clearly cites its source at the top of the page"? I can't see it. http://www.oclc.org/languagesets/educational/languages/asia.htm in fact does not state its source. It merely uses the following words to link to another website: "Other source and map: The World Bank Group, data and statistics", meaning that the linked website is another source and has a map, not that it is the source of the figures and text presented on http://www.oclc.org/languagesets/educational/languages/asia.htm

Thank you for your warning, I welcome an admin intervention. However I suggest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard would be a better place to request the attention of an admin. LDHan 16:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Even if part of the 55 million figure is from 1984, then it is still from 1984. 128.12.77.167 21:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This is what is currently stated on Ethnologue: "Population: 52,000,000 in mainland China (1984). Population includes 498,000 in Macau. Population total all countries: 54,810,598." It does not state 55 million (54,810,598 rounded up) is clearly a 1984 figure. LDHan 21:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the stated source objectively, and it is plain clear the 1984 date only applies to the figure for Mainland China+Macau. Other dates include 2000 for Brunei and the Philippines, 1982 for Indonesia, 1980 for Malaysia, 1985/1993 for Singapore, 1984 for Thailand, and 1999 for Vietnam. Planting a 1984 date to the total population figure is clearly inaccurate and not supported by the said source. I have therefore removed it from the article.--Huaiwei 02:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I agree your assessment is fair and objective. And since OCLC's figure is unsourced, I'm going to remove that as well. Maybe NVTC's figure should also be removed because it does not match what is shown on Ethnologue, although it states it is based on Ethnologue figures. LDHan 17:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I have removed OCLC's unsourced figure, as there doesn't seem to be any further comments regarding the origin of this figure. LDHan 16:47, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Desist from editing this article. You have already been warned multiple times for vandalism. User Huaiwei is not a wikipedia administrator and he clearly is not knowledgeable of the topic given that he believes Cantonese was derived from Mandarin. Lastly your argument still fails to grasp the fact that the total population statistic incorporates the 1984 mainland population figure. Thus even if the stats of Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam are more recent, the total figure still has many component (the largest components) based from the 1984 mainland figure. Snarfendu 09:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

-LDHan

This is the last warning you will receive for your disruptive edits.
The next time you vandalize Wikipedia, as you did to Article, you will be blocked from editing.

education section

"Most only offer Chinese classes in Standard Mandarin because it is the official language of both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. In addition, Mandarin serves as the lingua franca used between people who do not speak the same dialect, and is spoken and understood by virtually everyone in mainland China and Taiwan. In addition, Mandarin was the court dialect formerly used in Qing Dynasty Imperial China."

This belongs in the Mandarin article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.77.167 (talk) 09:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

unnecessary references to mandarin

This article is about Cantonese, not Mandarin. While the languages are related in many ways, it is not necessary to always say: Cantonese does this while Mandarin does that. If the comparison has a point then obviously its helpful, but often in this article there are facts about Mandarin that are not needed and irrelevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.77.167 (talk) 10:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The word Mandarin appears so frequently in this article that it will surely distract the reader. Pojanji 18:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The most obvious reason this is so, is that all Chinese dialects (including Cantonese) are considered branches of Mandarin, at least as far as both of the world's Chinese-dominated govenments of UN-recognised independent states are concerned. It is not uncommon for people to use Mandarin as the "standard" to make comparisons with, and this happens not just to Cantonese. There is no need to get hyper-sensitive over this.--Huaiwei 19:23, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Not true at all. You are presenting a view that is part of the 1970s Speak Mandarin Campaign. It was a view pushed out by Communist officials into the many Chinese regions around it. It tried to phase out Hakka and the many smaller minority languages. Benjwong 20:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The irony is that Cantonese seems to be preserve many linguistic features of the older Chinese "standard speech"--thus some words (like the ancient flute called yue (籥) are pronounced in Cantonese in a very similar way to the way they were pronounced in Classical Chinese, while in Standard Mandarin they have been "corrupted" by Manchurian and other linguistic influences. Our own articles on the subjects bear this out. Badagnani 20:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Not too much of an irony, considering its vast distance from the Mandarin core. The Chinese language varieties in Southern China has always "lagged" behind the "corruption" of the North. ;)--Huaiwei 08:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

That is a horrifically politically-charged comment to make, such that facts are being obscured. The Speak Mandarin Campaign that Singaporeans know of is a strictly Singaporean nation-building exercise, and has nothing to do with communism. The former Mandarin Promotion Council in Taiwan has approximately the same aims, and I would be amused if they are driven by communist ideals. If the idea of the Chinese language as a single language is basically 1970s communist propaganda, then are you insinuating that any hints of Chinese language being one language today has to be due to the communists? Are you claiming that prior to the 1970s, everyone considers all Chinese dialects as distinct languages? I am utterly amazed that centuries of Chinese Language evolution to what we have today is being blamed squarely on the Chinese Communist Party. Is this the kind of propaganda taught in schools of your locality?--Huaiwei 08:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you are missing some critical info. The Speak Mandarin Campaign article does not even mention the word "money". PRC in the 90s had an unusally-good business relationship with singapore. That is no coincidence. As singapore (along with a couple other places) were promised early entry/investment into the mainland market, if their language & writing system can be made mainland-compatible. The equivalent would be like US dropping English entirely in favor of Mandarin, so they can maximize business opportunities with PRC. The communist party dangled the carrot/money as the motivating factor, and singapore went the distance. Possibly overdoing it, but that's debatable. You are comparing the Mandarin promotion council, which was relatively self-contained within ROC boundaries. Versus the communist party which reach beyond its own territory. That's the difference. Of course if you feel singapore is part of PRC, then let me know. Benjwong 18:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

If you are attempting to suggest that the PRC "bribed" Singapore into adopting a language policy in promoting Mandarin in Singapore, kindly pull up concrete evidence to support this before I dump your entire thesis into the garbage can right away. This is a hilariously ridiculous assertion obviously conjoured based on nothing but self-imagination. Oh, and you can't even get your dates correct. The Speak Mandarin Campaign began officially in 1979, and by the 1990s, was already tampering off. So just what "preferential treatment" did Singapore optain in the interveening years? On what basis are you arguing that the Mandarin promotion council is "contained in ROC boundaries", while the Speak Mandarin Campaign is not "contained in Singapore boundaries"? Gosh, I didnt know a Singapore govenment policy like the SMC was actually transcending boundaries. So just which territory did the SMC spill into? Er....Hong Kong, I suppose, since it is apparantly getting loads of preferential treatment from the PRC? :) But of course if you feel Hong Kong isnt a part of the PRC, then let me know.--Huaiwei 15:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Please look at it from multiple perspective. As the campaign is more economics than nationalism. Somehow that article points only toward nationalism at the moment and is misleading. I feel like I am stating the obvious, but you seem to have an entirely different perspective. Just look at the date. 1979 is 1 year after the Chinese economic reform. Here is a quick reference. I have read better sources in the past, but this one is easily accessible and is not some random source. [18] Don't know if you can read from the line "Since 1985". But you can get an idea. Benjwong 15:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

If you can comprehend basic English, that line underscores a publicised fact that the need to comprehend Mandarin is becoming a critical neccesity as the PRC opens up and becomes an economic power. This, the government has frequently acknowledged and underscored when they explain Singapore's language policy (See "Mandarin – An Asset" section). The selection of English as the lingua franca was by no means the result of the United States dangling economic carrots at Singapore either. It was a recognition at that time that all Singaporeans must at least have a solid grounding in the language of commerce and world trade, and the language of the world's largest economy, for individual Singaporeans and the country as a whole to forge successfully in the global marketplace. The selection of English and Chinese as compulsory languages for ethnic-Chinese Singaporeans are almost exactly the same by the 1990s - for the primary benefit of connecting with the World. You call for a holistic approach in looking at this issue, but isnt it strange that you appear to be dismissing the campaign's stated objectives to achieve that? Nation building and social cohesion continues to be relevant today, as is clearly demonstrated in the on-going need to close the gap between the English and Chinese-educated Singaporeans[19] born out of a less-regulated educational landscape prior to Singapore's independence. For you to discount these reasonings as "less important" dispite the existance of overwelming evidence is clearly foolhardy.

I do not dispute the role of economics in Singapore's language policy. However, I dispute your claims that Singapore's Speak Mandarin Campaign is rooted in communist ideals. I dispute your claims that the PRC has dangled economic carrots at Singapore to entice it to adopt a pro-Mandarin policy. I dispute your claims that Singapore's Speak Mandarin Campaign is enforced outside Singapore. And I dispute your suggestion that Singapore is a part of the PRC. Unless you can show verifiable information to support any of your above claims, I do not think anyone needs to entertain them much further.--Huaiwei 16:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

That extract does not back up the claims that "... singapore (along with a couple other places) were promised early entry/investment into the mainland market, if their language & writing system can be made mainland-compatible." It merely states that "the promotion of Mandarin has also been associated with economic values, responding to the opening-up and rapid growth of the Chinese economy", meaning the the spread of Mandarin in Singapore also had economic benefits. LDHan 17:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok I respect your opinions. You are welcome to dispute all of it. But I will say that if you are overreacting to 1 sentence to 1 quick source, I can't imagine what you will find if you are willing to look the other way. Hint, there are many books out there on this topic. If anything I was trying to help shed some light. Personally I am certain if I hit deep into research, it will be overwhelming proven that economics has an "uncomfortably" strong-tie to the language reform. Don't worry though, I am booked on too many articles to even attempt this one. Benjwong 17:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What I wrote was not merely an opinion, but rather a simple matter of fact assessment of your claims and the evidence you presented, one that would be made by any reader without any preconceived ideas on this matter. Maybe what you claim is true, maybe it's not, but it's not supported by that page from that book. LDHan 20:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What is meant by Cantonese

Cantonese is a misnomer. The language people in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and overseas Chinese refer to as Cantonese is in fact Guangzhouese, ie the speech of Guangzhou City.

Canton is the English transliteration for Guangdong Province; it was also the British transliteration for Guangzhou City. Thus Cantonese meaning the speech of Guangzhou became wrongly confused with the speech of Guangdong, as the 'Canton' in 'Cantonese' was taken to mean Guangdong and not Guangzhou.

There is one language Guangzhouese, but there are many other Chinese languages spoken in Guangdong Province, which could also be validly referred to as Guangdongese, these include Toishanese (Taishanese), Zhongshanese and Guangdong-Hakka languages such as Xinglingese and Meiyuanese. Although Toishanese is said to be a native Cantonese language as is Guangzhouese, it is in fact as different to Guangzhouese as Guangzhouese is to Guangdong-Hakka. The fact that Guangzhou is the provincial capital of Guangdong does not make Guangzhouese the only language in Guangdong. In China, the Cantonese referred to by many people, is correctly called Guangzhouese, and not Guangdongese as referred to by people in Hong Kong.

The situation is similar for people in South-East Asia descended from the (South) Fujian region of China. They refer to their language as Hokkien(ese) (Fujianese). Other non-Fujian Chinese then interpreted this to mean the (only) speech from Fujian, and expect all people from Fujian to speak Hokkien. This is in fact incorrect because it is only one of the languages in Fujian and it could not be understood by most people from Fujian.

Perhaps the eds here should write Guangzhouese for Cantonese, if Guangzhouese was the language meant. 81.159.80.210 23:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Your view makes alot of sense. In fact you are probably right. Except it will be one of the hardest item to reference. If a reference said (Canton)ese is the main branch, you don't know if they really mean Guangdong or Guangzhou. And if they mean Guangzhou, and they didn't say Guangzhouese, it just make the misnomer even more mainstream. Benjwong 02:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Move

There was an incomplete proposal at Wikipedia:Requested moves to move this page to Cantonese language. If that move is desired, please use the instructions on that page to create a full move request, or use a separate discussion here to reach consensus and then contact an administrator to perform any nove that is necessary. Dekimasuよ! 12:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)