Talk:Yue Chinese/Archive 3

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tones

Do Cantonese have 7 or 9 different tones?

It has 9 tones.Luke! 22:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That would be 6, unless you count consonants as 'tones'. (Perhaps that's a problem with translation?) One of the traditional 6 has two distinct variants, so 7 is sometimes given as an answer, but the difference is not generally used to distinguish words. kwami (talk) 17:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I edited that section to make things clearer. kwami (talk) 17:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

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Informative article, but a couple of comments:

Cantonese is spoken by about 100+ million people worldwide. That's not very much compared to, e.g., Mandarin and since it has never really been a literary language, it is by far not as important as Mandarin.

The above comment strikes me as a value judgement, violating the Neutral Point Of View. Catonese is pretty important to Cantonese people, I would imagine. I would simply point out the number of speakers (which is more than all but maybe a dozen or less languages) and the fact that comparatively few works of literature are written in it.

Linguistically, Cantonese is a more archaic dialect than Mandarin. This can be seen, for example, by comparing the words for "I/me" and "hunger". They are written using very similiar characters, but in Mandarin their pronunciation is quite different ("wo3" vs. "e4"), whereas in Cantonese they are pronounced identically except for the respective tones. Since the characters hint at a similiar pronunciation, it can be concluded that their ancient pronunciation was indeed similiar (as preserved in Cantonese), but in Mandarin the two syllables acquired different pronunciations in the course of time.

Again, this sounds more like an argument that Cantonese is a worse language than Mandarian than an encyclopedia article about it.

To me it sounds just like an argument that Mandarin developed from Cantonese. Where's the value judgement?

The real problem was with the word "archaic" which to me implied "obsolete". Robert Merkel

Finally, there are a few points where you have written your article in the first person. While it is appropriate for many sorts of writing, even scientific papers these days, it's not really appropriate in encyclopedia articles.

This article is already informative, and in my opinion just needs a bit more work to be really good.

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Cantonese is more often called "guong-dong-wa" than of "guong-zeo-wa". Please edit accordingly ----Ktsquare

Cantonese is often called "guong-dong-wa" probably because it sound like "guang-dong". Three dictionary I have translates it to "guong zeo wa". The dialect is only spoken in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and immediate surrounding area.

Taishan, for example, is about 100 kilometres (70 miles) from Guangzhou, its dialect is very different from Cantonese. (Taishan promotional website explains this in the middle of the page)

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Linguistically, Cantonese is a dialect of Yue language. Yue language is a language of Sinitic language family. Toishanese is another dialect of Yue. So it is technically wrong to say Cantonese is "yue yu".

Cantonese is Cantonese. There is only one tone for it. All the other languages in China are not call Cantonese!!

COMPLETELY WRONG! Actually Cantonese is the unique name of the language, including all kinds of Cantonese dialects, although in narrow sense it usually mean Standard Cantonese(Guangzhou dialect or Hong Kong dialect). Toishanese is a dialect of Cantonese, just like standard Cantonese (Guangzhou or Hong Kong dialect). The Mandarin pinyin "Yue" is awkward, it's not the name of Cantonese language, nor the original pronunciation of "粵語" in standard Cantonese or any kind of Cantonese dialects. So why you use the awkward Mandarin pinyin "Yue" instead of the English word "Cantonese"? -Strawberycake (talk) 08:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Min nan vs Teochew

I have problem with the following statement:

Broadly speaking, all people of Guangdong might be classified as Cantonese. However, other Chinese groups in Guangdong include Hakka, Min Nan (specifically Teochew), and Mandarin speakers, and a narrower definition might include only those who speak Cantonese.

I disagree that you should mix Min Nan and Teochew. Though they are very close dialects linguistically, they are not exactly the same, at least not geographically. Besides, technically speaking Min Nan is from Fujian, Teochew is from Guangdong, they are from two separate provinces. Teochew people are often considered Cantonese because of geographic proximity of Teochew to Canton. I would never call a minnan person Cantonese because not only they are not from Canton, they are not even from the same Guangdong province. What I mean is that Teochew are Cantonese geographically though not necessarily linguistically, but Minnan is neither. Kowloonese 22:17, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

clean up tone marking

Some Cantonese words in this article have tone diacritics, some numbers, and some aren't marked for tone at all. In this of all articles we should be consistent. Yale would be best. kwami (talk) 08:56, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I've converted the numbers, but haven't added tones for the words that didn't have them. Someone might want to verify I haven't made any mistakes. kwami (talk) 07:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

title

At the recent discussion at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Language.2Fdialect_NPOV, which decided against the '(linguistics)' tag, there was some discussion as to what should replace it in this case. One suggestion was Yue Chinese. I think that's a debate for this article, since either "Cantonese" or "Yue Chinese" would fit the naming conventions. kwami (talk) 00:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

There really isn't a Cantonese standard the way there is a Mandarin standard. Rather, Canton/Hong Kong is a prestige dialect. We even have Guangzhou dialect redirect to Standard Cantonese. On the one hand, "Cantonese" is the most common English usage. On the other, a split between Yue Chinese and Cantonese/Canton dialect/Guangzhou dialect would parallel the split between Wu Chinese and Shanghainese/Shanghai dialect and also Mandarin Chinese and Beijing dialect. kwami (talk) 23:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

But Cantonese do have de facto standard, that is Guangzhou or Hong Kong dialect. The standard was established by usage, not by rule like Mandarin standard. Nearly all native Cantonese speakers admit the standard. You may treat "Yue language" as another name of Cantonese if you like (although I DO NOT and will NEVER accept this awkward-and-odd Mandarin pinyin name), but trying to split them and say that Cantonese is just a dialect of so called "Yue language" is completely wrong. In broad sense Cantonese is the name of the entire language, including all Cantonese dialects such as Taishanese, Gaoyang dialect, Yulin dialect and so on. Disregarding this fact and trying to limit the meaning of Cantonese to the narrow sense, as just the dialect of Guangzhou and Hong Kong, so as to replace the concept of Cantonese language with somebody prefered "Yue language" is obviously harbouring an intention of pushing biases and lowering the concept of the English word "Cantonese". This behavior is obnoxious. The new made-up "Yue Chinese" is more obnoxious. It is misleading, making people believe that Cantonese is a dialect of single language "Chinese"! --Strawberycake (talk) 09:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Wow you're paranoid.

What you are describing is a prestige dialect, not an official dialect. An official dialect is established by rule, a prestige dialect by usage. That's why other editors have suggested that we might want to change the title. As for Cantonese vs. Yue, this is like Shanghainese vs. Wu: Cantonese is, literally, the language of Canton; and historically the word "Shanghainese" was used for all Wu dialects. The situation is exactly parallel. kwami (talk) 17:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Source of number of speakers: Journal of East Asian Linguistics

In this edit (without a summary) by an anon user (IP address: 71.202.237.184) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cantonese&diff=229697743&oldid=229163370

the previous reference:

Li, Ping. [2006] (2006). The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521833337. pg 13.

was replaced by this:

C.-T.J. Huang (2007). Journal of East Asian Linguistics. ISSN: 0925-8558. pg 13. 5 November 2007

There are several problems with this edit.

The actual author is not stated, C.-T.J. Huang is a co-editor of the journal, see http://www.springer.com/linguistics/comparative+linguistics/journal/10831

There is no issue dated 5 November 2007, see http://www.springerlink.com/content/0925-8558

The page number just happens to be exactly the same as the previous source.

The issue date and page number in the edit do not match those of the actual journal, see http://www.springerlink.com/content/t106m383tq70/?p=987ccf9e376d4ad5a1a4ebbef9badeb4&pi=6
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j7p3v487280m/?p=987ccf9e376d4ad5a1a4ebbef9badeb4&pi=4
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w1364674753h/?p=987ccf9e376d4ad5a1a4ebbef9badeb4&pi=3

I think this is obviously an example of someone adding a fake reference by adding a seemingly plausible but actually non-existent source. I suspect this was added by the same user or associate of the same user who made similar edits previously. I have discussed this before in the talk page of this article when it was named "Cantonese (linguistics)", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cantonese_(linguistics)/Archive2.

Just for the record, the archived discussion as it is now contains a sentence that I wrote which was then vandalised before being archived: "Therefore I suggest any future addition of references regarding the number of Cantonese speakers as being 110 million, or more than approx 70 million, by one-edit/one-subject-edit account user names, anon users, or user:128.12.77.167 (including sockpuppets: Benjwong, snarfendu, miracleman123 etc), should be regarded as completely suspect and removed on sight." My original sentence did not contain " Benjwong, ". (quoted sentence corrected after Miracleman123's reply)

LDHan (talk) 22:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

That sentence is not entirely correct LDHan. In the original one, you crossed my alias out because, as you may recall, we both had agreed that I was not a part of any of those types of edits.--Miracleman123 (talk) 06:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, you are correct. I copied and pasted the sentence here and the formatting (crossing out) was not carried over. My original sentence was "Therefore I suggest any future addition of references regarding the number of Cantonese speakers as being 110 million, or more than approx 70 million, by one-edit/one-subject-edit account user names, anon users, or user:128.12.77.167 (including sockpuppets: snarfendu, miracleman123 etc), should be regarded as completely suspect and removed on sight." I have also corrected it in my first comment. LDHan (talk) 00:07, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Page move needed: Take a look cat English item

Why not move the article describing Cantonese language to Cantonese language, and the article describing Cantonese people to Cantonese people? Take a look at English, the English item describes the meaning of the word "English" just like disambiguation page. When referring to the English language people may visit English language item; when referring to the English people we may visit English people item. That's very clear. I suggest that we should move item Cantonese_(disambiguation) to Cantonese, and move the article about language to Cantonese language. Now all these items about Cantonese are very pell-mell. --Anativecantonesespeaker (talk) 08:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Because we'll get into an edit war over whether it's a 'language' or a 'dialect'. kwami (talk) 19:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I've suggested at Standard Cantonese (which is a misnomer, as there is no standardized form of Cantonese) that this page be restricted to covering Cantonese-Taishanese-Siyi etc. and moved to Yue Chinese, while that page be moved here, since "Cantonese" is frequently used to mean the dialect of Canton and Hongkong, not all of Yue. kwami (talk) 20:39, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the move requested (at Wikipedia:RM) is to rename this article to Yue Chinese, and Standard Cantonese to Cantonese. Can you provide any reliable sources to back up the claim that "Yue Chinese" is a better name for an article covering this particular dialect family? It seems so far you've only made assertions, but there is an issue of common usage when considering what article name is the best. Also, I would ask that you not change the entries on Cantonese (disambiguation) until this move request has been resolved - because we don't know yet if the move will actually be fulfilled. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:02, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

To add - I do see a problem with calling the entire dialect family by the Chinese name 廣東話, but the question we have to ask here is how the term "Cantonese" is used in the English language, and whether or not it is used to cover the entire Yue dialect family. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The discussion is at talk:Standard Cantonese. kwami (talk) 18:31, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Wrong talk page

BTW this was originally the talk page to Cantonese (disambiguation). Kwami somehow made a move without the talk page earlier. Let me ask admins to move the talk page back first. Benjwong (talk) 03:32, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that. For some reason I don't understand, talk pages don't seem to follow article moves in these Chinese languages articles. I'm so used to it being automatic that I often forget to check. kwami (talk) 08:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Benj, it looks like you fixed it once. I wonder if something else is going on. kwami (talk) 09:42, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Were you talking about the page history for the discussions archived at Archive2? I've re-archived, so they're associated as they are with Archive1, and we only have the links to worry about. kwami (talk) 08:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Terrible, terrible page move

Why was this page just moved to "Yue Chinese"? Was there consensus for this? We try to use the most commonly used English names for things for our page titles, and this is not one of them. Badagnani (talk) 03:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

It was open for discussion for five days, with notices here, at 'Standard Cantonese', and at 'Requested moves'. Not much was said. (One suggestion was "Yue Cantonese", but that is not a term used in English at all, AFAIK.) As far as "the most commonly used English name", there is no commonly used English name, as Yue is not commonly distinguished from Cantonese. (Similar to the situation with Wu and Shanghainese). "Yue Chinese" is parallel to other primary branches such as Wu Chinese and is the term used by Ethnologue. Yue is also used in semi-academic literature such as Ramsey's The Languages of China. kwami (talk) 06:22, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Five days of discussion is not enough to make proper decision. Page move from "Cantonese (linguistic)" to "Yue Chinese" is imprudent.--Newzebras (talk) 11:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Five days is the standard wait period. kwami (talk) 16:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

No commonly used English name? "Cantonese" IS the most commonly used English name. Perceptibly you are talking nonsense while opening your eyes. Shanghainese is not parallel to Cantonese, because the common usage of Cantonese in English is to refer things associated with Guangdong. Cantonese is a concept like Wu, although it may refer to Canton-Hong Kong dialect due to the latter's prestige and being made representative of the whole Cantonese language. Though "Yue" is used by Ethnologue, it is NOT a proper name. It has different meanings. It may refer to Cantonese people. Besides, the English word "Cantonese" has been being used for hundreds of years. It is familiar to normal English speakers, while "Yue" is just a Mandarin pinyin romanization used only by a few people. Why we abandon the commonly used English name "Cantonese" and replace it with awkward-and-unfamiliar Mandarin pinyin romanization? --Newzebras (talk) 11:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

We did abandon the commonly used English name for "Canton" for "Guangzhou" back in the 1940s. Change are okay if they do it slowly an encyclopaedia is not to misguide people, the truth is both Cantonese and Yue are correct but the only problem is the Standard Cantonese/Guangzhou dialect we need a better name represent it. Darknshadow (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Canton is still used commonly, together with "Guangdong" and "Guangzhou", as an alias. "Canton" is not the name for "Guangzhou", but also the name for "Guangdong".--Newzebras (talk) 08:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Because the primary meaning of "Cantonese" in English is Guangzhou dialect, not the Yue language. kwami (talk) 16:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope. Common usage of "Cantonese" in English is to refer things associated with "Guangdong (Canton) province" (including Guangzhou (Canton) city). Actually Cantonese language is called "廣東話(Guangdong speech)" or "粵語(Yue or Cantonese language)" or "白話(plain speech)". All these terms equal to socalled "Yue language". Guangzhou dialect is the social standard and representative dialect of the whole Cantonese language. It is only a smaller subset of Cantonese. But because of it's prestige and representative, people in Hong Kong and Macau directly call it Cantonese, using the bigger set name. Now we have moved Guangzhou dialect to the proper place per the concert we achieved, it does not confuse with Cantonese language any more. And, "Yue Chinese" IS a terrible name with different meanings and unfamiliar to normal English speakers. Cantonese (language topic) or Cantonese (language) or Cantonese (language/dialects) are the best proposals. --Newzebras (talk) 08:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

Request Newzebra requested three moves among the Cantonese-language articles. After discussion, two were agreed to ("Cantonese" to Guangzhou dialect and "Cantonese (dab)" to Cantonese), and one was opposed ("Yue Chinese" staying where it was): Talk:Cantonese#Requested move. It is the move that was rejected that NZ is now requesting a second time.

• Strongly oppose for multiple problems. This needs to be discussed at Chinese naming conventions, so that all Chinese language articles can be named consistently. If any article should be named "Cantonese", it should be Guangzhou dialect, but that was moved away from "Cantonese" per Newzebras' request. The current request, which NZ is already trying to enforce through rewording the article (which I have reverted twice, BTW), does not make much sense. Cantonese isn't a "language topic", it's a language, and that tag is also imprecise in that it does not distinguish Yue from Guangzhou dialect, or for that matter any other Yue dialect or any of the Category:Cantonese romanisations. At best, "Cantonese (language topic)" would be a dab. NZ's objection to the current title is that it could refer to the people. This was discussed at Chinese naming conventions. The Wikipedia convention for handling such situations is a dab link at the top of the page (just as we would have to do with "Cantonese (language topic)"). However, no-one uses the term "Yue people" in English except for the pre-Chinese people of that name. kwami (talk) 16:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Completely agree to the move request and Strongly oppose kwami opposing the move request. Current Guangzhou dialect was formerly named as Standard Cantonese which was move to Cantonese per kwami's request, not former article Cantonese (linguistic). Former article Cantonese (linguistic) has been moved to Yue Chinese per kwami's request (imprudent move, terrible name. I strongly oppose this name). If any article should be named "Cantonese", it should be a disambiguation page (Cantonese (disambiguation)) rather than Guangzhou dialect or Cantonese language. Yes, Cantonese is a language, but at the same time it can refer to all things associated with "Guangdong", not only with "Guangzhou". So we need to add a tag or adjunct to differ the article from other Cantonese associated topics while Cantonese being made a dab. The article IS a language-about topic. Now we have moved Guangzhou dialect to the place where it is per most people's agreement.

And "Cantonese (language topic)" is one of best name for this article. Cantonese=Yue=Guangdong-associated-things. Cantonese is a big upset, including several dialects such as Guangzhou dialect, Taishanese dialect and other dialects. "Cantonese (language topic)" should not be made a dab because Cantonese is the name of the whole language. It is one of the best proposal name for this article. "Yue Chinese" do make people feel like the article may refer to any Cantonese-about things, for example, language, cuisine, people, etc. It is a very bad name. And it is used by few people comparing to commonly used English word "Cantonese". --Newzebras (talk) 07:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Would "Cantonese (Yue)" work? 71.200.39.246 (talk) 00:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

It would work, but I don't see this as helping clarify the page much. It would suggest the Cantonese article should have a similar title: "Cantonese (Guangzhou)", and maybe move Taishanese to "Cantonese (Taishan)". I guess it just seems awkward to me, and AFAIK we don't name any other language pages like this. Newzebra objects that we should use the most common English term, but there really isn't one. The only unambiguous term in English is Yue, and I fail to see any problem with using the predominant term used in the lit. kwami (talk) 01:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

The Mandarin spelling romanization form "Yue" is a seldom used transition for commonly used English word "Cantonese". It has the same meaning with Cantonese. It is not a unambiguous term. "Yue Chinese" may also refer to Cantonese people. We should use common English word rather than seldom used term. That is why I object "Yue", as common English speaker don't know what it is. "Cantonese (language topic)" is one of the most suitable proposal. It is very clear and familiar to us. --Newzebras (talk) 07:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

"Cantonese (Yue)" would suggest that Cantonese is referring to the family of languages/dialects, while "Cantonese (Guangzhou/Hong Kong)" (or possibly "Cantonese (Yue dialect)") could be a possible location for "Guangzhou dialect". 71.200.39.246 (talk) 20:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, Newzebras is edit warring over the name in the text, without giving this discussion a chance. He doesn't appear to actually be interested in discussion, but only getting his way. kwami (talk) 07:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Ha, I did discussed those problems on the discussion page, haven't you seen that, hum? --Newzebras (talk) 07:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

NZ, "discussion" does not mean you tell people what you're going to do even though they disagree with you. It means to come to a common understanding. You were able to convince us to make two page moves, but not the third. Meanwhile you're changing the wording of the third as if the move had been decided in your favour. This is not acceptable behaviour. The wording of the article should match the title, Yue Chinese. If you can convince us to make the move, then you should change the wording to Cantonese, but not before. kwami (talk) 09:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I think we'd better discuss in one place, just here, shall we? kwami tried opening discussion everywhere: HERE and HERE.--Newzebras (talk) 09:22, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

No, NZ, the first page is a disciplinary board. I'm requesting that you be disciplined for your disruptive and uncooperative behaviour. The second page is where you started the discussion. It is polite to let other people know when you move a discussion, so that they can follow. You should have said something there yourself, rather than making others do your work for you. kwami (talk) 09:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

How about just rename this article to Cantonese (Variety of Chinese), and do the same to other articles such as Hakka, Min Nan, and Wu? 68.33.71.226 (talk) 21:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

That's not bad, but both Yueyu and Guangzhouhua qualify as 'Cantonese (variety of Chinese)'. The current title is unambiguous, as Yue can only mean Yueyu in English. kwami (talk) 00:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support The previous move was unilaterally done by Kwami as well as his moves to other Chinese language articles and dab pages. The decision to move the articles should have been done by other "admins" who is not involved in the discussion. He also unilaterally altered the naming convention of Chinese too and falsely accused Newzebras disruptive at his talk page and ANI. I believe all are not only unwise decision, but also poor attempt to block the disputer. That can be viewed as "abuse of admin tools" and POV pushing. I roughly looked through the existent discussions in which there were no clear consensus reached to his preferred name. Besides, Chinese itself has several meanings, and Yue Chinese could misguide people to interpret it as Yue people. Both Yue Chinese language or Yue Chinese dialect have problems, so if he says that he tried to avoid "disputes", that is also wrong. At least Cantonese (linguistics) has no ambiguous meaning unlike Yue Chinese. I can't find any single reference for agreeing with Kwami's move after googling. As his allegation, he should present the evidence that "Yue Chinese" is the established English term or mostly used term by scholars. Besides, the argument that previous RM has its enough due time (5 days) is very ridiculous since I can only see strong resistences of the RM's period and improper closure by the involved editor, but when closing he acted as "admin. We don't say that Cantonese speaking singers as Yue Chinese speaking singers. To sum up, the article should go back to the original title or the newly suggested one to avoid lame disputes.--Caspian blue 23:50, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Don't misrepresent what I did, CB. I only moved this page (as suggested by another editor) after discussion and consensus was reached. (Why the sudden interest?) kwami (talk) 00:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. I don't misrepresent anything. That is my observation on your poor attempt at ANI. You alleged that articles related to Chinese language should be changed to your preferred version. You're wrong again, and don't call me CB unless I would say it is Okay. It has been on my watchlist for a long time, and Badagnani's complaint caught my attention a week ago but I had other matters. Also do not assume bad faith on my involvement. Since the requested move is almost occurred at the same time of my RM request for some article, there is no wonder for me to see the strong opposition to your unilateral move. There were no consensus.--Caspian blue 00:14, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What about "Cantonese (Yue)" for Yue Chinese, "Cantonese" for the disambiguation page, "Cantonese (Yue dialect)" for the general dialect (linking to or possibly containing Hong Kong and Guangzhou Cantonese), and leaving the other dialects where they are (I'm assuming they aren't ambiguous)? 71.200.39.246 (talk) 02:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Naming dispute

Per the above debate, we should not change the wording of the article from "Yue" to "Cantonese" unless people agree to move it from Yue to Cantonese. kwami (talk) 17:50, 1 November 2008 (UTC)