Template talk:Chinese language

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[edit] Hyphenation and Capitalization

Before anyone wonders about the difference between "Danzhou" and "Min-dong" and "Pu-Xian", let me try to explain the reason behind my choice:

  • Danzhou is a place. The name is one word. Same goes for "Hakka", "Pinghua", "Putonghua", etc.
  • Min-dong is two words, so there's a hyphen. "-dong", or "east", is not capitalized, because it is not a place. Same goes for "Min-nan", etc.
  • Pu-Xian is two words, and really means Putian + Xianyou, two different places. So both words are capitalized. Same goes for "Shao-Jiang" and "Qiong-Wen".

-- ran 13:35, May 22, 2004 (UTC)

Pinyin does not use hyphens to separate syllables (joint or otherwise). --Taoster 19:49, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
Which is true. What would you suggest then? -- ran 13:49, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
Separate the phonemes with a non-breaking space. The hyphen adds ambiguity as to whether the name is purely Pinyin, a combination of English and Pinyin, or Wade-Giles. --Taoster 04:20, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Historical Spoken Chinese

I changed "Historical spoken Chinese" to "Historical Chinese." Speaking of Middle Chinese, we usually make study on its phonology. But the Middle Chinese sounds are, more or less, artificially constructed ones to "read" rather than to "speak." --Nanshu 04:06, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Then how would you separate the concept of, say, "wenyan" and "Ancient Chinese"? -- ran 13:49, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
With respect to Historical Chinese, the nomenclature on these various phases is somewhat confused, depending on where you look. For instance, Middle Chinese was called Ancient Chinese (c.f. Karlgren). I started a page a while ago on Old Chinese, and this ought to replace "Ancient Chinese", otherwise things could get confusing. In that page, is another stub page on Historical Chinese Phonology. Perhaps that should replace Historical Spoken Chinese, since it isn't a term found in much of the literature I've read.

Dylanwhs 18:42, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Done. -- ran 00:06, May 24, 2004 (UTC)

I'm talking about the header. It should cover all items in the cell, otherwise we need to rearrange them. Now, will Proto-Min and Proto-Mandarin be specific to phonology? I don't think so. --Nanshu 02:39, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

It is possible, because of the precedence in this chart concerning the Subdivisions of Min that other 'subdivisions' of other languages such as Mandarin, Yue, Hakka, etc will be listed, as places. It seems much more sensible to me that pages listing these sub-dialects of various languages should do this task instead. For example, Wu dialects (now Wu (linguistics) list different dialects on that page. Dylanwhs 20:24, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Classification

Why list Subdivisions of Min here but not subdivisions of the other divisions? Why not break off all the subdivisions so this stays a manageable size? --Jiang 21:36, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Because the subdivisions of Min really are that different. Ethnologue, for example, lists all the subdivisions of Min as "separate languages". -- ran 03:14, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwanese and Shanghainese

About my last revert:

First thing: Taiwanese is a part of Min Nan.

Second thing: Please do not put any second-level divisions in there except for the divisions of Min. If we start dividing Mandarin, Wu, etc. and putting all of those in that box, then the box will quickly grow to infinite size. The only reason I split Min up (and not the others) is because Min Bei, Min Nan etc. are commonly listed as separately languages, such as by Ethnologue.

-- ran 15:05, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dungan

Regarding this edit, is the Dungan language written in Cyrillic script an official writing standard.., and is it one of the spoken varieties? — Instantnood 10:35, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

To 61.144.54.45:

  1. The subcategories of Min are set out separately because Ethnologue treats them as separate languages.
  2. I've set out Hui, Jin, and Pinghua differently from Danzhouhua, etc., because while Hui, Jin, and Pinghua are generally recognized categories, Danzhouhua, etc. are more like individual dialects that haven't been studied sufficiently to be categorized.
  3. I've put "Standard Mandarin" before "Standard Cantonese" because Standard Mandarin is by far official in many more places and many more contexts than Standard Cantonese.
  4. I've put "Yue" instead of "Cantonese" because I feel that "Yue" is clearer. See also the discussion going on at Talk:Cantonese (linguistics).

-- ran (talk) June 28, 2005 20:09 (UTC)

[edit] Rename

I propose a move to Languages in the Chinese language family, & to change the instances of dialect to language. This is because the dialects are not dialects but langauges,, its as simple as that.

100110100 08:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taishanese

Shouldn't Taishanese be included (since, for example, we have several divisions of Min)? And do people know what "first-level" means? Wouldn't "major" or "primary" be more clear? Badagnani 01:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)