Talk:Pronunciation of Hong Kong

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Hong Kong Portal
This article is part of WikiProject Hong Kong, a project to coordinate efforts in improving all Hong Kong-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other Hong Kong-related articles, you are invited to join this project!
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Hong Kong To-do:
edit purge
  • Clean up all MTR station pages. They are literally all over the place. Two model pages are Tsing Yi Station and Sheung Shui Station. They each describe a feature special to the station, Station layout, exit, and connections, as well as neighbouring stations and the station "box".
    • We will also need plenty of updated pictures (e.g. removing all KCR-related images except those on the KCR article). Check that all pages have basically the same language structure as Tsing Yi Station and Sheung Shui Station. Links to location maps are good too. (Should also perform these checks on Chinese Wikipedia.)
  • Clean-up pages that link with TVB, especially its series pages.

Contents

[edit] Other articles

Do we intend to put up other articles of the same type for other foreign pronunciations or is this just an exception for Hong Kong? I can't help notiing that the introduction at Hong Kong does look a lot less cluttered now, but does it really merit a seperate article? Peter Isotalo 20:51, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Xianggangto

This article actually only contains the romanized versions of "Hong Kong" in Cantonese and mandarin, except for the PRC government, almost nobody use Xiānggǎngto refer to Hong Kong in English (and they rarely do that). I don't see why this article should exist if its purpose is only to tell people about it's pronunciation in English. --Cylauj 11:32, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My original intent by inserting a pronunciation file was not to instruct anyone of how to pronounce this in English, but to give a decent pronuncuiation of Chinese. I'm reinserting the information that is relevant and redirecting this to Hong Kong. This subject does in no way merit a seperate sub-stub.
Peter Isotalo 15:56, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I have moved the article from Pronunciation of Hong Kong in English to the more neutral Pronunciation of Hong Kong, as reflected from comments on this page and Talk:Hong Kong. Please leave this page alone until a consensus has been reached. --Carlsmith 16:59, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
This is not a complicated issue. The pronunciation of Hong Kong is disputed no more than any other multilingual city, country or region in the world and the only reason that this article was created in the first place seems to be because of a very simple misunderstanding. It you actually read what's been said on this talkpage, there doesn't seem to be much support for keeping it. Please show that you've actually read the discussion and understood the problem before demanding that that we have to establish consensus before editing. You're the only one objecting and you're doing it without any argumentation.
Peter Isotalo 17:20, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Um, given its contents, wouldn't a better title for this page be pronunciation of Hong Kong in Chinese ? —Muke Tever talk (la.wiktionary) 19:40, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for Deletion debate

This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. -Splashtalk 21:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Current status

Should someone call another vote? Based on what Peter said above, is the page really any more necessary than one for, say, Guangzhou or Taipei? Only if all these other cities have one, should Hong Kong have one. (Geneva, now that one I could understand...) As Muke states, the article in now properly Pronunciation of Hong Kong in Chinese, no? By the way, do we really need Wade-Giles on here? Haha. --Dpr

Do we really need Wade-Giles anywhere except for article titles that actually use it like Lao Tzu or have very common alternative names like Peking and Nanking? I can't help pointing out that Instantnood and many other editors who are active with China-related have rather unilaterally decided that all "their" articles have to include tons of very uninteresting transcription information. It's not always as bad as with Hong Kong, but it seems to be more focused on satisfying their own POV than adapting the article content to the vast majority of readers that don't speak Chinese.
Peter Isotalo 11:20, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Now that we have such an article just to list various pronunciations of a single entity, can we create one for every other single city on Earth...or at least all the more so for countries with multuple official languages? Singapore, for instance, has four, with scope for pronunciations in all kinds of Chinese and Indian dialects. Can we deem this page's existance as justification for all other similar pages?--Huaiwei 11:06, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

As far as I remember it was split because of complaints that the pronunciation of its full name is too long. I don't think the full name of Singapore is as long as Hong Kong's. Meanwhile, Mandarin is specifically stated to be the official language in Singapore, but that's not the case in Hong Kong. There is no Indian language. Among languages originated from the subcontinent, only Tamil is official in Singapore. — Instantnood 13:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
So countries and territories with long names is the sole criterion for such articles (rather then the length of the content itself)? Interesting point there. Perhaps Hong Kong as an article should be deemed more worthy for deletion compared to Hong Kong Special Administrative Region? Meanwhile, what does the official status of Mandarin has anything to do with this conversaion? In addition, I am pretty sure I mentioned "Indian dialects", and not "Indian language", although Tamil, like other Indian languages, is considered a language, to be linguistically correct. If only official languages are considered worthy for such articles, then should we not remove Pinyin and Cantonese pronunciations from all HK articles including this page, since neither Mandarin nor Cantonese are actually official? Only Chinese is, so should this only include Chinese characters?
Why your double standards, instantnood?--Huaiwei 14:07, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
If the consensus is to move it back, and nobody is going to complain it's making the paragraph too long and unreadable, I won't object doing so. The full name of Hong Kong as a political entity is "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China". Putonghua and Cantonese are both de facto official in Hong Kong, a fact that is seldom, if not never, disputed. Singapore, in comparison, has specified Mandarin and Tamil as official. — Instantnood 14:19, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
The very person who objects to the long-winded introduction actually is the same person asking for this page to be removed. Would you like to call for a second vote? And sure, no one "disputes" "official language", until the likes of you wants to be technical and starts to go into legal details over just what constitutes "official" status here. Why do you accept "de facto" status of one, but not in others? Singapore specifies Mandarin as official. Hong Kong specifies Chinese as official. Based on what do you accept Cantonese as "de facto" for HK, but not Hokkien as "de facto" for Singapore? Why your continued double standards?--Huaiwei 14:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I never said Hokkien is or is not de facto official in Singapore (In fact I'm interested to know in what way is it official, if the claim is true). What is different between the policiy in Hong Kong and in Singapore is that Singapore does specify one to be official, while Hong Kong doesn't. I won't call for a second vote myself, but I'll take part if it's called. — Instantnood 15:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
That was a delightful read, instantnood. "Specify one", as thou the Chinese language needs to be broken down and "specified", without which the "official status" is fully negotiable under the guise of "de factoism", and just about any Chinese dialect can be considered official for the sake of it. So while I await your legal explainations for this, you insist Singapore must only use Mandarin because only Mandarin was mentioned as official language (even thou the word "Chinese" is also specified as a language of official status in the statutes of Singapore), and hence other Chinese dialects are somehow "disallowed" from appearing in sg-related articles? You cannot seem to notice the hypocricy and double standards in your own words, eh? So you are not going to start the vote, but wants to vote? Can we then ask what is your vote going to be?--Huaiwei 15:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I did not say only Mandarin must only be used in Singapore, and the others are disallowed. I only pointed out the difference between the policy in Hong Kong and that in Singapore. Everybody can participate when a vote is called. My vote will depend on what is proposed, and the arguments. — Instantnood 16:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
So if you did not say that, are you saying we CAN use other Chinese dialects in Singapore? And hence, we CAN use any Chinese dialect pronunciation in sg-related pages after all? Didnt you keep emphasising that we can only use official languages, which in this case was Mandarin? So what is the purpose of you pointing out policy "differences" (which by the way is practically of complete redundancy to me)? What are you trying to suggest, or are you still hoping that others have to infer from your vague lines and then continue to deny others interpretations? I think you would save everyone's time by clearly stating just WHAT you want here. Of course anyone can participate in votes. Anyone can start the votes too. Care to share with us your hesitation in doing so?--Huaiwei 03:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I pointed out some of the facts that I know, but I did not comment on what should be done. I did not say if pronunciation guides of other Chinese spoken variants should or should not be included in Singapore-related entries (since it entirely depends on the subject matter). Hestitation? Perhaps... What's wrong with "If it ain't broken, don't fix it"? — Instantnood 06:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
So why are you pointing out those facts, if you stop short of explaining why they are relevant to this conversation? You expect others to do guesswork over what you have in mind? So you didnt say this, and you didnt say that. So what did you say is as good as nothing? What you did say, thou, is that this article should exist simply because the name of HK is too long. Can we henceforth quote you on this? So your hesitation is nested in the idea that "it ain't broken". Can you then explain why this page is created when it ain't broken as well?--Huaiwei 13:29, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I provided those information so that we and other readers can compare how the policies are different in Hong Kong and in Singapore. It was in response to your comparison between Chinese spoken variants in Singapore and Cantonese and Mandarin in Hong Kong [1]. This article was not created by me, and I have never tried to find out why if it's created because it was broken.

Meanwhile FYI there is an article on the names of the European Union of its 21 official languages, with romanised forms for the non-Roman letter-based languages. It may not be immediately comparable, but such similar devolved articles do exist. — Instantnood 14:25, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Well so what kind of comparison would you like to make, and what conclusive action can we glean from it? Since you think it reasonable to state (erroneous) policy comparisons of some sort, then I am certainly curious to know what your conclusion is. And so what if the article is not created by you? I am demanding to know if your "justifications" to keep this article makes any sense, since you think it appriopriate to give your views on this. Am I not entitled to ask just because you arent the page's creater? And please, I do think you arent blind. 21 official languages compared to two. Which one would require such a page, may I ask?--Huaiwei 15:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
This article was created before certain extremely unyielding editors refused to de-bold the SARPRC-nonsense in the lead of Hong Kong and we got stuck with the need to pronounce a slew of irrelevant PRC legalese instead of what the city is actually called outside of official documents. It was here back when it was just Hong Kong because PZFUN thought that more than one transliteration was enough for a separate article. To top off the lack of logic it used to be located at pronunciation of Hong Kong in English. It was only later on that it became a dumping ground for yet more Chinese transcription trivia of which I'd say that Instantnood is by far the most avid supporter.
Any sane discussion would've led to the conclusion that it is quite reasonable to compromise for just "Hong Kong" and the pronunciation of this, but as discussions of Chinese transcription trivia simply aren't either sane or aimed at compromises this is not the case.
Peter Isotalo 10:32, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

I see some weasel words in this article (particularly 1 and 2) which attempt to undermine the integrity of Cantonese.

1. "be it Cantonese or Standard Mandarin". Implies that Cantonese is not standardised, which is untrue. Would like to change it to "Cantonese or Mandarin" or "Standard Cantonese or Standard Mandarin", preferably the former.

2. "The lack of a standard Cantonese romanisation" also not true. Although Jyutping and Yale are most widely used, to say that there is no standard because of TWO competing systems is inaccurate. Compare with Mandarin and tongyong, wade-giles, hanyu, etc. Would like to change it to "There are two main romanisation systems for Cantonese..." etc.

3. "and some believe that the term is derived for the Hakka name for the area, which is romanised as hiong1 gong3", while informative, cannot be cited (if it can, disregard this). Hong Kong is a Cantonese-speaking majority, and was probably romanised to Hong Kong based on British interpretation of the Cantonese. (Then again, many British romanisations are strange) 137.189.244.3 04:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)