Talk:Yue Chinese/Archive 6

Discussion

• Comment unilaterally moving this page after no notice, with this page having a history of WP:RM requests with heated debates is very bad. This page should be reverted to the last stable name (Cantonese (linguistics), for many many months now), and a proper WP:RM should be carried out; or an RFC should be filed. 76.66.196.139 (talk) 07:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
  • That was not a stable title. It was decided some time ago that the '(linguistics)' tag should only be used for linguistics topics. Also, 'Cantonese (linguistics)' is as ambiguous as 'Cantonese' itself, and so achieves nothing. kwami (talk) 07:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
    • If the name it reverted to was the wrong one that was the last stable name, I apologize, but it should still revert to the last stable name, which it had for a few months. 76.66.196.139 (talk) 11:22, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Kwami Moving the page, again

• After an uninvolved administrator moved the page back to "Cantonese (linguistics)", Kwami immediately reverted the move without a hint of consensus. Whether or not "Cantonese (linguistics)" is an appropriate title, as an administrator who is highly involved in the content dispute and has an obvious POV on the issue, it is severe inappropriate conduct for him to continue making these sudden changes to the article title. To me there is no doubt that this is an abuse of administrator's privileges. Colipon+(Talk) 07:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• Sudden changes? The sudden change was the undiscussed move to the previously rejected '(linguistics)' tag, which was dishonestly added to "Uncontroversial requests". That was not even among the suggestions in the discussion above, and reverting it was part of an established general consensus against this tag for language articles. Perhaps the discussion on moving to 'Yue' was not long enough for you, but at least it was discussed, and has approval from some of the editors here. kwami (talk) 08:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
  • You previous participated in WP:RM discussions about the name of this article, and you know that the process exists so that editors can gain consensus on moving pages around, and the last WP:RM is still on this talk page, yet you didn't inform the related wikiprojects, and didn't file a WP:RM, but moved the page. This appears like you're trying to do an end run against consensus building, since if no one can decide what a page should be called, it isn't moved, if you moved it, and no one can decide what it should be called, then why should your choice be default, just because you could move it yourself? 76.66.196.139 (talk) 10:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• Given that if an involved admin has been misusing the admin tool for his/her POV over and over, then this occurring incidents warrant at least incident report WP:AN/I or request for comments on user conduct (WP:RFC/U) on the admin.--Caspian blue 11:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
  • This is actually a very serious issue, and it has surfaced numerous times before, predominantly on the article names of Chinese language related articles. As there was never consensus (and indeed, significant opposition) in moving all the Chinese language pages to "X Chinese" but because Kwami had administrator powers, he just did it anyway, and there is no way to revert even though significant opposition exists. He subsequently dismisses much of the opposition as "wrong" and then leaves his version as the "default" version. What has resulted is that almost all Chinese language related articles now basically exclusively fit Kwami's naming schemes and standards. As far as I am concerned this has gone too far and it needs to stop. WP:AN/I is a good idea. Colipon+(Talk) 17:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Can we stop opening new threads?

This isn't helping. I sympathise with many of kwami's points but it's fairly clear to me that Yue Chinese has too many strong objectors. So can we please bin it? We were down to:

• Level 2: Cantonese, Cantonese (Yue)
• Level 3: Modern Cantonese, Cantonese (Yuehai)

Colipon indicated he was happy with Cantonese and Modern Cantonese. Kwami, Bathrobe, rʨanaɢ - could we please have indications from you whether any of the above pairings are preferred and/or tolerable to you? Feel free to add new suggestions but can we please avoid the ones that clearly have no chance (e.g. Yue Chinese, Spoken Cantonese, Chinese (linguistics)). Akerbeltz (talk) 10:54, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I have procedural objections to the way Kwami moved the page, which lead to this section being created. An RfC should have been filed, since from the history of this talk page, any name change is clearly controversial. So the article shouldn't have been renamed a priori, with an ex post facto justification for the new name. It should go back to whatever the old name was, and a discussion should take place on selecting a new name, not move the thing, and then debate it, and if it no one can decide, then the new name sticks... which is just plain bad. If "Yue Chinese" is selected as the new name, then so be it, but not like this. 76.66.196.139 (talk) 11:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, fine, whatever. Any preferences on a name? Akerbeltz (talk) 11:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why the current name has "no chance". The primary objections are from Cantonese speakers who historically objected because they didn't like the article having a name of Mandarin origin; much of the subsequent argument has been a straw man, coming up with new strategies for that original goal. Consensus isn't a numbers game, but a discussion of what's best for WP. Yue is the term used in much, perhaps most, of the academic literature when a distinction needs to be drawn; as such, it is clearly an appropriate title. Modern Cantonese Phonology, for example, uses "Yue", as does Ethnologue, Cantonese linguistic conferences, and the like. The objections, that it's not common enough or doesn't have a proper Cantonese etymology, or misrepresenting the English meaning of the word 'Cantonese', have been largely without substance.

For level 2, something based on Yue is clearly superior, as it is the only term so far suggested that actually distinguishes this article from Canton-ese. I've asked several objectors to come up with an alternative, but all have failed to do so. Simply "Cantonese" is a non-starter, as it does not distinguish this article from Canton-ese.

For level 3, "Modern Cantonese" is also unacceptable, because it's not about modern Cantonese. Taishanese is also modern Cantonese, in the broad sense of the word. The wording currently used in this article, and the current title of that one, is "Canton dialect". "Guangzhou dialect" would also be acceptable, if a perhaps less easily recognized formulation, as it is not as clearly connected to "Cantonese". Yuehai and Guangfu are much less common in English; they would also force a decision as to which the article were about, and as to the exact difference between Yuehai and Guangfu, s.t. which might depend on our sources and might change over time. (I'm seen them both as synonyms and with one as a hypernym of the other.) kwami (talk) 11:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry being so late to jump in the discussion. As user:HenryLi and Cantonese Wikipedia users clearly presented many objections to the current name, I will not repeat here. I am glad to see it moving forward. Yue Chinese is clearly a bad name historically, culturally, emotionally (to many) and nationally, especially the claim that Cantonese should only mean Canton-ese. Please remember that some people do not think Cantonese is Chinese - Cantonese is a language?! "Yue Chinese", "Canton dialect" and "Guangzhou dialect"simply discount these views. Cantonese is good name as the current Cantonese page should be changed to Cantonese (disambig) which in fact is more a disambiguous page to me. As for modern Cantonese is also an acceptable name. --WikiCantona (talk) 12:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I have been unable to find any coherent or overriding reasons for not using "Yue". The reasons presented seem to be that:

1. "Cantonese" is the common name for the Yue dialects as a whole; "Yue" is too exotic or specialised for ordinary English speakers seeking information on the Yue dialects.

2. Cantonese speakers don't use the term "Yue". (Quote: You can do a random poll on the street to see how many people actually know the "Yue" and how many on "Cantonese".)

3. "Yue" is a Mandarin name.

4. "Yue" is synonymous with "Cantonese" in Chinese.

5. "Historically, culturally, emotionally (to many) and nationally" "Yue Chinese" is a "bad name".

Let's look at the arguments. Argument 1. is merely an argument for preferring "Cantonese", not for excluding "Yue". The preference for "Cantonese" is couched in terms of "common usage". The problem is that the "Yue dialects" are a specialised topic, unlike "Standard Cantonese". The layman who comes to the articles is going to be confused like hell by the current naming -- exacerbated by the fact that most editors don't seem to get it, either. The articles are a mess because editors keep confusing the Yue dialects in general with Standard Cantonese.

As for Arguments 2, 3, and 4: Sorry, 粤语 is used by Chinese speakers, and besides, this is irrelevant. "Yue Chinese" (English) and "粤语" as used by the Chinese man on the street are not necessarily the same thing. In Mandarin, "Yueyu" is a fancy name for Cantonese. In English linguistic sources, it is a name used for a dialect family, not for Standard Cantonese.

(Incidentally, the assumption appears to be that we are talking about the streets of Guangzhou/Hong Kong/Macau. What if we ask the man in the street in all Yue-speaking areas what they call their own Yue dialect. Cantonese? Yue? Baakwaa? Something else again? This argument is quite Guangzhou-centric.)

Argument 3 is an objection against the use of a Mandarin term. Well, for a start, English-language sources use the Mandarin term, like it or not. Secondly, there is no real reason for preferring Cantonese pronunciation over Mandarin when referring to the Yue dialects. Many of the Yue dialect articles (e.g. Danzhouhua) have Mandarin names, not Cantonese.

No clear reasons have been advanced for Argument 5.

Given that the above arguments are not compelling reasons for using "Cantonese" to refer to the Yue dialects, I think we need to ask the question: Exactly what dialects do these historically, culturally, emotionally and nationally offended people want to extend the name "Cantonese" to cover? Please let us know the real reason for opposing "Yue" and for extending the name Cantonese to languages (such as Danzhouhua and probably others) that aren't normally called "Cantonese".

Bathrobe (talk) 13:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

So we know what you don't like. How about the likes? Akerbeltz (talk) 14:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

"Cantonese" for Guangzhouhua. "Yue Chinese" (or similar name using "Yue") for the Yue dialects in general.

Bathrobe (talk) 15:27, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree, there is no reason why Yue could not be used as part of the name. The argument behind 5 is presumably the fact that 粤 originally referred to a "tribe of barbarians" in the area. However, the vast majority of people are totally unaware of that and dictionaries use 粤 liberally. Same goes for Yue vs Yuet - it would be nice if the Cantonese term was used but the reality of it is that Shenzhen is Shenzhen (not Samjan) and Yue is Yue in Western literature. Akerbeltz (talk) 18:11, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem I have with Cantonese for Canton-ese is that, with the articles moving back and forth, the links get really screwed up, and there are thousands of them. Yes, we might settle on this for now, but what if we decide to move it again, because "Cantonese" can also mean the people? Not that I'm advocating that, but if it happens, we'll have thousands of articles that will need, once again, to be redirected. It's a lot of busy work. I suggest keeping Cantonese as the dab for practical housekeeping reasons, and because that way we avoid articles linking to "Cantonese" when they don't intend to link to whichever topic happens to occupy that name this month.

Oh, and of course there are those editors who feel just as strongly that the primary meaning of "Cantonese" is Yue, not Canton-ese. IMO it's best to avoid the argument by choosing neither, just as it's best to avoid the language/dialect debate by choosing neither. kwami (talk) 20:04, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Chopping up the word's meaning in English is fun, eh?! It is not "Yue" as such, but these ahistorical talks about "Yue" is worrying and "Yue Chinese" in particular, as if this word have been used for hundreds of years. Many has opposed on basis of the "Yue Chinese" being a new wikipedian invention for the convenience of wiki categorization. The above editor really confused because he/she did not know political-social history how certain word is coming to be. Shenzhen (not Samjan) because the Town was developed and first put in the map by the regime who use that language - namely Mandarin. Why should you accept a term to many clearly Mandarin centric and very much POV? "Well, for a start, English-language sources use the Mandarin term, like it or not." is pure ignorant or Mandarin centric. Dim sum, Kungfu and many terms were Cantonese in origin - whoever introduce these term into English knowing in Cantonese. Why should we rename the city of Hong Kong "Xiang Gang Shi" which is proper Mandarin pronunciation? why do English It is history that gives the name meaning. "Yue Chinese" precisely lacks that history. Let start a small thought experiment, some Chinese editor writes an article named "Anglo-saxon SanDai YingYu" (YingYu = English) in here in English Wikipedia, claiming that its content is a translation of Chinese article in zh.wiki about the English usage of third generation British immigrants in China . Some come to the discussion suggesting to replace the "YingYu" with "English", it should be changed the name to English usage in China, the Chinese editors says that we invent this term reflect the way "we" takes about it in Chinese - write about in papers. Hence they claim you have no right to change it because it suits their ways of doing things. Finally, please do not make using Cantonese is for Cantoenese as language argument. Cantonese can be dialect or language. --WikiCantona (talk) 01:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The above paragraph does not make any sense. No one is proposing to call Hong Kong "Xianggang shi". No one is doubting that many words entered English from Cantonese. The Cantonese name for Shenzhen was used in the past -- I can remember when the name was Cantonese, before the new city was built. But what has this got to do with the topic in hand? The problem is that: (1) English-language sources dealing with language and linguistics use the term "Yue". I have no doubt that this aggrieves user WikiCantona, as a proponent of Cantonese over Mandarin, but that is not our problem. If WikiCantona can cite reputable English-language sources that use "Yuet" as a name for the family of Yue dialects, then there might yet be grounds for the use of "Yuet". But that is not the case here. We simply have a Wikipedian with a particular personal point of view who is trying to impose that point of view on the naming of the article. Moreover, most of the Yue dialects are found in the PRC, where Mandarin is, for better or for worse, the official standard language. (2) The use of "Cantonese" not only for the language known as Cantonese, but for the entire family of dialects that it belongs to, is confusing and is causing serious problems for the articles concerned. I know that, because no matter how many times I read the two articles, I came away in a serious state of confusion as to what they were about. An obsession with the naming of the article based on personal POV grounds is detracting seriously from the content of the articles.

None of the proponents of "Greater Cantonese" has answered my question yet. What dialects are regarded as "Cantonese", and which ones are not? Is Taishanese considered Cantonese or not? Is the language of Nada in Hainan considered Cantonese or not? If yes, on whose say-so? If no, why are we insisting on the term "Cantonese" in the teeth of all opposition? I am aware that user Colipon considers the issue to be one of "common usage", but given that both "Cantonese" and "Yue" are used to refer to the dialect group, why is user Coliphon so implacably opposed to the name "Yue", given the serious problems that the name "Cantonese" is causing the articles? "Common names" is not enough to justify the vehement anti-"Yue" position that is being expressed in this page.

Bathrobe (talk) 09:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

You actually gave me the impression that you are pro-Mandarin. If you really understand Chinese language, you would have known the name of city of Shenzhen never changed neither in Cantonese or Mandarin. The writing is the same - the romanization of pronunciation is Mandarin - that entered English. Cantonese is the term used long before Yue or Yuet is used. This is the issue here. Please don't make it a Cantonese or Mandarin issue as the most important one. You once mistaken my position in thinking I am for using "Yuet". Cantonese is historical term, arguably more neutral term to use. Yue or Yuet is not a good term to use at all because there is no such thing as "Yue Chinese" - an invention that violates Wikipedian no-original research principle. I challenge you to bring up some reputable sources to use the term "Yue Chinese".

Once again, please stop name calling. If you know Chinese or Cantonese, you can read the Wikipedia entries. Officially, according to Chinese scholars or reputable sources in Chinese, YueYu (Cantonese) is only the "dialect" of Chinese language. The local variants (or "Pian" official term, or what you called "dialect") of YueYu includes "Taishanese". You talk to any mainland Chinese scholar, he/she will have no trouble telling you that Taishanese is a "Pian" of YueYu (Cantonese). There are total 4 Pian (or dialect they call that). To give you some historical background, in Mainland China, there is one official language - Mandarin speaking-Simplified Character written Chinese. Others just is a "dialect", should discouraged and destroyed. The official position become the scholar position. Under this categorization, Hong Kong Cantonese and standard Cantonese are both the member of same "Pian".

Some in the West will not agree that categorization. Some thinks Cantonese is an independent language, some think it is not. Wikipedian should avoid taking position one way of the other - that whether Cantonese is a language or dialect. When "Yue Chinese" is used, many Cantonese speaker think a pro-Mandarin position is taken. At what I see the problem is, people like the ambiguousness of "Cantonese", but dislike the strong position of "Yue Chinese" the term implies.

--WikiCantona (talk) 17:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I would like to challenge this prevailing notion that the article name "Cantonese" for Yue dialects has caused great confusion. I would argue it is the article content that is truly the root of the confusion. The debate has essentially boiled down to how to disambiguate level-2 and level-3 Cantonese - how do we distinguish between the larger Yue variety (commonly known as "Cantonese") and its prestige dialect (commonly known also as "Cantonese").

While WikiCantona may not have understood the basic issue of contention here, I think s/he makes a good point in saying that the name "Yue Chinese" was basically invented for the ease of Wiki categorization. We have to remember that there is still a debate that is unsettled about whether or not calling a subgroup of Chinese "X Chinese" is appropriate, but because User:Kwami went and moved all the articles to "X Chinese" over the last few months and then basically ignored the opposition, that's the standard on Wiki today. His intolerance to opposition is also severely discouraging to new users and IP users who actually have very good points to make. While I have no doubt that certain English-language academics do in fact classify level-2 Cantonese as "Yue", very, very few actually use the phrase "Yue Chinese" (not at all comparable to say, American English, which is a term used widely by academics).

With that in mind, I would suggest Cantonese (Yue) as a compromise to both parties and then Modern Cantonese or Standard Cantonese for the lower level, but I want to also stress that it is important to work on the article content. Along that vein, I would suggest that the issue of Taishanese and Hainan Yue to be dealt with directly in the article body of the Cantonese (Yue) article; we must make it clear to the average reader that they do not completely fit under "Cantonese" classification but are often linguistically grouped together with Cantonese. Here we must remember that nothing in linguistics is really definite anyway - is Jin a division of Mandarin, for example? No one really knows. We just need to explain the competing theories. Some people believe Taishanese should be classified under Cantonese (Yue), some believe it is a language in its own right, some believe it is only "Yue" but not Cantonese, etc. etc., we just need to explain it. Colipon+(Talk) 10:37, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The above contains a number of statements that run very close to a misrepresentation of the facts. For instance, the name "Yue Chinese" was basically invented for the ease of Wiki categorization. This is not the case. Ethnologue, for instance, uses the language name "Chinese, Yue", and the Wikipedia version is a variation on this. If it is slightly clumsy, this is because of the extreme contentiousness of the Chinese language/dialect issue, which forces editors to resort to extraordinary solutions in order to avoid criticism from one pressure group or another.

I would like to challenge this prevailing notion that the article name "Cantonese" for Yue dialects has caused great confusion. I would argue it is the article content that is truly the root of the confusion. A quick look at the article reveals that this is not the case. For instance, on 17 September 2008, the Chinese Yue article contained the following:

Cantonese (粵語) is a major Chinese dialect group or language. This characterisation, using "Cantonese" without explanation (and the Chinese term 粤语, which is quite likely to refer to Guangzhouhua), gives the impression that the article is about Standard Cantonese.

Cantonese along with Mandarin form two of the official languages of Hong Kong and Macau. In this case, Cantonese is obviously referring to Standard Cantonese, not some miscellaneous Yue dialect. If Yue were consistently used, this statement would stand out as relevant to the article on "Standard Cantonese" rather than "Yue Chinese", or relevant only if the information is presented in more specific form (e.g., "the prestige Guangzhou variety of Cantonese, along with Mandarin, forms one of the two official languages of Hong Kong and Macau").

Cantonese is also one of the main languages in many overseas Chinese communities including Australia, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. In this case, the referent appears to be Yue dialects, since Toisan and not Standard Cantonese is a major dialect in the U.S., at least. Because the term "Cantonese" is ambiguous between "Yue" and "Standard Cantonese", we can't really be sure.

In some ways, Cantonese is a more conservative language than Mandarin, and in other ways it is not. For example, Cantonese has retained consonant endings from older varieties of Chinese that have been lost in Mandarin. This is followed by The Taishan dialect ... is more conservative than the Guangzhou/Hong Kong variants of Cantonese. Here the referent of "Cantonese" appears to be "Yue Chinese".

Cantonese sounds quite different from Mandarin, mainly because it has a different set of syllables...Cantonese is generally considered to have 8 tones, the choice depending on whether a traditional distinction between a high-level and a high-falling tone is observed; the two tones in question have largely merged into a single, high-level tone, especially in Hong Kong Cantonese, which has tended to simplify traditional Chinese tones. Does this statement refer to Standard Cantonese (the reference to Hong Kong Cantonese suggests that it does) or does it refer to all Yue dialects? Impossible to tell, but one suspects that the editor as drifted into a description of "Standard Cantonese" rather than "Yue dialects".

Cantonese preserves many syllable-final sounds that Mandarin has lost or merged. For example, the characters 裔, 屹, 藝, 艾, 憶, 譯, 懿, 誼, 肄, 翳, 邑, and 佚 are all pronounced "yì" in Mandarin, but they are all different in Cantonese (jeoi6, ngat6, ngai6, ngaai6, yik1, yik6, yi3, yi4, si3, ai3, yap1, and yat6, respectively). Since I don't know Cantonese, it's impossible to tell, but the very specific pronunciations suggest that this paragraph refers to "Standard Cantonese" rather than "Yue dialects" in general -- especially as we are given to understand at the article on Taishanhua that mutual intelligibility between Taishanhua and Standard Cantonese is low. The subsequent comments on pronunciation are also open to suspicion of referring to Standard Cantonese rather than Yue in general.

As a result, Guangdong dialects such as sei yap (the dialects of Taishan, Enping, Kaiping and Xinhui counties) and what is now called mainstream Cantonese (with a heavy Hong Kong influence) have been the major Cantonese dialects spoken abroad, particularly in the USA. Notice how a new term suddenly emerges: "mainstream Cantonese".

Cantonese courses can be found at such U.S. universities as Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Hawaii, Brigham Young University, San Jose State University, New York University, Duke University and Cornell University. This manifestly refers to "Standard Cantonese", not Yue dialects.

The popularity of Cantonese language media and entertainment from Hong Kong has led to a wide and frequent exposure of Cantonese to large portions of China and the rest of Asia. Cantopop and the Hong Kong film industry are prominent examples of modern Cantonese language media. This also manifestly refers to "Standard Cantonese", not Yue dialects in general.

This general flipflopping between the broad meaning of "Yue dialects" and the narrow meaning of "Standard Cantonese" is obviously caused by a mixing up of concepts. The article was clearly written before the name change to "Yue Chinese", which came too late to avoid confusion. The fuzziness in concepts is a result of the early use of "Cantonese" in two different senses. Had the term "Yue Chinese" been used from the start, I think it is safe to say that the article would have been very different, as editors would not have become confused about the subject matter of the article.

Bathrobe (talk) 13:59, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Re:Bathrobe above. I think that was a good analysis. I think improving on the article content will ease a lot of the confusion. Like I said before, the crux of the issue is still the confusion between level-2 and level-3 Cantonese, both of which is commonly known as Cantonese. I maintain (per reasons stated ad nauseum) that "Yue Chinese" is not the best choice, and have indicated my compromise of Cantonese (Yue), and Modern Cantonese or Standard Cantonese for the prestige dialect. Colipon+(Talk) 15:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I think we often forget that the original "X (linguistics)" article names were created to ease this "extreme contentiousness". Kwami decided that this was wrong and moved everything to "X Chinese" instead. There was not a hint of consensus on the issue when the moves occurred. Colipon+(Talk) 14:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

You have repeatedly misrepresented this point. There was broad consensus to eliminate the '(linguistics)' tag. There was also broad agreement, after several rounds of voting, to use "X Chinese" for primary branches except when other considerations apply. Yue was the primary sticking point, and no precise name was ever agreed upon. Thus our problem today. kwami (talk) 01:00, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It's ironic, too, that "Yue Chinese" was chosen as the "extraordinary solution in order to avoid criticism". If the goal here is to avoid criticism, then "Yue Chinese" most certainly does not do the trick. As you can see above there is massive opposition to this change. I too, am quite frustrated by the repeated petty wranglings, POV pushers, and assertions that flood these Chinese language pages, but introducing a disputed blanket solution in "X Chinese" is not the way to go. Colipon+(Talk) 14:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree. The tag (linguistics) is not appropriate as a way of disambiguating this topic. There is massive opposition to Kwami's title, but it appears to be coming from a narrow base of Guangzhouhua speakers, people from Hong Kong and (possibly) Guangzhou. Quite frankly, I don't see that it is the business of Standard Cantonese speakers to force the name "Cantonese" onto all these dialects, many of which aren't necessarily identified as "Cantonese". If linguists decide to stick the label "Yue" on this collection of dialects, that really has nothing to do with them.

Bathrobe (talk) 15:01, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that is an incorrect characterization of the situation. Just because a few users who oppose the move are from Hong Kong or Guangdong does not mean they are "Greater Cantonese" POV-pushers. I constantly bring up academics who use the term "Cantonese" to categorize "Yue" and also point out that even those academics who classify all Yue dialects as "Yue" use "(Cantonese)" to clarify. Even if we assume "Yue" is the proper term and all linguists use it, "Yue Chinese" as a phrase is very seldom used by linguists, or by anyone at all. This is the reason I am suggesting compromise titles like Cantonese (Yue). Colipon+(Talk) 15:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

"even those academics who classify all Yue dialects as 'Yue' use '(Cantonese)' to clarify"—yes, exactly as we do. Once upon a times it was not uncommon for academics who classify all Wu dialects as 'Wu' to use '(Shanghainese)' to clarify, but that is not an argument that the term shouldn't be used, only that we may need to clarify.

"'Yue Chinese' as a phrase is very seldom used by linguists"—this is true. But largely irrelevant: we do not use it as a phrase either. Nowhere does it appear in the article. It's a title. Many thousands of wikipedia articles have titles that are rarely used as phrases in running text, because in running text we have context to disambiguate, whereas in titles we don't. Therefore, in many cases, it is necessary to craft a title that carries its own context, something which we wouldn't normally do. This is not a violation of WP:COMMON NAME, which specifically makes an exemption for it. kwami (talk) 01:00, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Colipon, I have difficulty believing that this is just a COMMON NAME issue. Yes, you have brought up the fact that both Cantonese and Yue are used in academic contexts -- although "Cantonese" is generally used in contexts that don't require a great deal of precision. I have just spent a considerable time going through an earlier version of the article and showing that the double nature of the term "Cantonese" is a major factor in the poor quality and confusion of the article. It seems to be an exercise in futility. You simply refuse to admit that the crappy nature of the articles is partly due to the confusion in names. It seems that you yourself have simply decided, for whatever reason, that you want the term "Cantonese" to remain as the primary name of the article, despite its manifest shortcomings. Your focus seems to be on maintaining the (primary) name at "Cantonese" at all costs.

I am sorry, I am not motivated by these political considerations. I came to the articles on Cantonese several years ago expecting to find enlightenment and found instead inconsistency and confusion. I have long been appalled at the wretched state of the articles and it is about time that this was put right. To allow the confusion to continue is a disservice to Wikipedia, and I urge you to make this your primary consideration, not the maintenance of the word "Cantonese" in the title. As I said previously, if the POV pushers would spend even half the time improving the articles as they have wasted on this fruitless and politicised naming debate, we might not be having this debate at all.

As to whether my characterisation of "Greater Cantonese" is correct or not, I only came to this conclusion after reading the rambling comments of WikiCantona, along with other comments demonstrating that while editors may be talking about the Yue dialects as a whole, their entire focus is really on Guangzhouhua.

Bathrobe (talk) 15:39, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

While I respect your input and do empathize with your frustration on the political nature of certain linguistic debates and lack of clarity in these articles, I am slightly taken aback by the personal comments that were part of your last message. I have gone through a great deal of work to explain my position and I assure you that my desire for clarity on these articles is no less strong than yours. I am also not at all motivated by politics, and I am not emotionally attached to Cantonese, having never spoken the language nor really ever understood it. What I am against is esoteric and pedantic article names - and I have similar grievances in this area against the titles of British lords. I am against the notion that to explain a subject well, one must choose the most formalized and esoteric name possible. It is my view that these beliefs are generally consistent with the spirit of policies on this encyclopedia.

I implore you to take a look at the situation at Mandarin to better understand my position. Mandarin is confusing as well - many people call it 'Mandarin Chinese', some just 'Mandarin', others 'Northern dialect'. It has several levels, which are all known under the same name in English. If esoteric precision was the goal of this encyclopedia then it would probably be best to name Mandarin "Guanhua" (as it is done on almost all Chinese-language linguistic textbooks) or "Beifang Hua". But when there is a commonly established English name, then that is preferred. There are many parallel situations between Mandarin and Cantonese:

1. Commonly established English names (only other Chinese linguistic group with a commonly established English name is Hakka)
2. Competing article links and confusion between level-2 and level-3 lects (Mandarin, Standard Mandarin, Beijing dialect; Cantonese, Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou dialect)
3. Lack of mutual intelligibility between internal dialects - Sichuanese/Yunannese for Mandarin, Taishanese/Hainan Yue for Cantonese.
4. Varied treatments on linguistic classifications - Jin for Mandarin; Pinghua for Cantonese.

The only thing that makes Mandarin different is the existence of a state-sanctioned standardized form, which Cantonese lacks. However, explaining the two levels of Cantonese (Prestige vs. Dialect Group), it is possible to take on the same approach without confusing readers or editors. You will notice that this has worked out well over at "Mandarin Chinese", where a clarification is given both in the lede and in the body of that article. Therefore, provided we can clearly articulate in the articles the distinction between the prestige form (Standard/Modern Cantonese) and the greater dialect group (Cantonese[Yue]), it should not be difficult to address the issue of editor confusion. If you still disagree, then I must say perhaps it is time we call it quits on this discussion ourselves and seek third-opinions from non-involved parties. Colipon+(Talk) 17:25, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

One more fact, either in Hong Kong or Mainland China, Cantonese is only for spoken, state-sanctioned writing forms does not exist. However, a written form actually exist, for details, read Cantonese As Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular by Don Snow. Snow's description of written Cantonese is based on the Standard/Hong Kong/Guangzhou Cantonese. The reason I bring up this seemingly unrelated facts is that the English word "Cantonese" often refer to the Standard/Hong Kong/Guangzhou Cantonese. To use it to refer the "greater dialect/language group" is almost absent in the Western media. As others have mentioned, the Cantonese was originally refer to the tongue spoken by the people in city of Guangzhou. In English or their mother tongue, a person with Taishanese ancestry would NOT have said their mother tongue is Cantonese. And he or she would said that his or her ancestor was from Taishan, GuangDong.

Could someone kindly provide information as when the term comes to refer "tongues spoken in the entire provinces of GuangDong"? Is it an academic construct? Is it a government definition? I speculate that it was Hong Kong colonial government first to use Cantonese to refer the "tongues spoken in the entire provinces of GuangDong", no proof.

IMO, use Cantonese just refer to the Standard/Hong Kong/Guangzhau Cantonese, clean up the current article, rename it Cantonese or Spoken Cantonese, the so called "Yue Chinese" → dialect/language spoken in GuangDong province. --WikiCantona (talk) 19:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

We already have those articles. This article is supposed to be about the greater dialect/language group. There is also an article for Cantonese in the narrow sense at Canton dialect, plus a third article at Standard Cantonese. Perhaps some of the material here under Yue needs to be moved to one of those. kwami (talk) 00:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

User Colipon, to see the problem I am speaking of, you merely have to read user WikiCantona's comment above. WikiCantona says straight out what I have been trying to say: The reason I bring up this seemingly unrelated facts is that the English word "Cantonese" often refer to the Standard/Hong Kong/Guangzhou Cantonese. To use it to refer the "greater dialect/language group" is almost absent in the Western media. Then IMO, use Cantonese just refer to the Standard/Hong Kong/Guangzhau Cantonese.

WikiCantona then proceeds to criticise the use of "Cantonese" to mean "tongues spoken in the entire provinces of GuangDong". His/her recommendation is to clean up the current article into an article on "Yue Chinese" -- the dialect/language spoken in GuangDong Province -- which is NOT what the article is about! As the article states, the Yue dialects are spoken in part of Guangdong Province, part of Guangxi Province, and a small part of Hainan Province.

I don't think we have opposing points of view. The main problem is that "Cantonese" in its primary sense is the language known as Guangzhouhua. The other dialects have been put there by linguists as part of a greater group that is not necessarily popularly perceived as such. To expand the use of a legitimate language name and use it as a fuzzy shorthand term for a group of dialects is what is causing our problem. The Yue dialect group should use a more technical name than "Cantonese" precisely because it is a technical linguistic classification, not a popularly perceived language on the ground. Your insistence on using a popular term for a technical concept is what is causing the problem. It also has the side-effect of bringing into the debate (Standard) Cantonese speakers who do not wish to see their language called "Yue", not always realising that no one is trying to call their language "Yue".

COMMON NAME does not necessarily sanction the use of common terms where they are going to cause confusion in a technical sense. I have shown that the use of "Cantonese" for the dialect group is causing severe problems with the article. Your only defence is that you don't like to hear terms that you don't consider "familiar" or "common".

Bathrobe (talk) 23:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe the use of the word "Cantonese" evolved - this can be seen in things like "Cantonese cuisine" and "Cantonese people" - taken to mean people or food from the province of Guangdong, not that of Guangzhou. Similarly, "Cantonese" was originally taken to mean language of Guangdong, not Guangzhou, but as WikiCantona points out, this usage has gradually shifted to mean only the HK/Guangzhou dialect. I don't think this has anything to do with HK colonial authorities. Cantonese people in Canada and the United States called themselves "Cantonese" and their language "Cantonese" in the late 19th Century. Colipon+(Talk) 20:01, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I will state my position. It is incorrect to use "Cantonese" as a COMMON LANGUAGE name for the Yue dialects. It causes confusion over the subject matter and provokes political issues that we don't need.

• The article on Standard Cantonese should be called "Cantonese".
• Since user Colipon has repeatedly expressed disagreement with user Kwami's use of "Yue Chinese", I should state that my preference is for "Yue dialects". That is because the Yue dialects, like Wu dialects, etc. are true collections of spoken dialects, and a collection of dialects does not necessarily make a "language". Nor do speakers of those dialects necessarily perceive themselves as speaking "Yue Chinese" -- although they will be very clear that they are speaking (or attempting to speak) Standard Cantonese.

Bathrobe (talk) 00:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Hong Kong Cantonese, Canadian whose native tongue of Cantonese are also speaking Cantonese. Standard Cantonese is version speaking in Gwangzhau. Cantonese should refer to all spoken variant of Standard/Hong Kong/Guangzhau Cantonese, their mutual comprehension is guarantee.

Sorry, Bathrobe's "Yue dialects" will work only people agree with her/his assumption - such grouping is very natural and Cantonese is a dialect. Are they? To classifying collection of dialects/language of GwangDong into group - who's idea is that? for the convenience of academics? for convenience of government administration? What is the linguistic evolutionary relationship (if any) exists among this grouping? I think these questions deserve some answer.--WikiCantona (talk) 02:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Data table

Ok, suggesting a different approach because we're not getting anywhere currently. I suggest we continue to debate above; the table below is to collate relevant information because much of this discussion is taking place without any great overview over what source uses what to mean what. I invite you all to add to the table so we can get an overview over who uses what to find a way out of this. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:57, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit confusing what the names refer to - could you break it down with separate columns for Cantonese-Yue and Cantonese-Guangfu? kwami (talk) 23:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with user Kwami. The table does not make clear whether it is Cantonese (广州话) that is being referred to or the Yue dialects (粤方言). There seems to be problem that people are discussing whether 粤语 is or not used in Chinese to refer to "Cantonese". That is not the issue. The issue is whether to call the Yue dialects "Yue Chinese", "Yue dialects", or "Cantonese". "Yue" in academic writings in English is not the same as the use of 粤 in Chinese, and Chinese speakers familiar with the term 粤 should try to avoid approaching the issue as a matter of Chinese usage and think in terms of English usage.

Bathrobe (talk) 23:20, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Akerbeltz, that is a very good table and it is a major contribution to the discussion.

Bathrobe (talk) 00:14, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

There are sources that use both. Some editors above have a hardtime accepting the Yue (粵) because of its similarly to vietnam's Yue (越) and adds confusion in english. Benjwong (talk) 00:32, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Some editors above have a hardtime accepting the Yue (粵) because of its similarly to vietnam's Yue (越) and adds confusion in english. No, there is no confusion in English, because Vietnamese is not called "Yue" in English, it is called "Vietnamese". There is, however, confusion in Chinese as Yueyu can mean both 粤语 and 越语.

Bathrobe (talk) 23:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Akerbeltz, thank you for contributing to the discussion in such a positive way. Colipon+(Talk) 03:11, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I still have to see a single reference where in English, Yue is used to refer to Viet... Akerbeltz (talk) 00:00, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Source	Primary name used	Alternative names mentioned	Language area acc. to source	Relevant notes by source
新雅	粵語 (Yuetyue)			Also uses 粵音 for the romanisation given.
Bussmann	Yue	Kantonesisch		lists as Yue (in South China, with Cantonese)
Crystal	Cantonese (Yüeh)		Guangdong, South Guangxi, Macau, HK	Note he says Bái-huà ('colloquial language'). A simplified vernacular style of writing, introduced by the literary reformer Hu Shih in 1917 to make the language more widely known to the public...
De Francis	Cantonese	Yue		States Canton, Taishan, Others as mutually intelligible; uses Cantonese in text body and Yue in linguistic classification tables.
Encyclopedia Britannica	Cantonese language	Chinese (Pinyin) Yueyu, (Wade-Giles romanization) Yüeh-yü	Guangdong and southern Guangxi provinces of China	"Cantonese (yue) speaker"
Far East				States 粵語 - the Cantonese dialect; extensive dictionary, does not list 廣東話 at all.
Grimes	2. Chinese, Yue 3. Yuehai	2. Cantonese, Yue, Yueh; also Gwong Dung Waa, Yuet Yue, Yueyu 3. Cantonese	Guangdong (except Hakka speaking areas northeast, Min Nan-speaking areas east, Hainan Island); Guangxi. Hong Kong and Macau	not clear if Guangfu is an alt. name of Yuehai, or a subdialect
Kwan	Cantonese			In title 廣州話 is used, in the book 廣東話 is used.
Kwan	Cantonese			Chinese title is 英粵字典; entry for Cantonese gives Gwongjauwa; Gwongdungwa; Yuhtyuh
Ladefoged	Yue dialects			One reference to another author using Cantonese; uses Wu Chinese
Lau	Cantonese, Cantonese dialect			Deals with HK Cantonese, uses 粵(語) as the Cantonese equivalant of Cantonese
Li	廣州話 (Guangzhou hua)			Specifically states that Gwongjauwa is the prestige dialect of 粵方言
Li & Thompson	Yuè		divides into Yuehai, Qinlian, Gaolei, Siyi, and Guinan	following Soren Egerod (1967), "Dialectology"
Longman				Chinese only, equates the two as 粵語 (廣州話) (Yuetyue (Gwongjauwa))
Lonely Planet	Cantonese		Guangdong, South Guangxi, HK, Macau	States The five dialects [of Chinese] are ... yue (Cantonese), ...; uses 廣東話 in the Cantonese text
Mathews	Cantonese	Yue, Yue group of dialects	All of Guangdong and Guangxi	States Cantonese as spoken in HK is generally known as Gwóngdung Wá after the province of Guangdong; states the Canton dialect is seens as the prestige variant by natives but that most Westerners equate Cantonese with HK Cantonese.
Ng	廣州話 (Gwongjauwa)	粵方言 (Yuet fongyin)		States 廣州話又稱粵語 Gwongjauwa is also designated as Yuetyue; 粵 used as an adjective throughout, eg in contrasting phrases marked as 普 vs 粵
Ramsey	Yue (Cantonese)	Yue/Yuè	All Yue dialects in Guangdong and Guangxi, including Taishan	Notes that The Yue dialects are popularly known as Cantonese dialects; Yue in classification tables; both Yue and Cantonese in text, with Yue generally referring to Yue dialects (including Taishanese) and Cantonese to the prestige dialect; states the Canton dialect is perceived as standard.
So	Cantonese		Canton, HK, Macau	Chinese title uses 廣州話, in the text 廣州話 is used as specifically being the speech of Canton (city), 粵語 as the overregional language.
Wanli	粵方言 (Yuet fongyin)			States 香港方言 (HK dialect) is a branch of the Yuet dialect.
Wong	Dialect of Canton	Cantonese, Cantonese dialect	Guandong and Guangxi	In spite of the multifarious varieties of the Chinese language which exist in Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces, there has prevailed one dialect... This is the dialect of the city of Canton.; Chinese text uses 粵語 throughout
Yang	Cantonese		Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, HK, Macau	In the Chinese bits, 粵語 is used throughout.

It is clear that 新雅, both Kwan, Lau, Ng, So, and perhaps Wong are referring to Cantonese in the original (narrow) sense. That means that these should be excluded from a table of English names for the Yue dialect grouping and put in a table listing English names of Guangzhou-hua.

Inspection of the text reveals that Ramsey fairly consistently uses Yue for the Yue dialects, and Cantonese for standard Cantonese. I've edited the table to reflect this.

Bathrobe (talk) 10:32, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting question. The naming suggests that but in 新雅, Kwan, Lau and So the material presented is solidly HK to my eyes. I admit that while I can relatively readily hear the difference between Gwongjau and HK Cantonese, I find it hard to locate reliable ways of telling them apart in phonetic transcription/Yuetping. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:10, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Continued

Sorry I have to add another section or my comment will fill into the reference above. Benjwong (talk) 00:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem is the Standard Cantonese article which was made to "pair up" with Standard Mandarin article. Except it really doesn't serve any purpose. It should just be

1. Chinese languages
2. Yuet Cantonese (粵語 aka 廣東話)
3. The next branch down is Guangzhou dialect (廣州話), HK Cantonese (香港廣東話), 四邑: Taishanese (台山) etc

There is no 4th level here. Standard Cantonese should be deleted or merged to Yuet Cantonese. Benjwong (talk) 00:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The 4th level is HK Cantonese, which is a subdialect of Guangzhou/Guangfu, not a sister dialect to Canton-ese and Taishanese.

If Standard Cantonese is merged (which I think is a reasonable suggestion), IMO it should be with Guangfu, since it basically is Guangfu, or perhaps to some extent repeated in both articles.

Just out of curiosity: why do you want the Cantonese name of "Yuet", which is not normally found in English, but the Mandarin name of "Taishanese", when Cantonese "Toishanese" is commonly found in English? (That's not a criticism, just a question; I see you also used "Yue" above.) kwami (talk) 01:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Kwami I am abit confused about the leveling. Is United States english technically not on the same level as british english. I know you have been working on a number of language article which is why I am trying to figure out what makes a "level". The Yuet spelling was suggested by HenryLi way up top. I was not proposaing any Toishanese or Taishanese spelling. I merely copy pasted the page link. Benjwong (talk) 01:20, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Canton-ese/Guangfu includes HK, Macau, Guangzhou, and the surrounding areas. All of those are subcategories of Guangfu (level 3) and therefore level 4. There are no absolute levels, of course; they wouldn't mean the same thing for Wu. This is just a way for us to organize things. kwami (talk) 01:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Why the hierarchical categorization so important? Why there should be one hierarchy everyone should be agreed? I see this same problem as Chinese government's position. Language terms are intermingle in everyday use. I don't think hierarchicalization is the issue, but the clear writing to explain the issues present here - the fuzziness of word, Cantonese. --WikiCantona (talk) 01:29, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's just a way for us to get organized, so that we're talking about the same things, rather than arguing when we don't actually disagree, just because we misunderstand the terms each other is using. Yes, language terms intermingle, and we need to explain that in the text, but we need to choose something relatively unambiguous for the title of an article. It's no different really from Wu > Taihu > Shanghainese. kwami (talk) 01:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Kwami I see the Canton dialect article and Guangfu (廣府粵語) or Yuehai (粵海粵語). I don't know if you are asking whether standard cantonese should be merged to Guangzhou dialect instead of Yue Chinese/Cantonese? Benjwong (talk) 01:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I beg to differ. As others suggested, the fuzziness can be explained. I disagree for the sake of clarification (resulting effect is more confusion IMO) to scarify the use of common terms and hence re-inventing the name. Problem does not go away.--WikiCantona (talk) 02:21, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

To avoid fuzziness and be very exact. We can do guangdonghua and guangzhouhua. It doesn't get any more exact than that. However that gets rid of the Cantonese term entirely. Benjwong (talk) 02:48, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

There's a very real possibility presented above of getting rid of "Standard Cantonese", whichever level it happens to belong to. If we merge that article with the article on Cantonese/Yue (or "Cantonese language"), we can clarify everything within one single article for the reader, present the fact that it could mean both the greater language group and the prestige form, which will ease much of the confusion - and we would never have problems with article links.

While I believe classifying languages in a hierarchial fashion is important, it should not dictate that we need to have two separate pages for two separate levels in every instance. Having one united article on both definitions of "Cantonese" may not bode well with the taxonomic obsession of specialist linguists but it does wonders for the practicality of an average reader trying to get an idea of what "Cantonese" really is. Furthermore, I think everyone in this discussion can agree on the fact that "Standard" Cantonese doesn't really exist at all. For the de facto standard, we already have Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangzhou dialect, two similar but somewhat divergent forms of the same language.

Consequently, having opened to this new possibility, I support the following: 1. Merge current article "Standard Cantonese" with "Yue Chinese"; 2. move article "Yue Chinese" to "Cantonese language" or "Cantonese". 3. Work on the new article and streamline its contents. Colipon+(Talk) 03:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I am looking at Standard Cantonese article contents. Different parts of it should be merged to different articles. I am quite uncomfortable moving this much material. So this is what I think I will do.

• cultural role -> move -> Yue Chinese
• written cantone -> move -> Yue Chinese
• early western effort -> ???
• Cantonese romanisation in HK -> move -> HK Cantonese
• Phonology -> delete

Let me know if anyone agree or disagree. It won't happen today. Benjwong (talk) 03:22, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

That is a good idea. Good work Benj. So I take it this means you support deletion of the "Standard Cantonese" article? Colipon+(Talk) 03:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes I support the deleting of that article. That page has a very short edit history. I wonder where the rest of it went? Benjwong (talk) 03:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I think phonology can also fit in the "Yue" article. On this article specifically, the History section should be moved to earlier, and then merged with the section on "relations with classical Chinese". I will do this now. Colipon+(Talk) 03:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the merger of the Standard Cantonese article. I separated it out over disagreement as to what exactly it meant; with the subject split into more articles, I was hoping that we would reach some kind of consensus as to what exactly we should cover where, and it looks as though that may have happened. There would appear to be two remaining questions: where to put early romanization efforts (perhaps under HK Cantonese, as that and Macau is where most of those efforts took place?), and whither to redirect the title "Standard Cantonese": to Canton dialect, or to HK Cantonese? kwami (talk) 06:31, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with merging Yue Chinese and Standard Cantonese and moving the lot to Cantonese language - will be an entertaining rewrite though. As far as the Romanisation goes, there's so many systems that it should really have its own page, maybe Cantonese romanisation. Can't remember what size the phonology bit is at the moment, but most of these phonologies for bigger languages sooner or later end up with their own page anyway, so why not pre-empt that with Cantonese phonology? And you're welcome for the table, I just thought it would be good if we had a small overview. Akerbeltz (talk) 08:25, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

"Cantonese language" is out for the same reason that 'language' is avoided with all branches of Chinese. Yes, we *could* merge the articles, but it would quite odd to have an article on Taishanese, when we cannot have one on Canton-ese. Also, why should only Canton-ese be merged with Yue? Sooner or later, people will want to split off Canton-ese the way we've split off other major dialects, and we'll be back to square one. kwami (talk) 09:07, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I am quite optimistic now that we have come to some sort of an agreement, makes me feel hopeful about WP:CONSENSUS again. I think Romanization can go on this article. "Standard Cantonese" can also just be redirected here, maybe to a section of the page that talks about the dominant form of Guangzhou/HK/Macau. In terms of article names, I think "Cantonese language" would now be a sensible choice. There is no need to split "Canton-ese" because we retain the article on "Guangzhou dialect". There's also the alternative of moving the dab page to Cantonese (disamb), and moving this article back to "Cantonese". Colipon+(Talk) 09:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Um, "Guangzhou dialect" *is* Canton-ese, so no-one is proposing anything of the kind. "Cantonese language" is completely unacceptable, a) because of "language", and b) because of "Cantonese", as detailed ad nauseum above. kwami (talk) 10:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Many angry Cantonese/Chinese speakers will be happy as long as "Yue Chinese" or any with "Yue" something is excluded from the title. Merging current article with Standard Cantonese then renamed it Cantonese or Cantonese language while Cantonese language may upset some people who a strong position on Cantonese being a dialect. Use "Cantonese" may avoid this objection as long as the paragraph on language or dialect is kept. It is very important that "greater dialect/language group" is explicitly mentioned (some linguistic or governmental view". The current Cantonese page can renamed "Cantonese (disambig)" or likewise.

I have not spend time on the meaning dialect. Some Cantonese speaking readers understand dialect as a direct translation from Chinese term 方言, I caution anyone when using this term in the context of this article, please be very specific. You really don't want to start another language vs dialect debate here --WikiCantona (talk) 09:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Angry Cantonese speakers are irrelevant, as Angry Greeks and Macedonians are irrelevant to the Macedonia articles: this is English Wikipedia. kwami (talk) 10:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Many things are irrelevant to you anyway. Other opposition to your "abuse of admin power" is irrelevant. Maybe, what you think other people may find it irrelevant too. Instead of making concensus, you are only interested in pushing your views --WikiCantona (talk) 10:23, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

We don't decide things based on narrow ethnic interests. I hope you can see that - it has nothing specifically to do with me or with this article, but is found everywhere: Israel/Palestine, Macedonia/FYOM, Taiwan/ROC. If we have two groups of editors, one impalably opposed to the use of the name "Taiwan", and the other implacably opposed to "ROC", we ignore both, and decide based on English usage and on clarity. We have English usage; if you can come up with a different unambiguous title, great. So far the only ones I've seen have been based on Yue (Yue Chinese, Cantonese (Yue), etc.). kwami (talk) 10:50, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Who is "we" anyway? Angry English speaker with Cantonese background? Angry English as second language speaker with Greek mother tongues? Angry Singapore English speaker of Muslim? One (un)fortunate things is that English language does not limited its use in the islet of Northern Europe, It is global. Other views have to be accounted for. So far, the "Yue Chinese" is worst. Please read other contributors comments before unilaterally pushing view against any emerging consensus. You can always abuse your power to keep the title the way you like. If we like going down this path, I can ensure more people will be angry regardless their ethnicity. --WikiCantona (talk) 11:10, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Am I correct in understanding that the article on "Cantonese" will cover the following?

A map of the main groups of Cantonese dialects in China and Vietnam.

Yue

Yuehai     Canton dialect (Guangfu)  Standard Cantonese Hong Kong Cantonese Vietnamese Cantonese (Hoa dialect) Danjia dialect  Sanyi (Nanpanshun)  Nanhai dialect Jiujiang dialect Xiqiao dialect Panyu dialect Shunde dialect  Zhongshan  Shiqi dialect  Guanbao  Dongguan dialect Bao'an (Weitou) dialect  Siyi (Seiyap)  Taishanese Siqian dialect  Luoguang dialect   Gaoyang  Gaozhou dialect Yangjiang dialect  Wuchuan dialect   Yongxun (Jungcam)  Nanning dialect Yongning dialect  Goulou (Ngaulau)  Guilin dialect  Qinlian (Jamlim)  Qinzhou dialect Lianzhou dialect  Hainan (Hai)  Danzhouhua Mai dialect ? Pinghua (Ping)  Guibei dialect Guinan dialect

I have severe doubts about the suitability of identifying all of these as "Cantonese language". Haven't we already had people telling us that Taishanese is not Cantonese? Why the sudden about-face? I have lived in Hainan, and I have never heard of the speakers of Danzhouhua identifying their language as "Cantonese". Don't you feel that in your eagerness to get rid of "Yue Chinese" you are creating a "Cantonese language" that doesn't exist anywhere except in linguists' dialect groupings?

Bathrobe (talk) 11:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I hate to keep mentioning this, but did my Mandarin comparisons achieve nothing? There is no chance in hell that anyone in Yunnan or Sichuan will tell you what they're speaking is "Mandarin" but the Mandarin Chinese article covers all those areas anyway. It's honestly the same situation here. No Taishanese speaker is going to come here and angrily demand that their language be 'de-grouped' from a larger Cantonese article, as long as you explain this is merely a linguistic classification, not a definitive verdict on Taishanese. Colipon+(Talk) 11:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

"Cantonese" is not a 'linguistic classification'. It is the name of a language, the language known as 广州话/廣州話 in Chinese. By making it into the name of the article on the Yue dialects in general, you are in violation of COMMON NAME. Namely, the common usage of "Cantonese" is to designate Guangzhouhua, and only secondarily the Yue dialects.

Rather than resort to analogies with other dialects, as you are doing, I will cite a source to support my contention.

From Chinese by Jerry Norman (Cambridge Language Surveys, Cambridge University Press, 1988), p 214:

The Yuè dialects

The Yuè dialects form a relatively homogeneous group of dialects spoken over wide areas of Guǎngdōng and Guǎngxī provinces. The term Cantonese, which is sometimes used interchangeably with Yuè, should be reserved for the dialect of the city of Guǎngzhōu (Canton) and not used as a general name for the group as a whole.

...

The language of Guǎngzhōu city enjoys the status of a prestige or standard language, not only among other Yuè speakers but even among Mǐn and Kèjiā speakers who inhabit Guǎngdōng province. This standard dialect is also the predominant dialect in the colonies of Hong Kong and Macao. Cantonese (in the narrow sense defined above) has a rich written folk literature; for the purpose of writing down this literature, a large number of special Cantonese characters have been developed...

What is clear from the above is that (1) a major English-speaking scholar of Chinese uses the term "Yuè dialects" (not "Yue Chinese") for these dialects in the wider sense and explicitly rejects the use of Cantonese as a name for them (2) Cantonese (known on Wikipedia as "Standard Cantonese") is a prestige dialect in its own right; its zone of influence transcends the boundaries of the Yuè dialects and covers other dialect areas as well. In other words, Cantonese is not simply the "standard Yuè dialect" (or "standard-bearer for the Yue dialects"), which seems to be an undercurrent of debate here, it is a prestige language over a broad geographical range that includes non-Yuè speaking areas.

The conclusions that can be drawn from this are that firstly, Cantonese in its proper usage refers to 广州话/廣州話, although many people do extend it to mean the Yue dialects, and secondly, Cantonese (Standard Cantonese), as a major prestige language deserves its own article separate from the Yue dialects.

The consensus that appears to be emerging above seems to be that the article on"Cantonese" should not be about "Cantonese" in its primary meaning and most common sense, but about the secondary and arguably disputed sense of "Yue dialects". This is, as I have said, totally at odds with the concept of COMMON NAME and such a move can only be regarded as a Wikipedia innovation.

Bathrobe (talk) 15:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

While I do not have time myself to launch into a vast array of evidence that suggest academics do in fact classify all Yue dialects as "Cantonese", please help yourself refer to the table above created by User:Akerbeltz, which is probably the best resource we have currently in this discussion. It is hardly a Wikipedia innovation to call the language "Cantonese" especially when so many sources support that Cantonese can be used as a common name for both Yue and the prestige Guangzhou dialect in general. Having the new "Cantonese" article talk about both uses of the common name makes it significantly easier for the average reader to gain a conceptual understanding of what Cantonese really is. Encyclopedia Britannica calls the "Yue dialects" the "Cantonese language" and describes it as the language spoken in most parts of Guangdong and Guangxi province, and then goes on to describe its differences with "Standard Modern Cantonese". Once I gain access to databases like JSTOR I can cite many more references that use "Cantonese" to classify all Yue dialects, and while I do not yet have aggregated statistics to back up this claim, I am of the impression that the majority of linguists call the "Yue dialects" "Cantonese". Colipon+(Talk) 15:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

In addition, your above statement opens with the very bold claim that [Cantonese] is the name of a language, the language known as 广州话/廣州話 in Chinese. This is the erroneous assumption upon which all of your arguments (and User:kwami's) fall under. Ask any Cantonese speaker and they will tell you that Cantonese is generally translated as "廣東話". Cantonese cuisine is refers to Guangdong food, Cantonese people refer to Guangdong people. In each and every case it is basically common sense to that "Cantonese" is an adjective used to describe the province, not its capital city.

Yes, the English term sometimes is commonly used for the HK-Guangzhou-Macau prestige dialect, but this usage is not as of yet dominant enough to replace its use to represent the larger Yue dialect group. In light of both levels of the language having the same common name I have asked that we take an integrative approach and merge both articles for the sake of clarity towards our readership and our editors alike. If you honestly cannot accept this solution, then I respect that and will continue to carefully consider your views. But as of now, given the evidence presented above, I am not at all convinced that academically and in common usage, it is wrong to call the Yue dialect group "Cantonese". Colipon+(Talk) 16:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't get what your game is, Colipon. You conceded just the opposite in the last section: "Cantonese" was originally taken to mean language of Guangdong, not Guangzhou, but as WikiCantona points out, this usage has gradually shifted to mean only the HK/Guangzhou dialect. The common meaning of "Cantonese" is "of Canton", as demonstrated above from several major English dictionaries. Why do we all have to rerererepeat repeat ourselves? Again, we are concerned about English usage, not Cantonese. For that we have Cantonese Wikipedia. And another straw man: no-one ever said calling Yue 'Cantonese' was "wrong", so your entire argument here is specious. kwami (talk) 22:04, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I have these books on my bookshelf: Communicate in Cantonese / 快趣廣州話, Colloquial Cantonese and Putonghua Equivalents / 廣州話／普通話口語詞對譯手冊, and Gateway to Cantonese / 广州话入门. I have one book called A Dictionary of Cantonese Colloquialisms in English / 英譯 廣東口語詞典. I also have one rather old book called A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton / 粤音韻彙 廣州標準音之研究. While the books on my bookshelf are hardly conclusive proof, they do set a very strong question mark against your dogmatic, unsupported, and all-embracing statement, 'Ask any Cantonese speaker and they will tell you that Cantonese is generally translated as "廣東話"'. The use of "Cantonese" for food, people, etc. is irrelevant. It is merely the name of a language. There are plenty of sources to point out that Cantonese is not the only language of Guangdong province. Take a look at the map above and it is plain as day. For what it's worth, however, my old 80s vintage Websters gives Canton as the name of a city & port SE China, capital of Kwangtung on the Chu river, alternative names Guangzhou or Kuang-chou. So it's not about the province.

As for Yes, the English term sometimes is commonly used for the HK-Guangzhou-Macau prestige dialect, but this usage is not as of yet dominant enough to replace its use to represent the larger Yue dialect group, this is sheer nonsense. Your own constant push to use "Cantonese" come what may, rather than the term "Yue" which you regard as too specialised, appears to be the reason for this wilful distortion of reality. The original title of "Yue Chinese" was "Cantonese (linguistics)", and it was given that name because this usage of the term "Cantonese" was a linguistic rather than common-language usage.

As for I am not at all convinced that academically and in common usage, it is wrong to call the Yue dialect group "Cantonese", the trap is the one that I have continued to point out, and which we are now falling into headlong led by user Colipon. Cantonese as a language (a prestige language based on the dialect of Guangzhou) needs to be distinguished from the more academic or linguistic concept of a group of Yue dialects. Instead of distinguishing them clearly, we are now about to conflate them all together into one confused mass. This does nothing for "clarity" and is only going to mislead and confuse the average reader who is interested in the Cantonese language -- the prestige language that is often taught in courses.

Bathrobe (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

At this point I am ready to agree to disagree. These circular arguments are doing next to nothing in convincing either of us of the other's position. I feel like my (and your) position has been stated clearly and strongly enough that repeating any more of these arguments will be a waste of everyone's time. Let us await for the opinions of other editors. Colipon+(Talk) 23:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Coming at this from a slightly different angle, looking at the table of data we've collected so far, it would appear to be a virtual free-for-all in terms of terminology. Neither English sources nor Chinese sources appear to be consistent or clear in terms of their use of any of these terms, neither Cantonese not 粵語/廣東話/廣州話. We can wait for some more data to arrive but I suspect the picture will not get much clearer. The only pattern that I can detect is that English publications that have a more academic interest use the term Yue(t) relatively commonly as a descriptor for the overregional language (Bussmann, Crystal, DeFrancis, EB, Grimes, Ramsey). Ladefoged and Li & Thompson are so far the only ones only to use Yue. I would suggest that points towards Cantonese (Yue) for Level 2. Could we perhaps agree on that for Level 2 without the debate on what to do at Level 3 (the Standard/Modern/Colloquial/Whatever debate) for now? Akerbeltz (talk) 00:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Academic sources tend to use Yue, with Cantonese as a clarification. That would suggest "Yue (Cantonese)". A problem with "Cantonese (Yue)" is that is can be understood to mean Yue Cantonese as opposed to some other non-Yue Cantonese; with "Yue (Cantonese)" on the other hand, the term Cantonese both clarifies what Yue means, and also dabs it from the other, less common uses of the term (the ancient Yue language, etc.). This fits better with Norman, Ethnologue, Standard Cantonese Phonology, etc. There is also the suggestion of "Yue (language)" below. kwami (talk) 00:50, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

If I interpreted the "data table" correctly, the prevailing "primary name" seems to be "Cantonese", followed by "Yue" as a clarification. De Francis, Britannica, Lonely Planet, Matthews, Ramsey and Yang seem to all use "Cantonese" in a context to refer to the Yue dialects in general. "Cantonese (Yue)" is fine, but then that means we have to preserve the article on "Standard Cantonese", which several of us agreed earlier should be deleted. Colipon+(Talk) 00:58, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The "primary name" isn't necessarily the name used for Yue, but often the name for Canton-ese, with the alternate name being the one used for Yue, making a numerical comparison indirect.

Should we exclude your suggestion of "Cantonese (Yue)", then? Though I fail to see what it has to do with retaining Standard Cantonese. kwami (talk) 01:26, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

No kwami, it's exactly the other way round. Most academic sources use Cantonese as the name in the text body but when introducing the subject or talking about classification, they use Yue to qualifiy/specifiy which "Level" of Cantonese. Kwami, what non-Yue Cantonese dialects are there? I don't see either though why that would force retention of Standard Cantonese. There are any number of options for that but let's not try and solve both problems at the same time, that approach got us nowhere. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

There are no "non-Yue Cantonese" dialects. That was my point: The title "Cantonese (Yue)" might suggest to a naive reader that there are: "Cantonese (Yue)" as opposed to "Cantonese (XX)". kwami (talk) 00:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The table is misleading in its current state. It really needs to be separated into two tables, one for "Yue dialects", one for "Standard Cantonese". Otherwise the situation looks more confusing than it really is. Scholars using "Cantonese" to refer to 广州话 (and there are a number of them in the table) should not be put together with people using "Cantonese" for the Yue dialects.

Also, I checked Ramsay and found that he is fairly consistent in using "Yue" for the Yue dialects (e.g., "In Taishan, the Yue dialect most widely spoken in American Chinatowns...") and "Cantonese" for 广州话. He also uses "Yue (Cantonese)" for the title of the section, not "Cantonese" as in the original table. I've corrected these errors.

If you separate the two tables, correct the errors in Ramsay, omit Chinese-language sources (the name 粤语 is a Chinese name for Cantonese and is not really equivalent to "Yue dialects"), and omit Lonely Planet, which is not an academic source, you find that "Cantonese" is not quite as strong a contender in referring to the Yue dialects as it initially appears.

The table for Yue dialects should look something like this: (Pardon me if I've made a bit of a mess or omitted references I shouldn't have. Sometimes it's hard to judge just from the table without having the reference at hand).

Source	Primary name used	Alternative names mentioned	Language area acc. to source	Relevant notes by source
Bussmann	Yue	Kantonesisch		lists as Yue (in South China, with Cantonese)
Crystal	Cantonese (Yüeh)		Guangdong, South Guangxi, Macau, HK	Note he says Bái-huà ('colloquial language'). A simplified vernacular style of writing, introduced by the literary reformer Hu Shih in 1917 to make the language more widely known to the public...
De Francis	Cantonese	Yue		States Canton, Taishan, Others as mutually intelligible; uses Cantonese in text body and Yue in linguistic classification tables.
Encyclopedia Britannica	Cantonese language	Chinese (Pinyin) Yueyu, (Wade-Giles romanization) Yüeh-yü	Guangdong and southern Guangxi provinces of China	"Cantonese (yue) speaker". The hyperlink for "Yue languages" at the article on "Standard Cantonese" clicks through to this article.
Grimes	2. Yue Chinese	2. Cantonese, Yue, Yueh; also Gwong Dung Waa, Yuet Yue, Yueyu	Guangdong (except Hakka speaking areas northeast, Min Nan-speaking areas east, Hainan Island); Guangxi. Hong Kong and Macau	not clear if Guangfu is an alt. name of Yuehai, or a subdialect
Ladefoged	Yue dialects			One reference to another author using Cantonese; uses Wu Chinese
Li & Thompson	Yuè		divides into Yuehai, Qinlian, Gaolei, Siyi, and Guinan	following Soren Egerod (1967), "Dialectology"
Mathews	Cantonese	Yue, Yue group of dialects	All of Guangdong and Guangxi	States Cantonese as spoken in HK is generally known as Gwóngdung Wá after the province of Guangdong; states the Canton dialect is seens as the prestige variant by natives but that most Westerners equate Cantonese with HK Cantonese.
Norman	Yuè dialects		Guangdong and Guangxi	The term Cantonese, which is sometimes used interchangeably with Yuè, should be reserved for the dialect of the city of Guangzhou (Canton) and not used as a general name for the group as a whole.
Ramsey	Yue (Cantonese)		All Yue dialects in Guangdong and Guangxi, including Taishan	Notes that The Yue dialects are popularly known as Cantonese dialects; Yue in classification tables; both Yue and Cantonese in text, with Yue generally referring to Yue dialects (including Taishanese) and Cantonese to the prestige dialect; states the Canton dialect is perceived as standard.
Yang	Cantonese		Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, HK, Macau	In the Chinese bits, 粵語 is used throughout.
Yuen	Cantonese	Yueh dialects, or Cantonese in the broad sense		In the continental United States, practically all Chinese residents speak a variety of Cantonese from one of the four districts to the south-west of Canton. As the dialect of Canton city has considerable prestige, speakers of the sub-dialects all understand it and try to speak it.

Bathrobe (talk) 11:26, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm in a great rush right now - could you amend Ramsey please? No objections to loosing LP either I just thought it would be interesting to see what more colloquial books make of it. As for separating the two, I'm not averse to that but it might be easier just colour marking those that deal with Yue dialects in a way that does not exclusively address Yuehai. Not familiar with Grimes but while most sources I've seen give you the map of the speaking area and tell you there's dialects and subdialects most then home in on a Yuehai dialect for description. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've already fixed Ramsay, but I've made a mess of the references :(

I also checked Encyclopaedia Britannica, and found that there is an article on "Standard Cantonese" stating that "The most important representative of the Yue languages is Standard Cantonese of Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau". If you then click through to "Yue languages", you are directed to the article on "Cantonese language" listed in the table above.

Bathrobe (talk) 11:57, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The article on Canton dialect and Standard Cantonese should probably be merged since they cover pretty much the same dialect and the same ground.

Bathrobe (talk) 12:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Bathrobe, where did the info for the family chart above come from? Was it from some source or was it an estimate branch based on the current status of the articles. Benjwong (talk) 06:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The chart was copied from the article :) I'm not sure where it came from.... but it looks reasonable enough at first glance.

Bathrobe (talk)

Nevermind. I found the orig edit here. For some reason I thought you were the first uploader. Benjwong (talk) 05:08, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• I have so far resisted detailed comment on this matter other than the procedural point, which has been ignored. After reading the foregoing discussion, I see a broad consensus that disambiguation is needed here because the label 'Cantonese language' refers to two different levels, and we just seem to be unable to agree on which namespaces these should be. Kwami unilaterally created an article 'Yue Chinese', but his use of Admin powers in this is a separate issue. A lot of face and effort has been invested here fighting the 'Yue' corner which could have been spent improving the article. Rjanag and Akerbeltz, amongst others, have made constructive suggestions as to which name spaces these should be, and I generally agree with their approach. I would state my arguments as follows:

1. although it is proven that some academics use 'Yue' to describe the subject, we have also established above that academics are split on whether to use the term 'Cantonese' or 'Yue' to name the language group
2. I do not feel that the ambiguity has been resolved through the using 'Yue Chinese' to dab. If anything, the text is even more confused because the job of cleaning up the articles is half done.
3. We are all agreed that 'Canton' was the British name for Guangzhou.
4. Canton-ese has become the language/dialect spoken in vast swathes (though not all) of the province of Guangdong, and beyond. Through custom and practice, it is known throughout the western world as 'Cantonese' despite the minor ambiguities which exist. This is incontrovertible fact and should be the "reference" position.
5. Geographically, all dialects spoken within the province are 'Cantonese (L2)'
6. It's not WP practice to change a commonly-accepted name (majority position) to suit the minority position. To do so (ie by changing from Cantonese to Yue Chinese) is like the tail wagging the dog.
7. 'Taishanese' is Taishanese; the people have their own identity and their own dialect. It belongs to Cantonese (L2) but is not Cantonese (L3); whether Taishanese or Cantonese is spoken more widely in San Francisco is largely a red herring.
8. Per WP:TITLE, namespaces are unique; per 'WP:DAB, it is quite acceptable for several articles where the subject shares the same name to be disambiguated. Such dab takes place in any number of ways (see John Williams (disambiguation) ). There is nothing to stop 'Cantonese (linguistics)' from being such a disambiguated namespace
9. There should be no insistence on using 'Yue Chinese'; it is ambiguous at best. If there continues to be insistence that 'Yue' must feature in the namespace (and I don't see it from the above discussion), one compliant title I suggest would be 'Chinese linguistics (Yue)'
10. Although the government of the People's Republic has not declared any standards for Cantonese which officially allows us to adopt the term Standard Cantonese, recognition by the Hong Kong Government is sufficient to give it that status to Hong Kong Cantonese.
11. However, having said the above, I find the articles Canton dialect and Standard Cantonese are not sufficiently distinct for there to be two articles. As things stand, I feel they should be merged. 'Standard Cantonese' can then be redirected to HK Cantonese. - this is a side issue.

Ohconfucius (talk) 06:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

"Yue Chinese" is going away for certain. We mind as well vote for something now and save some time. "Standard Cantonese" will slowly merge into another existing article. Once the mess is sorted out. Benjwong (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

User Ohconfucius has given a highly unbiased view of the issues involved and I agree with virtually everything he says. I guess the major point that separates me from other editors is that I consider it important to distinguish Yue from Cantonese, preferably by using the term "Yue" in some form.

Bathrobe (talk)

A different dialect-tree of Cantonese language:

Cantonese language

Baihua division Guangfu dialect (Yuehai dialect) Guangzhou-Hong Kong accent (has been widely accepted as social standard and lingua franca of the whole language) Zhongshan accent Foshan accent Panyu accent Wuzhou accent Siyi dialect Taishan accent (known as Taishanese) Enping accent Kaiping accent Xinhui accent Heshan accent Goulou dialect Yulin accent Huaiji accent Fengkai accent Tengxian accent Deqing accent Yongxun dialect Nanning accent Yongning accent Guiping accent Baise accent Guanbao dialect Guancheng accent Weitou accent Gaoyang dialect Gaozhou accent Yangjiang accent Qinlian dialect Qinzhou accent Beihai accent Lianzhou accent Lingshan accent Fangchenggang accent Wuhua dialect Wuchuan accent Huazhou accent Pinghua division Southern Ping dialect Binyang accent Yi'ning accent Hengxian accent Northern Ping dialects Yangshuo dialect Hezhou dialect Ziyuan dialect Quanzhou dialect Xing'an dialect Fuchuan dialect Yongfu dialect Hainan division Danzhou dialect Mai dialect Tanka dialect

Cantonese is THE LANGUAGE NAME. Standard Cantonese to Cantonese is just as Standard Mandarin to Mandarin. And linguistically, Cantonese is parallel to Mandarin. --Newzebras (talk) 13:29, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Canton

Yes, the English term sometimes is commonly used for the HK-Guangzhou-Macau prestige dialect, but this usage is not as of yet dominant enough to replace its use to represent the larger Yue dialect group. Upon reading this comment earlier, I was so taken aback that I could only blubber that it was "sheer nonsense", without offering any evidence for my statement.

However, if, as you suggest, it is this assumption that has led to our current impasse, I think the issue can be resolved without waiting for another editor to come along and offer his/her opinion. All we need to do is determine whether the usage for Guangzhouhua came first, or the usage for Yue dialects. The problem is one of proving it.

• For one, the name itself is a colonial-era name that refers (despite appearances) to the city of Guangzhou. Since Canton = Guangzhou, then Cantonese = Guangzhou-hua. This is the definition of "Cantonese" given in my ancient (1980s) Websters: The dialect of Chinese spoken in and around Canton. Given that the colonial-era name referred to the city of Canton, it seems strange to assume that, for example, the Yue language of far-off Nanning in Guangxi province might have been called "Cantonese" by the people of that era.

• Secondly, textbooks of Cantonese almost invariably cover Guangzhouhua. There are possibly textbooks of Guangxi baihua or Toisan out there, although the possibility is very slim. To all intents and purposes Cantonese textbooks teach Guangzhouhua.

• Thirdly, the consciousness that the Yue languages are related to Guangzhouhua may have been formed fairly early on (the Yue dialects are supposed to be relatively homogeneous), but according to 汉语方言 语音的演变和层次 (王福堂, published 1999), the classification of Chinese dialects didn't start until the turn of the 20th century. It therefore makes more sense to assume that "Cantonese" was given to the prestige Guangzhou dialect than to assume it was given to an (as yet undescribed) Yue family of dialects.

If we can agree that "Guangzhouhua" is the primary meaning of "Cantonese", I think it makes more sense to apply the name "Cantonese" to Guangzhouhua, a recognised prestige language, than it does to a collection of dialects that was only clarified by linguists later.

Bathrobe (talk) 14:38, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I can definitely empathize with your position, but there are still some misconceptions about languages and their standard, representative form. Yes, Guangzhou dialect is the prestige dialect of Cantonese, there is no doubt. That's why your Cantonese publications talk about that particular variety because Guangzhou dialect is representative of Cantonese. This doesn't mean other Yue dialects is not "Cantonese" and cannot be titled such. Guangzhou is representative of Cantonese, Beijing is representative of Mandarin, I guess this is your interpretation of "primary meaning".

Much of this mess has to do with history. "Cantonese" can be traced back to as early as the 16th Century, upon the arrival of the Portuguese traders in China. Sources generally agree that the origin of the word "Canton" is derived from the Portuguese "Cantão", or French "Canton", which is further derived from the Cantonese name of the province now romanized as Guangdong - (Kwang-tung in Wade-Giles). It was not a transliteration of the city of Guangzhou. As you can see, this makes the situation extremely confusing. If the word "Canton" was a romanization of the province of Guangdong, but then applied erroneously as the name for the city of Guangzhou, then at least etymologically speaking, "Canton" means "Guangdong", not "Guangzhou".

Now we fast forward to the 20th Century. I believe the first attempts at classifying Chinese languages was done under the auspices of the Republican government in the 1920s. This was because the national government in Nanjing at the time wanted to "nationalize" the Chinese language - but to nationalize it, you need to first understand it. Thus, a new linguistic field emerged under which scholars tried to classify Chinese linguistic groups. Apart from Mandarin (which was classified as "Guan-hua", or "language of the Officials', thus the term "Mandarin" in English), and Hakka (which was the language spoken by southerners whose ancestors were northerner migrants and thus whose identity were geographically ambiguous), each other branch of Chinese was given a name according to the abbreviation of the province that language was predominantly spoken in - Xiang for the language spoken in Hunan province, Gan for the language spoken in Jiangxi province, Yue for the language spoken in Guangdong province, Min for the language spoken in Fujian province.

In China, for non-academic folk, these languages eventually became known by their provincial name - Hunanhua for Xiang, Jiangxihua for Gan, Fujianhua for Min (although due to the complexity of Min languages "Fujianhua" is not a very useful term), and Guangdonghua for Yue. When Western academics entered this field of study (post-1920), only several Chinese languages had existing romanized names - mostly due to immigration from these groups in overseas countries. Examples in this category include Cantonese, Toisanese, Teochew, Hokkien, and Hakka.

Linguists then worked some of these commonly established names into their classification schemes (they did not establish these names themselves). I.e., for names that did not have an established romanization (Gan, Xiang, Wu, Jin), they retained the Chinese transliteration in their schemes. For names that had an established romanization, they adopted these names into their schemes where they thought was appropriate. "Hokkien" (meaning "Fujian") is the term now used for Quanzhou-Zhangzhou dialects, "Amoy" is the term now used for "Xiamen dialect", "Teochew" for the Chaozhou group of dialects, "Hakka" for Kejia dialects, and "Cantonese" for the Guangdong dialects. While the immigrant community from most parts of Guangdong called their language "Cantonese", linguists adopted this name as part of their classification theme to signify "Yue", or "Guangdong".

As shown above by other users, in later studies, linguists sometimes found the dual usage between Cantonese (Guangzhou) and Cantonese (Yue) somewhat confusing, and would often clarify in their paper by calling the higher division "Yue" or "Guangdonghua" or by calling the lower division "Canton dialect" or "Guangzhou dialect" or "Modern Cantonese". From this large body of papers it is inconclusive which use of "Cantonese" is more accurate, but it has been established that use of "Cantonese" to describe both levels is generally acceptable, provided an explanation follows. Therefore I suggest that the most practical solution is to have one article that deals with both topics, and this could be practical for editors as well, as the two concepts are very closely related anyhow. For any reader to understand one topic it would probably be helpful to also understand the other. That said, I am also open to other proposals.

Now we ask, then, is it inaccurate that Taishanese belongs in the "Cantonese" group of dialects? No. Taishanese is best understood as the most eccentric dialect of Cantonese - while mutual intelligibility is low, grammatical structure and general linguistic genealogy tells us that Taishanese is very closely related to other Cantonese dialects. It's the same reason Yunnanese and Sichuanese are considered "Mandarin", and the same reason Wenzhou dialect is considered "Wu". That Taishanese has developed a separate identity from Cantonese is a complex social-cultural-linguistic phenomenon that is probably best explained in its own article. But it has not been established that scholars make a point to exclude Taishanese when describing Cantonese in the context of greater Yue dialects. Colipon+(Talk) 18:36, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is worth discussing this further. User Colipon has convinced himself that "Cantonese" originally meant "Yue dialects", presumably from the 1920s or later, and that subsequently "non-academic folk" purloined the term to describe Guangzhouhua -- and is wrong because "Canton" actually means "Guangdong"!!!!

It would be useful if user Colipon could back up this fairy story. User Colipon seems to be saying that nobody knew about these languages until the 20th century, when scholars decided to classify the dialects of China, after which, he says, "In China, for non-academic folk, these languages eventually became known by their provincial name". Well, Ramsey, at least, has the following to say about Cantonese: "Among the Yue people the dialect of Canton has enjoyed prestige for centuries, at least since the Ming dynasty, by which time the Pearl River delta had become the most important economic and cultural center in the Deep South. From that time on, Cantonese had no local rivals. A vernacular literature grew up, including the enormously popular Yuèōu... " To maintain that no one knew about a prestige dialect, one that Westerners would have had considerable contact with, until linguists came along in the 20th century, is a quaint notion. User Colipon has spun a nice tale, but it relies rather heavily on claims like 'at least etymologically speaking, "Canton" means "Guangdong", not "Guangzhou"'. "Etymologically speaking" simply doesn't cut it. "Canton" means "Guangzhou", no matter what the etymology.

As for it has been established that use of "Cantonese" to describe both levels is generally acceptable, provided an explanation follows, this has not been established at all. All we have is user Colipon repeating ad nauseum that we don't want to use a scholarly term on Wikipedia. At least one scholarly source with somewhat greater academic standing than user Colipon has explicitly rejected the use of Cantonese for Yue. Others merely say that Yue is "popularly" called Cantonese. I have demonstrated that the imprecision of reference between Yue and Cantonese has wreaked havoc with this article in the past. We have dictionaries defining the Cantonese as the language spoken in or around Canton, which is defined as Guangzhou city. We have (presumably) native speakers coming on here to maintain that Cantonese expressly means Guangzhouhua. We have books for learning the language that use Cantonese for Guangzhouhua. None of this is enough for user Colipon, whose attachment to the term "Cantonese" for the Yue dialects, even where this causes confusion and ambiguity, verges on the obsessive. Finally he gives us etymological arguments and a story about the popular adoption of the name "Cantonese" for Guangzhouhua in the 20th century, after linguists had finally managed to identify and isolate the Yue dialects, to justify the primacy of the meaning "Yue" for Cantonese.

This argument is verging on the ridiculous. It certainly exceeds the bounds of rational discussion given that we are simply trying to decide on the optimum naming for an article. Yue is at least as acceptable as Cantonese, if not more so, and is backed by scholarly sources, but user Colipon, for reasons of his own, is totally unable to even consider using it. I am truly baffled.

Bathrobe (talk) 23:15, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Merge/Deletion proposals

I find it interesting that Bathrobe asks for "back-up" and "sources", but when I give them, somehow they always fail his standards. He even modified the table Akerbeltz presented above which very much favoured "Cantonese" being the superior choice over "Yue", but he called it "misleading" to help advance his case. When I went into a bit of a historical background on the issue, the purpose was to give a greater context around this entire issue, and should not be seen as a means to rebuke Bathrobe's comments. But his response to my attempts at offering context was quite frankly very offensive - not in any way productive in resolving the issue. I have tried to seek compromise wherever I can, saying that "Cantonese", "Cantonese (language)", "Cantonese language", "Cantonese (Yue)" are all acceptable names for what is now called "Yue Chinese", a name that we have almost universally rejected aside from User:Kwami. I have offered now three possible solutions to this issue:

1. Merge "Standard Cantonese" with "Yue Chinese", re-work the articles, move "Yue Chinese" to any of above names.
2. Maintain "Standard Cantonese", move it to "Modern Cantonese", rename this article "Cantonese (Yue)".
3. Move this page back to "Cantonese" or "Cantonese (linguistics)" (i.e. the "Status-quo" before the page was suddenly moved), clean up material on this page and on "Standard Cantonese" to make it less confusing.

If the superiority of "Yue" is as clear as Bathrobe makes it sound, I'm sure the hundreds of people who have edited this encyclopedia before us would have jumped on his mountain of "evidence" and moved this page to some variation of "Yue" a long time ago. But through the archives of this talk page in the past two years, the only ones to advance the "Yue" formula seem to be User:Bathrobe and User:Kwami.

Bathrobe, if you cannot accept any of the above mentioned choices, then you and I can probably agree that any further discussion of this will be a waste of time for both of us. In the event that happens you should present your alternative proposals, and I would be happy to simply conduct a poll or just ask a select group of uninvolved editors to review all the comments and offer their say. Colipon+(Talk) 00:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the idea that the name "Cantonese" only came about after the 1920s, I was interested in this quotation from here: [2]

Ernst Johann Eitel or alternatively Ernest John Eitel (1838-1908) was a German Protestant missionary to China. He has published his Cantonese dictionary, Chinese Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect in 1877. It is based on a Cantonese glossary dictionary Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect written in 1856 by Samuel Wells Williams

It appears that a dictionary of the "Cantonese Dialect" was published in 1877, well before before the Yue dialects were finally isolated in the 1920s (or 1900 according to sources that I have).

Bathrobe (talk) 01:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

My case is simply to disambiguate the two concepts. Cantonese, the traditional name for Guangzhouhua, Yue for the linguists' concept of the Yue dialects. The proposals offered by user Colipon originally hinged on using the same term for both concepts -- and when he ran into opposition to this, he followed up with a proposal to combine the two concepts into a single article! Naturally I am opposed to Colipon's proposals, because they not only fail to help disambiguate the two concepts, they are now suggesting that the two concepts should be amalgamated into one.

Whatever the shortcomings of "Yue Chinese", I can only oppose attempts to move the article to any location which gives primacy to the name "Cantonese" for the Yue dialects.

Bathrobe (talk) 00:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the original proposal to merge article came from User:Benjwong, I believe, not me. I just thought it was a good idea, and I am still open to that idea. It is just a matter of which one is easier for both editors and readers. Another idea, "Yue dialects", has also been suggested above. Upon reviewing about 7-8 academic sources (including DeFrancis, Matthews, Ramsey, etc.) I would say this is perhaps the most sensible choice that does not include the term Cantonese. This is still not my first choice but in my view it is a lot better than "Yue Chinese". In the spirit of compromise I would like to offer another proposal in addition to the three above:

1. Rename "Standard Cantonese" to "Cantonese"; the subject matter will deal strictly with modern Cantonese as spoken in HK-Macau-Guangzhou. Then move this article to "Yue dialects", the subject matter deal with classification of Cantonese and also a section on the use of the term "Cantonese".

Given Bathrobe's case this proposal is perhaps most fitting. Extensions to any proposals above are also welcome. Colipon+(Talk) 01:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

User Colipon, this is exactly my proposal and I am very happy that you have recognised that it has some merits. This is not to deny that "Cantonese" is often used for the Yue dialects, as you point out; my point is that "Cantonese" will cause confusion and that Yue has solid academic backup.

I hope that other editors will at least consider this proposal, and come back with counterproposals if necessary.

Bathrobe (talk) 01:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

As for the meaning of "Canton", yes, of course etymologically it derives from Guangdong, not Guangzhou. But it's short for Canton City, which was the English name of Guangzhou, not Guangdong. Arguing that it must refer to the entire province is like saying that New York City must be in England.

Colipon, yes, "Yue dialects" is another name that has been suggested in the past. People objected because of the word "dialect" (arguing that readers would overlook the plural), but perhaps it will fare better this time.

I still think Standard Cantonese should be merged with Canton dialect. If we move it to 'Cantonese', so that it's no longer a 'standard' language, then there would be nothing to distinguish it from Canton dialect, and they'd end up being merged anyway. But that's a separate discussion.

The names I've seen that are reasonably unambiguous are:

• Yue Chinese
• Cantonese (Yue)
• Yue (Cantonese)
• Yue dialects
• Yue (language)

kwami (talk) 01:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

We need to be careful of these 1800s missionary sources being used. These data were taken at a time when HK Cantonese doesn't even exist or had minimal to zero influence. Anyhow if you narrow it down to the real life interpretation, (粵) is formal, (廣東話) is the world wide usage. The English name of this main branch is what we are struggling with. Any book that suggest "only" Guangzhouhua fits into the English term "Cantonese" cannot be taken seriously. Please look at the map again to see that Guangdong is the bigger piece. Guangzhou land and dialect is just one of the small piece. The bigger picture and main branch name really has no choice but "Cantonese (Yue)". It's the only name that carries both meaning after all the above discussions. Benjwong (talk) 06:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The 1800s missionary source was merely to indicate that the name "Cantonese" predates the linguists' usage.

The above paragraph contains several errors.

• First, 广东话 is not "world wide usage", it is HK usage. The term 广州话 is ignored. Given that Guangzhouhua, the prestige dialect, is traditionally based on Guangzhou usage, there is nothing strange about calling the language "Cantonese" based on "just one of the small piece". English is called "English", despite the fact that it occupies a very small part of the English-speaking world. Hong Kong's modern influence is not to be denied, but this is not an argument for saying that Guangzhou is too narrow.
• Second, the Yue dialects are not synonymous with Guangdong province. (1) They do not cover the whole of Guangdong province. (2) They are found outside Guangdong province. For (1), there are areas like Leizhou peninsula (Hainanese) and the east of Guangdong province that don't use Yue dialects as the native dialect. For (2), Yue dialects are spoken in Guangxi province and Hainan. To identify Yue as "the language of Guangdong province" is fundamentally incorrect.
• We have already established that "Canton" in English refers to Guangzhou, not to Guangdong, so using "Cantonese" doesn't actually imply that the language is the language of Guangdong province, anyway.
• Terms like 广东话 and 粤 are not English words. If we are discussing this in terms of English, it is incorrect to insist that "Cantonese" must be used because Chinese uses 广东话, just as it is incorrect to equate "Yue dialects" with 粤语. Similarly the problem with 粤语 and 越语, which are quite irrelevant to English. This linguistic interference only makes discussion more difficult.

Bathrobe (talk) 07:33, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I support both "Cantonese (Yue)" and "Yue dialects", and oppose "Yue Chinese", "Yue (Cantonese)", and "Yue (language)".

Regarding the point about missionaries. I do not at all doubt that "Cantonese" as a name existed before the 1920s, and this was probably used to refer to the Canton dialect at that point. Like I present above the English name "Cantonese" was either coined by Cantonese immigrants themselves or by people who dealt with Cantonese immigrants. But when linguists jumped in later they did end up using Cantonese to refer to Yue dialects in general - if this was "inaccurate" then it was their problem, not ours. Not all chose to do this, of course, but a significant number did.

Regarding moving "Standard Cantonese" to "Canton dialect". I oppose this on the grounds that they are not the same thing. Canton dialect is the prestige dialect that is used as the basis for modern spoken Cantonese, but they are not exactly the same. Currently there are at least two dialects that have diverged slightly from this "Standard" - Guangzhou dialect, and Hong Kong Cantonese. Standard Cantonese, although based on Guangzhou, actually now refers to "Cantonese as spoken in HK-Macau-Guangzhou". I agree it is rather problematic to call it a "Standard" to begin with, so it may be best to just move it to "Cantonese" or "Modern Cantonese", depending on where this page ends up. It is the same reason we would not merge "Standard Mandarin" with "Beijing dialect", because they are still two different concepts.

Again, I remind editors that if they do not like a particular proposal, they can introduce new ones or add to existing ones. Simply opposing a proposal is not conducive to resolving the issue. Colipon+(Talk) 09:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not a move, but a delete/merge. Above, you agreed with deleting the article on Standard Cantonese. If we do that, we need to merge the material it contains; one suggestion for how to do this was outlined above. kwami (talk) 11:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Terrible new page title

The article title "Yue Chinese" is absolutely terrible and unacceptable. Badagnani (talk) 03:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Many people have complained yes. Benjwong (talk) 03:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Hear, hear --Caspian blue 03:46, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Complaints without solutions are useless. Why is it unacceptable, and what do you propose to replace it? kwami (talk) 10:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe name this article "Yue (language)"? There's already a Yue dab page. If you look at the {{Chinese language}} template, there are some named Wu Chinese and Min Chinese, but there are also some named Hakka (language) and Gan (language). Tavatar (talk) 15:53, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. kwami (talk) 21:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The "language" term should be avoided entirely. Again, no government (Qing, PRC, HK pre or post 1997) acknowledge its writing system as truly 100% independent. Cantonese no matter which way you look at it.... is not a complete package on its own. Benjwong (talk) 06:12, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

As active participant in Cantonese Wikipeida, I agree the term "language" should be avoid. The reason is a pragmatic one because some users strongly insist Cantonese is a dialect. On the other hand, no language on Earth is 100% independent, just Cantonese has vast Chinese terms, just as English has many French terms and so on. --WikiCantona (talk) 18:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The frigging mess

Just to recap, because I'm now terribly confused. This is no way to deal with complex page moves, and it should have been debated thoroughly prior to execution. The mess we have today was caused by the following four actions by Kwami:

• 13:23, 14 September 2009 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) m (27,500 bytes) (moved Cantonese to Yue Chinese over redirect: per objections to ambiguous "Cantonese" on Talk)
• 13:26, 14 September 2009 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) m (714 bytes) (moved Cantonese (disambiguation) to Cantonese)
• 05:43, 17 September 2009 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) m (21,422 bytes) (moved Standard Cantonese to Canton dialect: splitting article: leaving 'Standard Cantonese' for the actual semi-standard language)
• 05:45, 17 September 2009 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) (20,980 bytes) (splitting article; keeping topics of Standard Cantonese at this location)

Ohconfucius (talk) 09:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If we were to discuss this on procedures alone, then there is no doubt in my mind that there are some serious issues regarding User:Kwami's conduct. Colipon+(Talk) 10:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I have brought it up three times... Ohconfucius (talk) 10:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - This situation is unacceptable, as is this article's current title. Please fix it. Badagnani (talk) 04:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Kwami was just trying to help out. The move was a bit rushed. But it was not with bad intentions. Benjwong (talk) 05:03, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that there are a lot of regular users without administrative powers who have good intentions who would certainly disagree with this move. The move was clearly controversial and therefore there is no question that it should have gone through proper channels. Especially in his capacity as an experienced administrator and involved editor, Kwami should have been crystal clear about what he should and shouldn't do before moving the page - and this is what puts his good faith into question. Colipon+(Talk) 17:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

To user Colipon

I keep getting blocked when I open or try to open your talk page. Very strange.

I agree with the comment by 86.137.251.212. He says "When reverse translated, Cantonese became GD'hua, as Canton sounded closer to Guangdong than Guangzhou. This is a technical mistake, which should be addressed." In other words, he is saying that HKese labour under the false assumption that the correct term is 广东话 due to the phonetic influence of the English word "Cantonese". I quite agree with what he is saying.

"So HK people now have to be educated to realise that what they have called GD'hua is incorrect and it should really be called by its true identity of GZ'hua." Well, I would put it down to different usage in different places. Nothing wrong with that. But when HK-based users try to say that the term 广东话 is correct, and on the basis of that say that the English word "Cantonese" should refer to the speech of the whole province, not just Guangzhouhua, I feel that some mistaken assumptions are at work that really need to be fixed.

Bathrobe (talk) 10:29, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. The funny thing is that there are mistaken assumptions all-round. That's what makes our job so hard. There's assumptions on the part of the HK'ers, the linguists, the Portuguese traders, the dictionaries etc. How to compile all of these assumptions into one coherent article is the hard part. Colipon+(Talk) 10:33, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

My Thoughts (perhaps somewhat rambling)

These are thoughts that I set down rather informally at my user page for user Colipon to read. I don't think they are very well expressed, but I decided to put them here so that other editors can see where I am coming from. I'm not merely some curmudgeonly editor who is being bloody-minded in insisting on "Yue" instead of "Cantonese". I have reasons for opposing "Cantonese" which I set out in a rather discursive manner below. Whether it will convince anyone is another matter...

You will notice that I added Yuen as a reference in Akerbeltz's table. Yuen uses "Cantonese" rather than "Yue". I think the topic is fraught precisely because "Cantonese" is not a "language" in the fullest sense. If Guangdong province were an independent state, then Toisan would be considered a dialect of standard Cantonese and everyone would agree on that. (The status of "Cantonese" in Guangxi would be a different problem. It is quite possible that if Guangxi were an independent state, the Guangxi government might declare 白话 one of the nation's official languages and assert that it was a different language from Cantonese -- it all comes down to politics!)

The problem comes about because Cantonese is not a "national language", it is a prestige dialect. Whether varieties like Toisan are regarded as "dialectal variants" of "Standard Cantonese", or not Cantonese at all, depends on the point of view of the speaker. We have people here who say that Taishainese is not Cantonese, full stop, since Cantonese is Guangzhouhua. Others are willing to consider Taishanese a rather aberrant dialect of Cantonese. In the end, the problem is that the Yue dialects are a bunch of dialects, perhaps a dialect continuum, without a head, and the reason there isn't a head is because Guangdong isn't an independent state that can enforce Cantonese as a standardised national language.

The "standard language with dialects" model is a real problem. It exists as a kind of ideal, but isn't at all clear in reality. The article on German is very revealing in this regard, as it draws a clear distinction between "dialects in the raw" (the original dialects of the German-speaking areas) and the prestige dialect, High German, that has come down on top of the lot like a blanket and now has its own regional variants. These regional variants aren't the old original dialects, they are just regional variant forms of High German. So what are the old dialects? In a sense, they are almost separate languages from High German. The lack of a truly "organic" link between dialects and the standard language is shown by the fact that certain of the old dialects are considered to be dialects of both German and Dutch -- depending on which side of the border the speaker is living.

Sorry if I'm not making sense, but the insistence on hierarchies, the perception that Cantonese is a "representative" of Yue dialects, almost as though the Yue dialects constituted a "country" with Cantonese as a standard language, these things all seem to be motivated by the "standard with dialects" model. My suspicion is that the Yue dialects are a bunch of dialects and don't necessarily "hang together" at all. The speakers of some may see their speach as a "variant" of Cantonese, others may feel that their language is something apart from Cantonese but maybe similar. That is why I want to keep the two articles separate. One article for the prestige dialect, which is reasonably standardised, and one article for the motley bunch of "Yue dialects". At some place in the articles it will probably be necessary to point out the relationship of the Yue dialects to Standard Cantonese (e.g., Toisan speakers perceive themselves as speaking Cantonese, but Cantonese speakers don't see Toisan speakers as speaking a form of Cantonese; 白话 speakers see their language as quite similar to but somewhat different from Cantonese, etc.), but I don't know where you could get this kind of information.

It is vitally important that the perception of native speakers be taken notice of. I am not totally happy when HK speakers come on and claim that the Yue dialects are all "Cantonese", because somehow I feel this represents a linguistic claim on other people's speech that local speakers of those dialects don't necessarily share. I don't want to make a claim either way since I don't know enough about it. But in the interest of conceptual clarity, I think it is very important to distinguish between the prestige dialect with its relatively standardised form and wide usage even outside Yue areas, and the collection of languages that linguists have decided belong together linguistically as "Yue dialects". They are not "Cantonese dialects" with a head (i.e., Standard Cantonese) but a bunch of genetically related dialects that don't necessarily see themselves as "dialects" or "variants" of Cantonese at all. A person who speaks Danzhouhua and learns Standard Cantonese may not see himself as much different from a person who speaks Minnan and learns Standard Cantonese. Both have their local speech and both are learning a "prestige variety". Do you get my drift?

This is related to my point that the use of the name Cantonese for Guangzhouhua is almost certainly older than its use for the Yue dialects. That is because Guangzhouhua has been an identifiable prestige dialect for many centuries, but the Yue dialects, which I suspect were not necessarily perceived as a single whole by the speakers of its many varieties, were not truly mapped out as an entity until linguists came on the scene in the 20th century. Until then, many of the varieties of "Cantonese" were possibly regarded as nothing more than "our local speech". Again, I am not sure what the situation is, but I am quite loath to sail in and declare that "Cantonese (=Yue dialects) is a language with Guangzhou-hua (Standard Cantonese) as its standard". It is much safer, and probably closer to the linguistic reality, to say that "Yue is a group of dialects of which Guangzhou-hua (Cantonese) is the most prestigious dialect". The choice of name really does make a difference.

Bathrobe (talk) 24 September 2009

• Your essay is a most interesting hypothesis, and I tend to agree with most of your points. The only problem I see is that it is only original research. On that basis, it's not safer at all, but one may speculate as to what linguistic reality is. "Cantonese" has been an English term for over a hundred years; OTOH, "Yue" is not an English term, but one recently borrowed from Pinyin for the reason that some academics (probably) felt it necessary to find another way of categorising the different dialects. Ohconfucius (talk) 13:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it's not original research at all. It's merely a warning against unconsciously adopting the "standard with dialects" model for Cantonese. I don't believe any linguists actually treat the Yue dialects in terms of "standard with dialects", but much of the argumentation for "Cantonese" on this page seems to be based on the unconscious assumption that Yue can be regarded as a "language" with its own "standard dialect" (Guangzhou-hua). User Colipon has certainly expressed the idea that using "Cantonese" for both Yue and Guangzhouhua would be good for users of Wikipedia, and I suspect that the reason for this is the assumption that the word "Cantonese" conveniently encapsulates the "standard plus dialects" situation. The use of the academic term "Yue" for the Yue dialects averts this danger. I am not proposing to do away with "Cantonese". It will continue to be used in the traditional sense as the name for Guangzhou dialect.

Bathrobe (talk) 24 September 2009

The warning against "standard with dialect" is good - that your assumption being - idealistically make every tongues spoken in GuangDong equal. It may not be the historical and realistic situation. Some users (you called them "Greater Cantonese" pusher) maintained that the tongue spoken in GuangZhau is the "Official Cantonese in Canton Province" declared by the local government of early day. Like it or not, once they provided the historical evidence or reputable sources, you have to acknowledge their position, that this model still the well recognized one. Your idealistic assumption, as stated, belongs to original research. We always want the world to fit our ideal. However, Wikipedia is not a tool for advancing your own ideal. Likewise, I have seen some users in Cantonese and Chinese Wikipedia strongly pushing for one position (current government/scholar - regarding as dialect) or others ("Greater Cantonese"). Some tries to said that standard Cantonese is GuangZhauHua as supposed that suggested by User Kwami in current writing. All these are worrisome.

It is unfair and danger to propose a new term to replace and restrict how widely used terms should be. You may not tolerate the intermingle use of everyday language. It can neither be a good reason to reinvent terms. Should one day people decide that the word "Yue" should be used like the way you use it now. I have no doubt many other editors will follow. --WikiCantona (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I think the distinction here we have to make is that Wikipedia is not about how things should be. Yes, perhaps all Cantonese dialects should be treated as equals, but that should not be our worry, and is certainly not within our power to change. Colipon+(Talk) 01:48, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't recall saying anywhere that all Cantonese dialects should be treated as equals and I don't know how anyone could read that implication into what I said. In fact, my insistence that the historical prestige dialect should have its own article is anything but equal treatment. My key point is that we shouldn't treat the Yue dialects as though they constitute a "country" with Cantonese as the standard language. Cantonese (Guangzhouhua) is NOT "Standard Yue". It is a prestige dialect to much more than just the Yue dialect areas; it is a prestige dialect to places that don't speak Yue at all. Moreover, unless proven otherwise, we have to stop assuming that Yue dialect speakers see themselves as speaking dialects of Standard Cantonese. That is why I pointed out that a speaker of Danzhouhua (a Yue dialect) and a speaker of Teocheow or Minnan etc. (non-Yue dialects) don't necessarily see a difference in their relationship with Standard Cantonese. They speak what they see as their own local dialect, and they learn the "prestige dialect" (Cantonese) as well. I'm not sure why we've gone off on a tangent of treating dialects as equals.

It is the people who assume that Yue dialects are automatically dialects of Standard Cantonese, without any sources to back them up, who are committing the sin of making judgements about how things should be -- namely "Standard language vs dialect". My point is that we shouldn't be forcing the Yue dialects article into this mould. (Standard) Cantonese is a prestige dialect over a geographically broad area. The Yue dialects (including Cantonese) are simply a group of genetically related dialects. They don't necessarily possess a sense of racial, ethnic, or national unity, and the individual dialects don't necessarily (although they might) see themselves as being in a special relationship with (Standard) Cantonese.

The whole point is that the dialect classifications are a result of research by linguists into vocabulary, grammar, phonology, etc. Just because linguists have identified a "Yue dialect group" doesn't mean that speakers on the ground necessarily perceive themselves as all speaking a single language.

I am opposed to using the name "Cantonese" for the Yue dialects article precisely because this does give the wrong impression. Some linguists certainly use "Cantonese" as a handy tag for this dialect grouping, but others are careful to separate "Yue" (the dialects) from "Cantonese" (the prestige dialect), and I believe the reason they do so is exactly what I have said above. Using "Cantonese" for all the Yue dialects is imprecise and suggests that they are just dialects of Standard Cantonese.

Bathrobe (talk) 02:29, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I mean this with the most respect and I am trying to see your point of view. But I don't know if I buy this argument. Yes, Danzhouhua and Taishanese speakers may not perceive themselves as speaking Cantonese. Here I argue this is the case with Danzhouhua because much of its speaker base is located outside Guangdong, and the case with Taishanese is because it is mutually unintelligible with Guangzhouhua. That said, we can't just ignore every other dialect of Cantonese-Yue (that is, the vast majority) that is basically similar to Guangzhouhua and is intelligible (like those spoken in Shiqi, Shunde, Panyu, Jiujiang, Maoming, Yangjiang etc.). For most of these speakers, they are speaking what is almost indisputably Cantonese (or Yue-yu), but just a variant form of it - much like Shandong Mandarin compared to Beijing Mandarin. If your argument is applied exclusively to Danzhouhua and Taishanese, then I have no doubt that it has some merit, but when you consider the myriad of dialects that are closely related to Guangzhouhua, you find that this argument does not hold nearly as much water. Colipon+(Talk) 03:00, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

If that is the case, it can be mentioned in the article -- both articles. The article on (Standard) Cantonese could mention that certain Yue dialects are perceived by speakers as being in a dialect status vis-à-vis Standard Guangzhouhua. The article on Yue dialects could also cover the situation by mentioning that Standard Cantonese is a prestige dialect and speakers of many dialects (e.g., .....) regard their local dialect as being in a dialect relationship with Cantonese.

In the article on (Standard) Cantonese, the only phonology that should be discussed is the phonology of Cantonese (with some mention of Hong Kong/Guangzhou variants, etc. -- i.e., variants within the standard). In the Yue dialects article, the phonological differences among the different dialects should be discussed, including Toisan, etc. -- i.e., the kind of phonological variation that linguists talk about. All in all, this is still a much clearer treatment than using "Cantonese" for the Yue dialects.

Bathrobe (talk) 03:39, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I thought two discussions ago, the agreement was made to merge standard cantonese article contents to any article just to get rid of Standard Cantonese the confusing article + term. Benjwong (talk) 05:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

When I use the term "Standard Cantonese", I am referring to 广州话, i.e., Cantonese. There is no need to name it "Standard Cantonese"; plain "Cantonese" would be fine.

Of course, the reason I keep slipping back to "Standard Cantonese" is because so many editors keep insisting that "Cantonese" refers to the Yue dialects, and you thus have to find a way to specify that you are actually talking about Guangzhouhua.

Bathrobe (talk) 07:00, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

For those who are interested, Lingui appears to be a Yue dialect that isn't regarded as a dialect of Cantonese: [3]

Bathrobe (talk) 10:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

This writer [4] refers to "Cantonese" spoken in Guangxi. Note that there are more Cantonese speakers in Guangxi (12 million) than in Hong Kong. He also says: "Nowadays, Cantonese is dominating Guangxi, but I don't know if Cantonese speakers also want to refer their dialect as Guangxihua (Gwongsaiwaa)."

Bathrobe (talk) 10:48, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

(Undent) The Cantonese spoken in Guangxi deviates from Guangzhou Cantonese rather significantly, but not enough to impede mutual intelligibility. As a result Guangdong Cantonese speakers in Nanning may not need to code-switch because they are speaking essentially the same language - both variations of "Cantonese". This makes it seem rather unreasonable to limit use of "Cantonese" exclusively as a common name for HK-Macau-Guangzhou. If code-switching is not necessary (and this is the case with almost all Yue dialects), it is safe to say that both speakers are speaking variations of the same language, unless otherwise specified by some higher authority (such as in the case of Swedish and Norwegian). Taishanese is interesting because it is spoken inside Guangdong but is by and large not mutually intelligible with Guangzhou Cantonese. But if we establish that the vast majority of Yue dialects is basically a variation of Cantonese and can be called such, we find Taishanese and Danzhouhua to be isolated cases that should not affect the article name pertaining to Cantonese dialects in general. Colipon+(Talk) 16:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Excellent point! Put differently, the majority of so-called "Cantonese dialects" is actually a local variant derived from an older forms of Cantonese (that many element can be found current GaungZhau Cantonese). The few exceptions can be explained by the in flux of migrations. Mind you that is a hypothesis - however, it is as good as the hypothesis "Yue dialect vs Cantonese" put forward by User Bathrobe. It is easy for either party to provide their side of sources.

However, I am not comfortable with direction of the debates - it is more like the work belongs to Wikiversity.

The problem is on the content than the name of the title. The lack of details but full of hypothesis and POV makes the current debate like castle in the air.

Therefore, the centre of so-called "Yue vs Cantonese" and "Cantonese with variants" debate is the family chart of Cantonese in the article. First, I have there is not many reputable source to the whole scheme. Who put this chart together? Second, the history of the scheme. Third, is it the widely accepted model now? If more efforts are put into the content instead of the current direction. The more "I believe what" is a total waste of time.--WikiCantona (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

User ASDFGH put the chart together. I have asked him for sources. I think you are right that the "current direction" is too much of the focus. HK version has the largest influence especially with all the HK entertainment. Yet people from Guangdong get rid of their original wording in favor of current trend or whatever is hip. Benjwong (talk) 06:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Naming of this article

I'm adding an RfC to involve more editors, since I think input from a wider set of editors is needed.

Problem: The name of this article is under sometimes very heated discussions. A wider range of editors to try to get some fresh views on the issue.

76.66.197.30 (talk) 05:10, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be enough agreement above to move this to Cantonese (Yue). Yes I know it will not fit the Hakka Chinese, Min Chinese, Wu Chinese format anymore. Benjwong (talk) 05:30, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I, for one, am not terribly enthusiastic about "Cantonese (Yue)". I think we should wait for the results of the RfC.

Bathrobe (talk) 07:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• To be clear, we are talking here about the group of dialects used in and around Guangdong. Because 'Yue' is an unestablished loanword, I feel perhaps it should be best used to dab the namespace. I don't believe it should ,be used concomitantly with Cantonese, to avoid confusion. For that reason, I would suggest 'Chinese linguistics (Yue)'. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying this to oppose user Ohconfucius's suggestion, but first I think I should point out that something similar to (Standard) Cantonese is spoken widely in Guangxi province, where it is known as 白话. Since many editors have presumably been to or live in Hong Kong and perhaps Guangdong province, and since these are culturally and economically quite important areas, and moreover Guangzhou is the standard for Cantonese, it's quite easy to focus exclusively on Guangdong and marginalise the Guangxi speakers. But if you have any experience with either Hainan or Guangxi, the focus on Cantonese = Guangdong province will seem somewhat less natural.

Bathrobe (talk) 08:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

So you are suggesting this a similar situation to Dutch-Flemish? Colipon+(Talk) 09:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

That's not a bad analogy. Flemish is included under the label 'Dutch', but it isn't covered under 'Netherlandic'. Therefore Dutch is a better name for the language than the geographic term Netherlandic.

I don't mind that we won't follow the 'X Chinese' formula, but I too am not crazy about 'Cantonese (Yue)'. I think 'Yue (Cantonese)' would be better, for the reasons I gave above. kwami (talk) 09:39, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I think anything Yue should be out. Only a few of scholars use this name which in itself ambiguous and odd. Google Scholar search with Yue come with a bunch of people names. Only when adding the keyword "Cantonese" - something remotely useful turns out. These who insist on using the ambiguous terms should take the burden of proof, not other way around --WikiCantona (talk) 17:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, considering there were improper procedures in renaming the article to "Yue Chinese" initially, we now implicitly assume that "Yue Chinese" is the status quo - it is not. "Cantonese" is the status quo and the burden of proof should actually be on Kwami, who moved this page to "Yue Chinese" in the first place, not on the users who now want to move it away from "Yue Chinese", which we almost all agree is a terrible name. Colipon+(Talk) 17:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

WikiCantona, Yue is used by scholars and it won't go away. Unfortunately, it is not "a few of scholars" but a majority of linguists who use the term Yue. Check the table. That WikiCantona doesn't like it is obvious, but there is no need to resort to false statements to support this POV.

Bathrobe (talk) 06:03, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• I don't see Colipon trying to stop the use of 'Yue' in the namespace. He has already indicate his being in support of "Cantonese (Yue)" and "Yue dialects" as possible alternatives. I find myself largely in agreement with this, and I am opposed to 'the current title 'Yue Chinese' for reasons already given.

  I disagree with the crude counting of 'Yue' vs 'Cantonese' - it is rather contrived, seeing that some academics use a mixture of both which, to me, indicates that there really is no prevalence for the term 'Yue' in academic circles. Then, there is the question of how we properly weight each academic's influence to arriving at the consensus view for academics of linguistics. Thirdly, whether we adopt that consensus as our own is another issue. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:44, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I asked User ASDFGH where he got the Yue chart. That is one of the most complete (but still questionable) chart I have come across. So far he has yet to respond. Anyhow Yue is a rather academic term. That cannot be denied. Except you also need Cantonese in there as the more global term. Benjwong (talk) 06:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Is User:Bathrobe claiming to be the expert of field - a Cantonese linguist? "Use by scholars" is certain a true statement, but at percentage? a majority? Any consensus along the academics? I am here to call for expert of field to settle the claim.

It is also philosophical - should Wikipedia just goes for the technical and academic? Should we aim for ordinary reader? Is Wikipedian responsibility to campaign for someone's cause? The introduction of the new term (make-up term) embark such controversy? Should we just go for so-called clear in name instead of clearing the content when this so called "clear" is nothing but clear? Refusal to look at the common use, name calling and pure hypothesizing are the strategies of some, instead of the dealing with the real issue of content, sources. the direction of the article. --WikiCantona (talk) 07:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Cantonese language

There are no other names better than Cantonese language. Yue is obviously a Mandarin transliteration for Cantonese. Linguisticly, Cantonese is parallel to Mandarin. Using Mandarin transliteration to name Cantonese language instead of using it's COMMON ENGLISH NAME is completely unacceptable. Cantonese people => Cantonese language => Cantonese culture. We are Cantonese. We speak Cantonese language. We are not Yue. Let's throw "Yue Chinese" into rubbish bin. Our mother language is Cantonese, not stupid Yue Chinese. --Newzebras (talk) 13:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Currently, it is a consensus that the "Yue Chinese" is out. What to use is the centre of the debate. --WikiCantona (talk) 17:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Cantonese is NOT a "language". Mandarin is also NOT a "language". Benjwong (talk) 06:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Cantonese is a Sinitic language. Mandarin is also a Sinitic language. No matter whether Cantonese is an independent language or a "dialect of Chinese", IT IS LANGUAGE. No matter whether you are a white man or a black man, you are a man. If Cantonese is not a language, then what is it? Is it a cat? Is it a car? If Cantonese is not a language, then, I, and my more-than-sixty-million Cantonese compatriots would have no mother language. THIS IS RATHER RIDICULOUS! --Newzebras (talk) 05:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

No one is saying that. The question, as you should know, is whether they are dialects of Chinese, or separate languages. If I argue that "American" isn't a language, just a dialect of English, I'm not claiming that Americans have no language. kwami (talk) 10:23, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The list

So far, we have:

• Cantonese
• Cantonese language
• Cantonese (linguistics)
• Cantonese (Yueyu)
• Cantonese (Yue)
• Chinese linguistics (Yue)
• Yue (Cantonese)
• Yue (language)
• Yue Chinese
• Yue dialects

Please feel free to add to this as part of our brainstorming. We can decide where to move it with a poll. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:44, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Well...

• Cantonese-Yue
  • X being the above
    • X language
    • X linguistics
    • X language family
• Cantonese languages
• Cantonese language family
• Collection of Cantonese language I didn't add that, whoever added that should make their own damn comment. 76.66.197.30 (talk) 10:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

76.66.197.30 (talk) 04:50, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

There were also merger/rename proposals presented above. Colipon+(Talk) 07:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• I'm boldly striking a few, not out of personal taste but just because some of them are never going to happen. Cantonese (linguistics) was voted down in a (admittedly tiny) straw poll above, and as I explained there it's just silly, as this is a language article and not a "linguistics topic". All the ones that use "Cantonese" or "Yue" in parentheses—Cantonese (Yue), Cantonese (Yueyu), and Yue (Cantonese)—are pointless because the the stuff in parentheses there is not a disambiguator as in WP:DAB, it's just a synonym; in two of those the parentheses don't even remove ambiguity, because "Yue (Cantonese)" doesn't necessarily only mean language. And "Chinese linguistics (Yue)" is simply the silliest one of all... this article is about a specific language family, not about Chinese linguistics. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• I un-dashed the Cantonese Yue ones. If all goes accordingly, there would be no "Standard Cantonese" page later. That is one less to disambig. Benjwong (talk) 03:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• I don't think it was very appropriate to strike "Cantonese language" or "Yue Chinese" when those are the primary topics of discussion. As I said above, I struck ones that were simply not possible because they're terrible, not ones that I disagree with; you should do the same. "Cantonese language" is one of the ones that tons of people are proposing, and "Yue Chinese" is the current [albeit not very supported] title, so they are both a major part of the current discussion and should not be stricken. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed. I was rather hoping that this list would grow for now, like in any brainstorming. We need to be wide with the choice so as to get the best outcome (most suitable name/scope). Only later should we start narrowing the field by eliminating certain of the options by consensus. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:12, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

What is this list? Are the items crossed out eliminated? I don't see anyone agreeing on Yue Chinese anymore. That should have been crossed off. Benjwong (talk) 04:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The content

I, some editors, expressed that the current content of this article is under-referenced. Some even called it "poorly written". Arguments for certain names are therefore based on this problematic writing. Shouldn't we suggest how to improve the article as well as discuss merger/renaming proposal?!

Can we rewrite this article in a history perspective, History of Cantonese language/Yue dialects as an alternative?! Leaving current situation of Cantonese usage in Modern Cantonese--WikiCantona (talk) 09:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• I agree. The problem created by the page move was that only one person knew where we were headed, and nobody else was remotely on board with his detailed ideas. Although the name change may have been reasonable in the context of he ruminations of one person's grey matter, it is evident that the structure and content of the new article should be thoroughly debated and that the community agrees. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:05, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The poor quality of the article would appear to have two sources: Confusion over what it is about, due to the ambiguity of the name "Cantonese", which generally means Canton-ese, and the inordinate amount of time arguing about the title rather than improving the article. Moving it to its current Ethnologue/ISO name solves the first problem: whether or not one likes it, it has the advantage of making it very clear what the article is about. If anyone cares to actually contribute to the article, we could clear up the poor quality in relatively little time.

We certainly could have an article on the History of Cantonese. But every other major branch of Chinese has an article, and Yue deserves one too. kwami (talk) 10:07, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

No, it does not clear the article but add more the confusions. As stand, current title was achieved by improper procedure of User Kwami - made many editors angry, upset... The current introduction paragraph is plain wrong in Chinese character usage. The first sentence is unreferenced and disputed. Why is that only someone with administrative power can edit the article? --WikiCantona (talk) 11:11, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

So user WikiCantona, are you one of those people who prefer "Cat family" to "Felidae"? There is inevitably going to be technical terminology in any field, even relating to cats, or felids as members of the Felidae are technically known. If English speakers don't want to expand either their vocabulary or their knowledge, I'm sure there are other places to cater to their needs.

I would also like to issue a challenge to the people who are expending so much breath on debating this issue. The two articles on Cantonese and Cantonese (linguistics) have been a complete and utter mess for a long time. Reading them, I could barely make head or tail of what was going on. My question to those "angry, upset" users is: Why the hell didn't you go and fix up the articles while you could? Why did you let the articles continue on in their confused, miserable state until somebody with a bit of gumption came in and tried to clean them up? Sure, Kwami may have trodden on a few toes, but he has done a lot more for these articles than all the critics and complainers who've piled in here to slam what he's done.

I realise the above are fighting words, but I'm deadly serious. Articles can drag on in a state of utter confusion and nobody gives a damn, until someone comes in and does something, and then every partisan with an axe to grind crawls out of the woodwork to revert what he has done.

I can only hope that this prolonged ruckus will shock a few armchair critics to start contributing to content instead of shooting off their views on things they only have a very narrow knowledge of. And I include myself amongst those who don't have a great deal of knowledge. However, I am not so steeped in a HK environment that I think 广东话 is the true Chinese name of Cantonese, nor am I so removed from the world of scholarship and books as to be aghast that English-speaking specialists might actually be using a term that I thought was just the Mandarin pronunciation of one name of my language.

So I leave this challenge to the critics who've suddenly taken such extraordinary interest in these articles. Either go in and clean up the articles in an intelligible way (not off the top of your head, but with reference to technical -- yes, technical -- linguistic sources), or forever hold your peace.

Bathrobe (talk) 13:11, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• "I am not so steeped in a HK environment that I think 广东话 is the true Chinese name of Cantonese, nor am I so removed from the world of scholarship and books as to be aghast that English-speaking specialists might actually be using a term that I thought was just the Mandarin pronunciation of one name of my language." Same here. Ohconfucius (talk) 13:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec)If Kwami wants to help sort out the problems, I would kindly ask him to rewind all of them to the moment before he executed those page moves, and we can work out where to go from there. I'm not seeing much point on discussing this while he is still insisting that we have the best title for the article, considering only his views got taken into account in arriving here. Wind it back, and for all you know we'll end up here again, but at least it will have been arrived at properly through consensual debate. At the moment, AFAICT, nobody is happy. Ohconfucius (talk) 13:17, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree with User Ohconfucius. User Bathrobe. I guess we have common ground - the article in its current state (in name and content) is problematic. But you think a new name can clarify the situation. User Colipon (I agree with him) think the old terms can be used providing that clear explanation and definition in the introduction. I don't remember you rejected that. The current debate keeps me up at night from time to time. The approach for to use a new name to define a knowledge has its merit. But your cat family analogy is not applicable here, both terms put to the same thing - while here we cannot even agree on what that "thing" is.

Before you issue a challenge, please challenge your own position. Here is one perspective for you (see next session). --WikiCantona (talk) 21:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Yue dialects

Let me step out of role of a "critic" for a moment, I try my best to be a Wikipedia user. Let say, there is an article Yue dialects about the tongues spoken in around South China (of course, can be more precise). Common user will like see these question answered: What are these dialects? Is there any/What is the relationship among them? How are they classified, linguistically? Who make this classification? Is there any disagree? What is the history of this classification? Users with some knowledge about the modern Chinese history may ask: "did the government play a role in such classification?" Or, is this a pure linguistic decision? Is an ideological driven? Users with Cantonese and TaiShan speaking friends may ask: "why are they so different, could be classified as one group?"....

My point being -The scope and content of the article dictate the name., your way of looking at it,"a clear name give limits the scope of the article." It perfectly okay to have article for Yue dialects but I think the current article is solely about Yue dialects. Notice or not, in Cantonese Wikipedia, there is an article called Yue dialect (粵方言) which have a limited scope about the dialects. The current article is beyond the scope of Yue dialects. My stand is clear, the word "Cantonese" should not ONLY refer to GuangZhauHua/GwangDungWaa/HKCantonese, nor it should be eliminated.

If you are so passionately about the article, I challenge you to define with a scope for article on Cantonese (family of tongues originated/found in GuangDong, now spoken worldwide). Or you could be so dismissive and drag on in a state of utter confusion. We will have no common ground, any talk is a waste of time. --WikiCantona (talk) 21:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The scope and content of the articles are already confused, partially because we spend most of our time squabbling about the names rather than cleaning up the content. We have two articles: the Yue/Cantonese language/family of dialects, which parallels Wu, Hakka, and Mandarin; and the Cantonese/Canton-Hong Kong prestige dialect, which parallels Taishanese, Shanghainese, etc. Whatever we decide on the names, the scope of the content is clear, and we can clean it up independently of the naming dispute. kwami (talk) 21:33, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I must confess I've tuned out mostly - this entire talk page, minus a very short paragraph on romanisation, is about what to call the page. I'm a firm believer in a healthy debate but this one is clearly not going anywhere near consensus. Perhaps it's time to take this to whatever is the appropriate arbitration path for such a topic? Akerbeltz (talk) 00:08, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Not just this talk page, but some of the archived talk pages as well... if the RfC isn't working, first post a notice to Village Pump asking for more editors... then take it to the next step if that still does nothing. 76.66.197.30 (talk) 10:41, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I, too, am getting tuned out. WikiCantona takes the stance that we can't edit the articles because we don't know their scope and "challenges" me to define their scope. Many of his questions and points (and those of other editors who speak Chinese) seem to indicate that he hasn't actually read the corresponding Chinese Wikipedia articles. The naming of the language (廣東話, 廣州話 etc.) is discussed in detail, and there are even a few choice comments on the use of the name 廣東話. Given that our Chinese-speaking editors aren't even reading the Chinese Wikipedia articles, I wonder whether they really should be issuing "challenges" to other editors to define their scope. In fact, the two corresponding articles at Chinese Wikipedia are 粵語 and 廣州話. That is not to say there are no problems with the wording etc. in the Chinese articles, but the split between the two articles at English Wikipedia isn't something strange or freakish that Kwami has dreamt up. It almost exactly reflects the Chinese articles.

Bathrobe (talk) 15:46, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I am getting more and more an impression that User Bathrobe you enjoy the debate for the sake of debating. And all a sudden, you became a master in Chinese (when you indicate only know some Chinese in your page). However, I do thank you for bring up this. For these speaking no Cantonese or Mandarin, I cannot help but feeding your debate enjoyment. Sorry (to everyone). In fact, there are three articles in Chinese and Cantonese Wikipedia: 粵語 and 廣州話 and 粵語方言。The first somewhat corresponds to the some early versions of Cantonese (linguistic), aka Yue Chinese. The second is not correspond to Standard Cantonese in content, rather the "Canton dialect", the third one has no English article - article best correponding to the Yue/Cantonese dialects is the being of this section (I mention above). The same conflation some editors argued here is applicable to the current 粵語 in the Chinese Wikipedia. You can also see the disagreement in Chinese Wikipedia in the scope of 粵語. It is not that "we" have a scope that English Wiki should follow, but rather the real world does not have a clear one, unlike the example of "family of Cat". Very importantly, virtually all Chinese/Cantonese speakers/Wikipedians agree the English name for 粵語 is Cantonese, not some Wiki made-up name - that is also the source of resentment.

The debate here add a layer of complexity; namely the board-sensed use of Cantonese and narrow-sensed use of Cantonese. And some editor so insisting on the very narrow-sensed use of Cantonese. Hence, we go no where.

Bathrobe, with all my respects. Being a believer in solution, I urge you to see the whole picture, as supposed to stand on the high ground of technicality and clarity for clarity sake --WikiCantona (talk) 07:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Your impression is incorrect. I am simply opposed to people who take the attitude "I'm a speaker of XX Cantonese and I know best. I've never read any books and I don't need to because I simply know. Since you've pointed it out, I see there might be a few Western academics using Yue but that's not important because they're wrong and I'm right."

I, too, hope for a solution, but I do find it very tedious when people tell us what they "know" instead of checking first. Various editors have told us at various times that 白话 isn't used, 广东话 is universal, "Cantonese" is not a linguistic term but a geographical term covering all language varieties in Guangdong province, etc. A little less of this kind of misinformation (which sends us back to square one and has to be corrected every time it crops up) would work wonders for the debate.

Getting back to the topic, it seems to me that the debate over language/dialect is fruitless. Cantonese is both a "language" and a "dialect", depending how you look at it.

Regarding the scope of the article/s, the core of Cantonese, 廣州話, is fairly clear. What is not clear is the second layer, the so-called "dialects" of Cantonese.

First, as you've pointed out, there are dialects like Guangxi baihua that are generally perceived by speakers (I assume) as essentially the same as Cantonese, despite some difference in accent and a difference in naming.

Then there are problematic dialects like Toisan, where intelligibility is low with Standard Cantonese (although perhaps only one way) and many people reject the notion that it is Cantonese.

A greater problem again would seem to be Danzhou-hua, which in the past has been regarded as "unclassified" and only recently, it seems, has been placed with the Yue dialects. If it was so clear that Danzhou-hua was Cantonese, I doubt whether it would have been left out in the cold so long.

Thus:

a) Cantonese in sensu stricto. Guangzhou-hua (广州话)

b) Cantonese in a broader sense. Dialects mutually intelligible with Cantonese but not considered standard Guangzhouhua (many dialects in Guangdong province, Guangxi baihua, etc.) Such dialects are not necessarily called "Cantonese" but are recognised by speakers as being related to it/a variety of it.

c) Marginal cases. Dialects not intelligible with Cantonese (b) and excluded by many from Cantonese. However, people are aware that the two are related languages/dialects. Siyi dialects.

d) Outliers. Dialects not considered to be Cantonese by their speakers and others, and (possibly) linguistically rather removed from Cantonese. Danzhouhua, possibly other obscure dialects.

BTW, the above is not presented as "fact"; it is merely a possible framework for getting our thoughts together.

Purists will say that only (a) is Cantonese. Those with a less exclusivist approach will include dialects (b), which are close to Guangzhouhua and felt to be so by their speakers, within the Cantonese language. Those with a very broad approach will include (c) as a very distinctive dialect area. Toisan is a problem simply because not everyone agrees that it is actually Cantonese. But the real problem is probably (d), which don't seem to be regarded as dialects of Cantonese at all by their speakers. It's hard to know where to draw the line in using the name "Cantonese".

The best solution would be to come up with a source or sources that could clarify some of these relationships for us, including intelligibility and linguistic identity. Unless we can, we'll continue to flounder because it will simply be a case of "I say this" vs "You say that".

Bathrobe (talk) 09:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

This is getting unhelpful. While it's fine to be discussing the finer points of the issues from whatever perspective, it not acceptable to continue with disparaging remarks, or otherwise implying another's views are somewhat 'parochial', and thus are unreasonable. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You probably don't care, but I would add that making remarks of that type, your message risks getting lost. They switch me (and possibly others) off to the remainder of what you say. By accusing another of being closed-minded in such a way does nothing to demonstrate your own openness of mind. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:01, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not calling users parochial. I'm asking them to read the articles before giving views on what they should be called.

Despite your presumption that I don't care, I do care and I'm sorry if I've lowered the level of debate. At any rate, I don't intend to make further remarks of that nature since it is rather pointless.

Bathrobe (talk) 05:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The reality is that Guangdonghua makes up a huge vast majority of this dialect family. We shouldn't even bring up Toishanese, Danzhouhua and other smaller branches. Those are no factor in naming this page. Benjwong (talk) 02:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

If Toishanese, Danzhouhua and other smaller branches don't belong in this article, where do they belong?

Bathrobe (talk) 05:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Hoisanese, etc should be in this article, considering that some people in North America think that "Hoisanese" is the proper naming of the languages of the area, because they populated the Chinatowns across America. Ofcourse... if someone proposed that the article be renamed Hoisanese language family, it'd be shot down pretty quick... 76.66.197.30 (talk) 06:04, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Like WikiCanton said, we should not debate for the sake of debating. Whether Toishanese or Danzhouhau is in or out, it does not matter to name this article. This is not going anywhere. Benjwong (talk) 02:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I am not debating for the sake of debating. I am asking you a simple question. If Toishanese and Danzhouhua don't belong here, where do they belong? It matters a great deal to the naming of and organisation of these articles. Bathrobe (talk) 03:51, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Ben is saying their inclusion is irrelevant for naming purposes, not that they don't belong in the article: that the name for Yue is "Cantonese" regardless of whether one would accept that name for Taishanese. kwami (talk) 04:34, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Even if Taishanese does not sound like it belongs in the same family as other branches, it is still only 1 branch. Hakka, Wu and other big families also have their one off branches. The big part that matters is Guangzhouhua from Guangzhou. This historically has been called Canton in English. So "Cantonese" in English is natural to follow. Guangzhou, the place, is not synonymous with Yue, Yue-land or Yue-zhou. Is just Canton. Benjwong (talk) 00:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

By that argument, Wu should be renamed Shanghainese (much more common in English than "Wu"!), and Mandarin might be renamed Pekingese.

This illustrates an unacceptable bias on the part of Ben and I suspect many of the objectors to the use of "Yue": that Canton-ese is the only part of Yue that really matters, so the rest of Yue is irrelevant to the discussion. That's a bit like saying that Mandarin speakers in Canada should be called "Cantonese Canadians" because it's only the Cantonese immigrants that really matter, or that the Cantonese in Malaysia should be called "Hakka Malaysians" because it's only the Hakka immigrants who really matter. kwami (talk) 00:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

You are missing my point completely. I am not against Yue. I am saying Cantonese the word needs to go back in somehow.... to make sense. See complaints from native speakers above. Yue has 10% popularity vs 90% Cantonese. Wu has 40% vs 60% Shanghainesse. I think that is a fair guesstimate. To name it only Yue, is like denying the other 90%. Benjwong (talk) 00:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sorry about that. "Yue (Cantonese)" and "Cantonese (Yue)" have both been suggested; I wonder how acceptable "Wu (Shanghainese)" or "Shanghainese (Wu)" would be, if it didn't actually refer just to Shanghainese, or "Hokkien (Taiwanese)" / "Taiwanese (Hokkien)" if it didn't refer just to Taiwanese. kwami (talk) 09:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Spending my time of doing some research, I have to admit some books are beyond my comprehension. Yet, I find the following sentence interesting, from New horizons in Chinese linguistics By Cheng-teh James Huang, Yen-hui Audrey Li, p2, 1996:

Today there is a great degree of consensus among Chinese dialectologists concerning fairly detailed dialect sub-groupings of the Chinese language, and among historical phonologists concerning what they believe to be the state of the Chinese language at various stages during the 3700 years of its recorded history…

If there is an such degree of consensus, I would understand why some Chinese wikipedia would take the family tree for granted. I then checked the Chinese Wikipedia version of tree in Chinese Wiki article zh:粤语方言 (YueYu dialects). The tree is the same as the English version. Both have no reference. I have time to check which copy from which. Then, I checked interwiki article in Cantonese Wikipedia zh-yue:粵語方言分片. It was based on two Chinese books. Comparing two articles and if Cantonese wiki reference book is a representative of the consensus, they both state the Siyi or Toisan is classified as 粵語. To Bathrobe your question, However, Danzhou dialect is only listed in English version and Chinese wikipedia without a clear reference. therefore, I cannot answer your question regarding Danzhou-hua .

Bathrobe, would you mind to be more specific on how the outliner of dialectic group affects the naming of this article? I don't see the point. Thank you.--WikiCantona (talk) 05:06, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, my point is what Kwami pointed out. We shouldn't be naming the article based on "majority in speaker numbers". I think there is a real problem saying that these are only a couple of minority dialects; they don't matter for the naming of the article. I know that this example is only marginally relevant, but the Germanic language family is a well-established name. And the Germanic language with the greatest number of speakers, more than all the other Germanic languagese combined, is English. But for various reasons (historical, etc.) we don't call it the "Anglic language family". As I said, the historical and linguistic situation is quite different from that Cantonese, but the principle is the same. The overwhelming numerical superiority of English is no argument for changing the name of the family of languages.

My argument all along has been that since the dialect family is a distinct concept from the language Cantonese, it is better to have a distinct name for it. The name used in the literature is Yue. I realise that 粤 in Chinese (Yuè in Mandarin) is generally used to mean "Cantonese", but in an English-speaking context, Yue doesn't have the same meaning as 粤 does for Chinese speakers, it is simply a technical name for the dialect group. (Actually, I quite like one editor's suggestion of "Guangdongic", but unfortunately that is not a term found in the literature; it is original terminology, so we can't use it).

However, I admit that we're having a hard time with this whole issue because the boundaries of "Cantonese" are so inexact. Is it pure Guangzhouhua? Baihua? Everything in the dialect group, even if it's not called Cantonese? We need more good sources since the concept is so slippery. I've said Danzhouhua is probably quite different from Cantonese and that Danzhouhua speakers don't regard themselves as speaking Cantonese, but I have NO properly sourced information on the dialect and its speakers to support these suppositions. Perceptions of Toisan appear to be better documented, but I haven't seen have any solid sources (other than what native speakers on Wikipedia are saying) that would justify either including or excluding Toisan. My original proposal was to separate "Cantonese" from "Yue", but as you've pointed out, there are actually three articles at Chinese Wikipedia, not two. (And I'm not totally happy with 粤方言 because it virtually opens by saying that the 粤方言 are dialects of Cantonese, a claim which I haven't seen before). Bathrobe (talk) 05:51, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

To just reply your last assertion, 粤 here is more a geographical concept, the name 粤方言 does not imply others are dialects of Guangzhau-Hua. If you read the article in Cantonese and Chinese Wikipedia, the Guangzhau-Hua is only one of the members in the classification. As you have warned about the "standard vs dialect" model, it is not a concern at all. From the Chinese scholar point of view, Taisan hua or Guangzhau hua is a variety of a major dialect grouping called Cantonese, that belong to a "language" called Chinese (like it or not). I think the family tree graph is misleading because it suggest some genealogy of each tongues spoken in relation to their likeness. Regarding your concerns on inclusion or exclusion in Toisan, I urge you to read the book suggested in the reference section of Cantonese Wikipedia.

More interestingly, when you make the assertion that Taisan or Danzhouhua are so different from Guangzhau Hua, you claim must be based on somethng (friend/s, personal experience, reading materials) or on. May I ask what is your basis? Thank you. --WikiCantona (talk) 07:06, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't make the claim that Toisan is totally different from Cantonese. I merely note the opposition of many people to including Toisan in Cantonese, and the Wikipedia article that claims poor intelligibility. For Danzhouhua, I base my claim on the fact that many (Internet) sources claim it is an unclassified dialect (if it was very similar to either Cantonese or Toisan, it shouldn't be such a hard job to classify it), plus the fact that I never heard it referred to as "Cantonese" when living in Hainan (personal experience).

The question that I've posed above and have still not got a satisfactory answer to is: Should Yue be regarded as a single unitary language, or are as a group of "dialects"? The Chinese Wikipedia article seems to imply that 粤语 is a language (粵語是一種屬汉藏语系汉语族的聲調語言) with 粤语方言 as its dialects (粵語内部可以划分出若干种方言). But here at English Wikipedia our editors seem to be quite divided over the term "Cantonese", some taking the strong view that it refers strictly to standard Guangzhouhua, others extending it to all Yue dialects as defined by linguists (and perhaps only by linguists). I certainly don't claim to know what the actual situation is, but since Toisan is such an object of controversy, and since most of our editors don't seem to have much idea of what Danzhouhua is, anyway, it seems problematic to assert that that these dialects belong to the Cantonese language, and that the article should therefore be called "Cantonese". If it turns out that Danzhouhua is rather different from Cantonese and not regarded as Cantonese by its speakers, don't you think it is problematic to say "linguists have shown there is a genetic connection, so we can just lump it in and call it a dialect of Cantonese"? Again, I would like to see more sources. Given that there is a tradition among linguists of distinguishing "Cantonese" from "Yue", I believe that is the right way to go. But now we are discussing specifics, it seems that no one can agree where the Cantonese language ends and Yue dialects (those not considered to be Cantonese) begin. A problem with the sources I've seen is that they deal mainly with the clear-cut case of Guangzhouhua and simply gloss over the other dialects.Bathrobe (talk) 07:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

User WikiCantona, I find it difficult to understand your gratuitous addition of a "citation needed" note at the assertion that Cantonese is generally used for the Guangzhou dialect. I was under the impression that we were discussing this entire issue at this talk page. Is there really a need to insert your POV in the article before any consensus has been reached? Bathrobe (talk) 09:26, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

So, User kwami appears in flavour of continuous editing of the page. Not even writing a single word, would it be fair to call me insert my POV, as you stated, some taking the strong view that it refers strictly to standard Guangzhouhua - according to you, isn't that statement POV, why is that being present as fact? --WikiCantona (talk) 07:22, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

So if linguists have shown there is a genetic connection, so we can just lump it in and call it a dialect of Cantonese, are you saying that we prefer whatever the users said? I thought you don't believe in that. Regarding your question about dialect and language, this book ( The Chinese language: fact and fantasy By John DeFrancis ) is very good. The "dialects in China" is more appropriately considered regiolect or topolect.

May I ask a few more questions, please? When you said I merely note the opposition of many people to including Toisan in Cantonese, who these many people are you referring to? When you said many (Internet) sources claim that many (Internet) sources claim Danzhou is an unclassified dialect, you may have list before, could you kindly share the many sources for us? What exactly do you mean by single unitary language? --WikiCantona (talk) 07:22, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The "citation needed" tag was fine. Such things do need to be ref'd. However, I added a ref further down in the text, because we normally don't put such things in the lede. kwami (talk) 09:27, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

User WikiCantona, I am saying that nobody seems to know anything about Danzhouhua, and yet there seems to be some kind of desire to treat it as a "dialect of Cantonese". Danzhou dialect is classed as a Yue dialect by linguists, but that is not a sufficient basis for saying that it is "Cantonese". The fact that linguists' posit a genetic relationship between Danzhouhua and other Yue languages should not necessarily be interpreted as support for the position that Danzhouhua is a "dialect of Cantonese".

"Many people" (above) is an impressionistic statement. There are several editors at discussions on this article who have stated that Toisan is not Cantonese. If you look at the Internet you will also find people expressing similar sentiments. It seems that you don't agree with that position. That's fine by me. Please take your argument to people who oppose your point of view. I am merely concerned that there is no consensus over the description of Toisan as a dialect of Standard Cantonese. If you can demonstrate that your view has universal support, I'm perfectly happy with that.

There are many Google hits for "Danzhou dialect" that say it is an "unclassified dialect". However, I most of these are copies of the Wikipedia article on Spoken Chinese, which states that:

Some varieties remain unclassified. These include:

• Danzhou dialect 儋州话/儋州話: spoken in Danzhou, Hainan.

In fact, there isn't much material about Danzhouhua at all, which is why the same information is repeated again and again in Google searches.

Another Wikipedia article, that on Hainan, states:

In Yanglan Village to the northeast, two Yue dialects, both closely related to Cantonese, are spoken: the Mai dialect and the Danzhou dialect.

WikiCantona, if you have information on Danzhou, specifically information to indicate that it is recognised as a "dialect of Cantonese", by all means provide it.

The problem is that we seem to have some kind of push towards positing a "Greater Cantonese language" on the strength of classifications by linguists. There seems to be a desire to say, "Hey, Toisan's related to Cantonese, and they reckon Danzhouhua (whatever that is!) is Cantonese, too. Let's chuck them all in. The more the merrier!" I am saying, hold on a minute, I think there is reasonable doubt about identifying all these as dialects of the "Cantonese language". Even if it can be shown that a set of dialects is linguistically related, they can't really be called a single language unless the speakers all agree that they are. It is quite possible, for instance, for "Language A" and "Language B" to be quite closely related, and yet for the speakers of the two to insist that they speak different languages. It's not up to Wikipedia, or even Ethnologue to decide that speakers don't know what they are talking about. Similarly for Chinese dialects. Linguists can show that the Wu dialects are linguistically all related. But unless the speakers of those dialects perceive themselves as speaking varieties of the "Wu language", the Wu language doesn't really exist, except as an abstract concept created by linguists. Cantonese is considerably different from Wu as it has a well-known prestige dialect that acts as a kind of standard for linguistically related dialects. But the article we are discussing here is "Yue Chinese", covering all Yue dialects, not just the Cantonese language.

As I said, if user WikiCantona can demonstrate that it is accepted by all that all the Yue dialects are really just variants (or dialects) of Cantonese, then I have no difference of views with him. The article name can be changed to "Cantonese" forthwith and we can start rewriting the article as an article about the Cantonese language, with mentions of its recognised variants.

If this can't be demonstrated, then the proper way is not to use Cantonese for the whole group, but use the linguists' term "Yue".

I have no political motivations in this. I am not pro-Mandarin. I am quite happy for Cantonese to continue to be a vibrant, successful language. What I am concerned about is any attempt to present the situation as something that it is not -- that the Yue dialects are one big happy family whose speakers all recognise that they are speaking "Cantonese". And as I have said time and again, we need sources both for the naming and for the writing of the articles.

Bathrobe (talk) 15:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

User Bathrobe, I love your argument very much, really. You must be a lawyer by profession. Yet, your entire argument based on two assumptions. First, you assume, "Cantonese" is Guangzhau Hua, the very strict use of the term. As many demonstrated before, the strict use of the term Cantonese is not necessary the case. It is not our position to invent new term to clarify the old one. Especially, the "old one" is still in widely use. Second, dialects of Cantonese is different "Yue dialects" in meaning. You does not seem to very explicitly about the meaning of dialects of Cantonese. From your previous arguments, Yue dialect is to mean all regional speeches other than Guangzhau Hua, is not? Then it clearly contradict to what this article assert. If you assert Yue dialects to include Guangzhau Hua, then we back to square one. Should the terms Cantonese be used to name a group of speech originated around this region?!

But your evident cannot prove irrefutably that "Cantonese" is Guangzhau Hua. Contrastly, many people have provided sources to indicate the Cantonese is a general term to describe the speech originated and still largely spoken in this region of China, as well as academic use. Both academic and lay person use this term to mean what this article is. Of course, we needed the sources for naming this article, as said many times. I believe reasonably that you should prove us some material in supporting your claim, either "Yue Chinese" is okay or "Yue dialects" is more appropriated.

You do have a point in mentioning that some regional speech is not classified. If any mentioning of Danzhou or Taisan Hua in this article is equal to automatically classify them as the title suggests, the logic escape me? We can leave it here or merely mention about the situation. Such as, Danzhou or Taisan Hua should not be classified as such because... And, they should be so because this and that. I don't see such a big problem if the writing is clear.

Like you, I don't think I know the current consensus as what TaiSan Hua is classified. As in Cantonese Wikipedia, "由於內部地理分佈而造成唔同地方有唔同語言特點，粵語主要有幾個分片[1]，分別係粵海片、四邑片、高雷片、桂南片、莞寶片、香山片" - The geographical distributions cause the different linguistic characteristics. Cantonese (Yue) can mainly be separated into different local variants:... Unlike the Chinese Wikipedia, the same article has no reference. Cantonese Wikipedia at least has two. Therefore, Taisan Hua is a local variant.

I am very happy to use Cantonese just to mean HongKong/GwongChau speech because my background and call whatever accent/local variants anything you like. However, this is irresponsible to ignore the historical, everyday and academic use of the term.

My apology to everyone, the discussion goes nowhere. However, I have tried to read a much as I can, expressed as best as possible. Yet, I very much like to see more materials from the other side other some who said what and impression of something. Show us all linguists agree on the use of "Yue" and oppose the use of Cantonese. A quote I like to share:

Chinese linguistic situation is unique in the world. History has no precedent for a situation in which a single if occasionally disrupted political entity has so long held together huge solid blocks of people with mutually unintelligible forms of speech in which a linguistic difference has not been compounded by profound extralinguistic differences. The 50 million or so Cantonese comprise one such bloc. The Chinese language: fact and fantasy By John DeFrancis, p56.

--WikiCantona (talk) 02:10, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Historical context

The current article has a history section in which how some historical events and speech of its times affect the language as we know it today, some of its past forms. Jeopardized Lingui Dialects refers these ancestry Cantonese as Old Cantonese. Don Snow's Cantonese as Written Language refers the historical forms of Cantonese, just as Cantonese. Studies in Chinese phonology By Jialing Wang, Norval Smith also refer ancestry form just as Cantonese. Yue in this historical content, just refer to a region, as supposed to the language as whole. In this article, we are not only deals with Cantonese dialect/regiolect. we also deals with the historical forms. Is it fair to use a linguistic term Yue for all?! --WikiCantona (talk) 04:36, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have these books. But strangely enough, a look at what's available on the Internet shows that:

• Snow's book is basically about Guangzhouhua, not Yue dialects as a whole. It is Guangzhouhua, Cantonese in the narrow sense, that has developed a written variety. So there is nothing strange about Snow discussing "Cantonese".
• Amazon has a small portion of Studies in Chinese Phonology online. That portion refers to "Yue", alongside "Wu", etc.

Your point, however, is about ancestral forms. The statement that "Yue in this historical content, just refer to a region, as supposed to the language as whole" is quite strange and seems to be your own interpretation. It would be useful if you could show us some specific examples where an author explicitly uses "Yue" for a language group synchronically but for a geographic region diachronically.

Bathrobe (talk) 08:37, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

First, in Don Snow' book, Chapter 4, The Written Cantonese in Pre-modern Guangdong, p68. The history outline there is very much like the one in this article. P69, "Yue people" is used. "Nan Yue" was used in p70. Second, in Jeopardized Lingui Dialects article, the "kings of Yue state" is used. Yes, "Yue" can be used for geographical region for sure and but for language group is only appears in some recent academic write (not uniformity). It appears in very specific context. The ancestral forms is referred as Cantonese. Perhaps, you may provide me some reputable sources (not some questionable website) says the contrast. --WikiCantona (talk) 01:16, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Can someone please list this for WP:3O or some other method of dispute resolution? This is bordering on absurd. No one is remotely close to convincing the other... but we do almost all seem to agree (other than User:Kwami) that "Yue Chinese" is an unacceptable solution. The longer it is at this terribly title, the more damage done. Colipon+(Talk) 22:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome to bring it up for resolution. But no "damage" is being done, other than the waste of our time. This is the kind of exaggeration (on many sides) that has turned off so many editors from engaging in this debate. I'd personally be happy with any of several suggested titles, but there are people adamantly opposed to each of them, which is why I chose to follow Ethnologue, long the default standard for languages on WP. kwami (talk) 00:01, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry. This is comical. You still talk as though you were right all along... This is precisely the kind of arrogance that impedes resolution on such a difficult issue. Colipon+(Talk) 00:35, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

So anyone you disagree with needs to admit that they're wrong before anything can be accomplished? There is no "right" or "wrong"; both terms are used, and it's a matter of opinion which is better, or how best to incorporate both. kwami (talk) 01:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

There may be no right or wrong in the term used. But, when people is discussing here, you have been changing the texts in other article and sometimes marked other's view POV. I don't know what you call that?! Accomplishment perhaps?!--WikiCantona (talk) 01:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Kwami, sometimes it is fine to admit that your actions were not appropriate. As an administrator it should be very clear to Kwami that before reaching a consensus on an issue, it is disruptive behavior to go and change the article body text in many related articles to fit his recent move, especially considering there was so much opposition. I tried reverting some of these changes but Kwami would proceed to just revert back to his version - this left me extremely discouraged. This is called being an irresponsible administrator. It made this entire thing a mess and much more difficult to deal with. Colipon+(Talk) 09:31, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I thought you meant the choice of words, not the move. On the other hand, there were repeated objections that the previous name was inappropriate, and worse, it left the article a mess in the literal sense that it was an incoherent hodgepodge due to editors not knowing what the subject was, as opposed to a mess in the metaphorical sense that you don't like it. Besides an admin, I'm also an editor. Waiting for full consensus would mean nothing would ever get done, which was why several editors were glad of the move: at least this way the article is at an unambiguous title, with a clearly defined topic. That is an objective improvement. Hopefully we can agree on subjective improvements in the specific wording of the title, but at least we're part way there. And it's worth noting that the most vociferous objectors have done nothing to improve the content of the article, which is still in a pretty poor state. At least you've had a positive influence here. kwami (talk) 10:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I think Kwami is quite a language expert. But this cantonese subject is so different, we might have to just go with the native speakers for once and bring "Cantonese" back into the article name. This article content can change once we have decided what it is. All this discussion about right or wrong is not necessary. Even "Yue Chinese" is not completely wrong. Benjwong (talk) 04:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

"Cantonese" may well be appropriate as part of the name: Cantonese (Yue) and Yue (Cantonese) have been suggested. However, if we're going to go with the wishes of native speakers, we need to consider more than just Cantonese speakers, since Yue is more than that one group. There are also Taishanese speakers who insist that Taishanese is not a dialect of Cantonese. kwami (talk) 05:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

And there are some people that say Teochew dialect could have gone under Cantonese instead of Min nan. No one person knows all the dialects of a branch to make all the decisions. It is not a good idea to wait for these debates to finalise. These debate never ends. To move this article back to a Cantonese name will satisfy 90% of the branches (except Taishanese). Benjwong (talk) 06:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

"Some people" who? Give us one reputable source that says Teochew is a dialect of Yue. Yue can be traced back to Middle Chinese, Teochew cannot. Or do you simply mean that Teochew is sometimes considered Guangdonghua because it happens to be spoken in Guangdong?

If we move it back to Cantonese, we'd be back to the problem of people wrongly thinking it's about Cantonese. kwami (talk) 09:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

That is exactly the reason. I am surprised you guessed it. There are pple (in HK) that associate everything Teochew with Guangdong. Is very understandable. Benjwong (talk) 01:04, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but Guangdonghua in that sense is neither Yue nor Cantonese. Those are linguistic groupings, not geographic ones. kwami (talk) 11:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but while WikiCantona may be vocal, he's not the distilled wisdom of native speakers. I for one have no objections to the use of Yue in some combination for the level 2 descriptor. The homophone argument is just plain silly (the word Qi has a zillion homophones too, as do Xun or Luo...), as are the ones about it being a "bad name" and all that nonsense. If it was, Cantonese dictionaries wouldn't be using it all over the place. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:40, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I can't see why we can't just settled on "Cantonese (Yue)" then. Colipon+(Talk) 09:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Someone crossed it off the list (I later uncrossed it) for unstated reasons.

Per the my argument above, and also for clarity within the article, I would prefer Ramsey's phrase "Yue (Cantonese)". (By "clarity" I mean, if we use a single term for two related but distinct concepts in different articles, their page histories show that there are readers who will read both and get them mixed up.) kwami (talk) 10:01, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I am agreeable to either. Cantonese (Yue) would have the advantage that it comes up with autocomplete in the search box, meaning that someone looking for Cantonese would be offered the dab Cantonese, Cantonese (Yue), Cantonese (dialects) or whatever else whereas Yue (Cantonese) does not have that advantage. You can of yourse still find it via the dab page but since the term Yue is not as widely known amongst non-linguists, there are certain advantages of using it as the descriptor. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:11, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Good point. But "Cantonese (linguistics)" does come up, and that redirects to this article. We would also create "Cantonese (Yue)" as a redirect, which would also come up with autocomplete in the search box. So your well-taken point (which I hadn't thought of) doesn't actually favor one name over the other.

My main problem with "Cantonese (Yue)", besides the implication that there is Cantonese which is not Yue, is that it would be used as justification by our POV warriors who wish to change the wording of the article to "Cantonese". Then we'd be back to using the same term here as we do at the Canton-ese article, resurrecting the confusion we used to have among readers and future editors. There have already been complaints about using the word Yue in a link to this page, by editors who want to maintain Cantonese ambiguously for both Yue and Canton-ese; giving "Cantonese" primacy would only encourage them. kwami (talk) 10:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

You're right, we can use it as a redirect. Ok, on that basis I'd say we tend towards Yue (Cantonese) too. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:44, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Colipon? Ben? kwami (talk) 12:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I am not a native English speaker, so my opinion should not be counted?! English Wikipedia is not the Native Speaker English Wikipedia! When a knowledge is defined, please be fair to the academic usage as well as the everyday usage. I believe the third party opinion or some forms of tribunal is desired on the resolution of the issue here. --WikiCantona (talk) 14:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Many of us here are not native speakers of English. I didn't ask you specifically if you agreed because I had little doubt you would not, since you would appear to be here not to find compromise, but only to push the WP:Truth which you alone have determined. kwami (talk) 21:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

WikiCantona, as evidenced by this endless debate, we're not just discarding opinions. However, in terms of the English Wikipedia, there is a) no convinving argument against Yue on the basis of it being a homophone and b) no convincing arguments/evidence that point to Yue being a taboo word. On that basis, we are rejecting those specific points. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Aberbeltz, but let's be warned. The use of new term (technical linguist term) also has its dangers. The simple substitution of Yue for Cantonese will not do trick because in this article some content is about Cantonese (whatever mean). User Bathrobe addressing the "big happy family of Yue/Cantonese" (lump the unclassified into the classification) is still the problem unresolved. Just to call the historical/ancestral forms of Cantonese Yue may be very much original. Lastly, in thinking that giving a new name can solve a problematic issue is simply naive.--WikiCantona (talk) 15:11, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Yue as a designation for the totality (however defined) is not a term invented by us. End of story. And while it may have its own problems, in this case it is fairly clear they pale against the lack of specificness we have with Cantonese. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, as I understand the naming convention, the ( ) is to specify the name. e.g. Times (magazine) or Times (newspaper). So, isn't using Cantonese (Yue) more appropriate? As some suggested Yue is clearer, hence it should be used to specify the ambiguous Cantonese? Also, Kwami wrongly asserts that there Cantonese which is not Yue, There could be Cantonese (band), Cantonese (Hotel)...--WikiCantona (talk) 15:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Aberbeltz, the homophone argument is not silly at all. Yue is a sound for so many Cantonese pronunciations, at least 120 characters have a sound Yue in Cantonese alone. I bet once first sign, people is thinking about something some place or ancient monster or something in Cantonese--WikiCantona (talk) 16:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

"Yue (Cantonese)" or "Yue (Chinese)" would properly distinguish it from "Yue (Tai)" and even "Yue (stoneware)", so no problem there.

I didn't think I needed to be that pedantic. There aren't any Cantonese dialects which are not Yue, unless you're considering Hakka and Teochew to be Cantonese, which this article does not.

The homophony in Cantonese is irrelevant: We're writing in English, not in Cantonese. Any possible confusion pales in comparison to the gross confusion of the word "Cantonese". In English, "Yueh" can also mean a kind of stoneware, but by that argument we shouldn't call the country "China" either. Of course, no-one is going to be confused by something like that. It can also mean the ancient Tai people of the area, as dab'd at Yue, but again, no reason for confusion here with either the wording "Yue Chinese" or "Yue (Cantonese)". kwami (talk) 21:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, we are talking about English. Cantonese is irrelevant because we are talking about English. But you miss a very important step how a foreign word become English. First, the Cantonese sound 'Yue' is transliterated. Wok for example is Cantonese transliteration. And then, become an English word. Transliteration of Cantonese 'Yue' may be happen but never established in English. Some argue before 'Yue' (Cantonese) is a mandarin transliteration. What is relevant is this question: have the term been established in English? doubtful.--WikiCantona (talk) 09:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

As we discuss, Kwami is still going around related articles changing all instances of "Cantonese" to "Yue". I reverted his edits over at "List of Chinese dialects", asking him to await for this discussion to end. But of course, he reverted them back. In any case... not that YouTube is an indication of accuracy, but here we do see a user describing "Taishanese" as "Taishanese Cantonese (Chinese)", meaning that Taishanese and "Cantonese" are not universally separate concepts. It is common that they are treated separately for mutual intelligibility reasons. Colipon+(Talk) 00:07, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I am only changing Cantonese to Yue when it means Yue, not when it means Cantonese. These are separate topics that need to be distinguished, regardless of what we end up calling this article, just as Shanghainese needs to be distinguished from Wu, regardless of where we move the latter. (You should also consider the messed-up links that you kept restoring to the article, and well as saying that "Cantonese" is also known as "Cantonese", which needed to be fixed regardless.) Yes, Taishanese is often considered a dialect of Cantonese. We've covered that before. kwami (talk) 00:28, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Last vote

Now that we've narrowed it to Yue (Cantonese) or Cantonese (Yue), mayhap we could have a simple show of hands and go with the majority vote between the two. Neither is perfect but we HAVE to move on... Akerbeltz (talk) 00:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

• Cantonese (Yue) - is my vote. That one should not have been crossed off earlier for no reason. Benjwong (talk) 01:04, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

As long as we aren't limited to just the few of us who haven't yet tuned out of this debate, and people don't take it as a mandate to conflate Yue with Canton dialect again. kwami (talk) 00:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

• I will settle for Cantonese (Yue), but if there are better solutions suggested by a third-party I would be happy to change this vote. Colipon+(Talk) 00:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

• Yue (Cantonese) is my vote. Bathrobe (talk)

• Yue (Cantonese) kwami (talk) 07:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
• Of the two, Cantonese (Yue) is my preference. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:07, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Wait a few more days or is this vote enough? Benjwong (talk) 04:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how a 3–3 tie resolves anything. Even with Caspian blue making it 3–4, there isn't anything close to consensus. Unless we're going with a 50%+1 majority? But waiting 5 days is considered standard. kwami (talk) 05:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Did akerbeltz vote for 'Yue (Cantonese)', as far as I can see the vote count now is 4-2. Colipon+(Talk) 09:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

He expressed that as his preference above, but hasn't been back since creating this section. kwami (talk) 09:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Cantonese (Yue) --Caspian blue 04:58, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, I forgot to actually put in my vote. In the full knowledge of leaving myself open to a potential argument for voting tactically, I shall opt for Cantonese (Yue). As I said, I'm happy with either and above else, believe we need a clear vote to put this case to rest and move on. Nothing in life is perfect :) Akerbeltz (talk) 20:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, I was thinking some other options like Cantonese sensu lato. But never mind. My vote goes to Cantonese (Yue). BTW, I came across an article Defining The Hundred Yue by William Meacham (1996) in which relevant to our discussion Cantonese sensu lato could be called Yue (sinicized) but Yue languages also was a various ancient languages spoken in the prehistorical regions now called Vietnam and Southern coast of China. Good day. --WikiCantona (talk) 03:42, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's a minor use of the name in English, covered at Yue, and one reason we wouldn't want to just call this article "Yue". kwami (talk) 07:04, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Minior use? interesting characterization. The article I provided above mentioning all the uses - to conclude better not to use the term. --WikiCantona (talk) 09:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the vote is done for a move to "Cantonese (Yue)". But I don't even see a move button available for this article. Kwami can you move the page? Benjwong (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, 6:2 is unlikely to change significantly in another day. I'll go ahead and make the move. kwami (talk) 03:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Against anything but Cantonese. Kwami please stop your opportunistic forum shopping. Hillgentleman (talk) 19:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Hillgentleman, if you read further up, we discarded that as an option long ago due to vagueness. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:54, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Did you come over to Cantonese wikipedia for people who actually know more about the language? In multiple votes we have agreed that your so-called vagueness is not an issue because what the artical describes is what most people would call "cantonese" and the situation truely reflects the real world use of the name and the concept as Cantonese is not a language as canonised as English. At the end of the day, Wikipedia is for the lay-users and not for wiki-book-worms. If someone types "Cantonese" in the search bar, I would say the majority (90%?) of the time she would be looking for this page. Hillgentleman (talk) 20:16, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

WP-yue is irrelevant, as it's in Cantonese. We're concerned with the name in English. kwami (talk) 03:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

We don't consult the German Wikipedia either if we can't decide what to call a sausage dog. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Akerbeltz, your analogy is wrong. If you want to talk about a language you want to ask people who know that language. If you hardly know a language, you won't become an authority after digging into a couple of obscure books. We call it 紙上談兵. Hillgentleman (talk) 14:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• Please change the title to Cantonese languages. It is much more simple and not ambiguous. — HenryLi (Talk) 11:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Help fix links

Hi. Cantonese now is a disambiguation page, and it now has over 600 incoming links. Participants in the project Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links would like to fix all those links so that they go directly to the correct article. But, we find it very difficult to decide which article! Can you help? --Una Smith (talk) 14:47, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I cut the number to 300 or so. However, some editors have been going around reverting them to the dab page, because they don't like the name of this article (despite the fact that the links would get redirected if it were to move). kwami (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear. --Una Smith (talk) 02:02, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Now there are just 10 links remaining (mainspace links; others don't count). That is great work! Thank you! --Una Smith (talk) 02:44, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Can we please refrain from doing these sweeping changes to article links? Right now it is almost consensus that "Yue Chinese" is not a good name for the article and it will have to be moved soon anyhow, meaning all the efforts will have to be repeated again... Colipon+(Talk) 13:26, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Please don't worry. Links to a disambiguation page are to be fixed, regardless of the page names of articles on the disambiguation page. The dab page is Cantonese. If the page at Yue Chinese is moved, a redirect will remain at Yue Chinese, so there will be no need to fix links. Also, if someone wanted to change the links, it would be trivial to run a bot because (I presume) all links would be changed in the same way. --Una Smith (talk) 14:33, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Not really, considering that the text of some of the articles that link here was also changed, and not just a piped link. 76.66.197.30 (talk) 13:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

why the title become Yue chinese?

I don't know why the title become Yue Chinese. It is completely unacceptable and make me feel sick.

From academic or "professional" view, someone may call it Yue Chinese.

But that's just MANDARIN transliteration!!!

And the term "Cantonese" has a better sense for common usage in English..

If the reason of changing to Yue chinese is because to promote Mandarin romanization or standardize Mandarin. That's really not acceptable and violate the rules of wikipedia （neutral view is needed!!!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwanyeung10 (talk • contribs) 03:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

You might want to read any of the discussions above. Anyway, the English language does not depend on your personal preferences: the unambiguous term is "Yue". The primary meaning of "Cantonese" is Canton-ese (Guangfuhua), not Yueyu. kwami (talk) 06:03, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

And it's hardly even an argument. Tha vast majority of language names and ethnicity names are exonyms. "German" is not what the Germans call themselves and the "Greeks" don't call themselves the Greeks either; Cantonese calls the Germans "Dākgwohkyahn", hardly the same as "Deutsch" either.

But as kwami said, read the discussion above. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:00, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

That is not true. We also use the term Duk Yi Chi, which is a translation for Deutsch. And Duk Kwok Yan simply means "Deutsch National". Hillgentleman (talk) 14:27, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

If someone types "Cantonese" in the search bar, I would say the majority (90%?) of the time she would be looking for this page

Cantonese is by far the common name. Even Bruce Lee used it way back. "Yue" is nigh unheard of. Hillgentleman (talk) 19:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

You've come late to the discussion. The problem is that "Cantonese" has two referents.

• (1) One is the narrow meaning of Canton dialect, Guangzhouhua, Standard Cantonese or whatever you want to call it. It's spoken (with some variation) in Guangzhou and Hongkong.
• (1) The other broadly refers to a group of linguistically related dialects spoken in South China and overseas. It includes (1), as well as Toisan, Guangxi Baihua, Danzhouhua, etc. etc.

There are two separate articles for (1) and (2). The problem is what to call them. You point out that "the majority (90%?) of the time she would be looking for this page". According to your logic, are we to conclude that only 10% are looking for the page on Standard Cantonese (Guangzhouhua), the page which talks about the standard pronunciation and vocabulary of the Cantonese language?

It appears that what you are arguing for is a broad definition of "Cantonese". So when people come looking for "Cantonese", your implication is that they are expecting to find a detailed description of the phonology of Toisan, Danzhouhua, Guangxi Baihua, and all the other dialects that fall under this group. Because, let's face it, this page is NOT the page to outline the pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary of Standard Guangzhou or Hong Kong Cantonese. Anything on this page that tries to imply that x feature of Guangzhou or Hong Kong Cantonese is a feature of "Cantonese" is invalid unless it can be demonstrated that this feature is shared by all Cantonese (=Yue) dialects.

Bathrobe (talk) 00:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's face the fact that there is a huge variaty of tongues that are grouped under the term Cantonese. Nothing prevents you from talking about key features of various tongues. If you want more details you can go to the specific pages as usual. However that is off the mark. The fact is the title "cantonese (yue)" is more confusing than illuminating, since most English speakers would have no clue what "yue" is. And please don't call me late when in fact this debate has been buried long ago and someone just cannot stop digging it up until he gets his way. As a Cantonese Wikipedian I would greatly appreciate, when some of you went as far as to change a host of interwiki links across wikis[5], the minimal good will of leaving us a little notice when the topic is our language. Hillgentleman (talk) 03:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Rather interesting but irrelevant argument. Some features in British English are not shared by American English or Singapore English, by the same logic, we should use ISO 639-3 code to change the English language to Eng (language). Furthermore, the total distrust of Chinese dialectologist's classification is a bias. I really like to see the academic reports or research on current Cantonese classification is so problematic.--WikiCantona (talk) 06:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is still how to disambiguate the articles. People keep coming on here saying "This page should be called 'Cantonese'"!, but there is a respected and documented use of "Cantonese" to refer to "Guangzhouhua". Since Hillgentleman speaks "as a Cantonese Wikipedian", I would be interested to know which dialect of Cantonese Hillgentleman and WikiCantona speak.

Bathrobe (talk) 07:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Hillgentleman, virtually any Cantonese dictionary either use or makes reference to it and Cantonese romanisation is referred to as 粵音 (Yuetyam) virtually anywhere, even in software packages. If indigenous writers of dictionaries and software feel that's ok to use even when most people colloquially call it something else, then that's good enough for us even if the question of what Cantonese people usually call it was relevant to picking an English name.

There are scores of Wiki pages that use dabs or names that are not the most commonly used for some reason or other. Try thylacine. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

We are talking about the English name of the language itself. A language may have many names and many adjectives associated to it. Yuet Yue, Kwong Fu Wah and Kwong Tung Wah may be more or less equal in the Cantonese context, but only "Cantonese" is a well-known standard English name. We use dog and not the scientific nomenclature Canis lupus familiaris for men's best friend. Hillgentleman (talk) 14:33, 16 October 2009 (UTC)