Language List

[księżycowy]

Languages were added over the years by several different people, some inconsistencies are bound to happen.

Sure, we (I ) can make all the naming uniform, but it's probably going to take a while...

I'd be happy to help in anyway I can.

Sorry to ask so much of you.

[Luís]

it should be organized by some guiding principles

What exactly did you have in mind?

[księżycowy]

Basically, I think we should decide how we want the entries to be listed. I don't have any particular set up in mind aside from the two options we've seen in it thus far:
Wu Chinese
Chinese, Wu
Should we do a poll? I'd like more than my input here ideally.

[Luís]

Sure, go ahead.

[dEhiN]

The system I adopted for the Used Songs thread was to use a comma.

Screenshot_20180219-144640.png

As you can see, in cases where a second identifier is needed, I used brackets. However in the tooltip, because I can't add commas, I put the identifier before.

[vijayjohn]

For example, as far as I'm aware Cantonese and Taiwanese are only written in traditional characters.

IIRC Cantonese and Minnan nowadays are both written in simplified in the PRC outside Hong Kong (Minnan in a broad sense definitely is).

And yes, i know that some dialects aren't written much now-a-days. Which makes the distinction even more baffling.

I'd think they were written more now than they used to be.

[Luís]

The system I adopted for the Used Songs thread was to use a comma.

I have to admit I don't like the look of things such as "English, American" or "Spanish, Mexican" but maybe that's because I'm not used to it...

[dEhiN]

The system I adopted for the Used Songs thread was to use a comma.

I have to admit I don't like the look of things such as "English, American" or "Spanish, Mexican" but maybe that's because I'm not used to it...

Well to be fair, it's not common. Using commas is in some situations, such as for lists of personal names. But it's rare to see in a list of language varieties.

[księżycowy]

Yeah, personally I'm not a big fan of the comma scheme.

[OldBoring]

I'm the responsible for those entries in the Used songs thread. And then later David followed suit. Basically I wanted to make a compromise between those who considered Chinese languages as different languages and those who considered Chinese to be a single language.
I still grouped all the Chinese languages under "Chinese", but then grouped each variety/language separately.

Cantonese and Minnan are definitely also written in Simplified. Cantonese is not spoken only in Hong Kong, but in Guangdong and Guangxi province as well. Minnan is not spoken only in Taiwan but in Fujian province as well.
Not to mention Malaysia, Singapore etc. where they also use simplified script.

[księżycowy]

Well, I stand corrected on the simplified version traditional issue. Thanks Vijay and OB.

[Luís]

So of us do, other's don't.

Thanks Luís.

I changed the color scheme a little bit, not sure if it's much better now though...

[księżycowy]

Oh, that is much better! At least you can tell it's highlighted now!

Thanks, Luís.

[dEhiN]

Yeah, personally I'm not a big fan of the comma scheme.

I decided to do it that way in the Used Songs Thread because I thought it would look better for what's supposed to be an alphabetized list. For example, I figured that something like

Bulgarian
Mandarin Chinese

would look worse than

Bulgarian
Chinese, Mandarin

and so I renamed all the songs to fit the comma scheme (plus did other cleanup things, like added tooltips for accessibility).

[vijayjohn]

Minnan is not spoken only in Taiwan but in Fujian province as well.

And Guangdong! Chaozhou is in Guangdong, after all.

[OldBoring]

Minnan is not spoken only in Taiwan but in Fujian province as well.

And Guangdong! Chaozhou is in Guangdong, after all.

Yea I forgot. And Hainanese is also a variety of Minnan. But most Chinese actually think of Hokkien (Minnan from Fujian) when they hear Minnan.

[Karavinka]

(Though when it comes to Mandarin, I thought the Mainland/Taiwan division was based on the script?)

Speaking of Chinese script, does anyone else think it's weird that we have traditional and simplified script for the other Chinese languages?

For example, as far as I'm aware Cantonese and Taiwanese are only written in traditional characters. I can't speak to other Chinese languages, but these two I'm pretty sure of. I'm reasonably sure Hakka is the same.

And yes, i know that some dialects aren't written much now-a-days. Which makes the distinction even more baffling.

Perhaps we can leave it as the name of the specific variety of Chinese (picking the most accepted native spelling) and pick the best flag to go with it?

Also, can we maybe decide on a general naming scheme? It's awkward to see "Wu Chinese" instead of "Chinese, Wu" and then "Kurdish, Sorani" instead of "Sorani Kurdish" (just for examples).

I almost want to suggest just getting rid of those script-based distinctions (call me a deletionist lol) but well, at least some people are using them, especially with Mandarin. I'm actually surprised nobody suggested Pe̍h-ōe-jī as an alternative script for Min Nan already.

[księżycowy]

I could still see getting rid of the traditional/simplified distinction for most varieties working. Only problem is Mandarin.

I was trying to free up the list a little bit.

In list naming related news, I am starting to come around to the comma. It would be nice to see, for example, the variaties of Arabic right next to each other on someone's profile rather than have to find the E's for Egyptian, S's for Standard, etc.

Since I suggested a poll, I'll set one up today at some point, and run it for a week. Only question I have is, do I do it here, or start a new thread?

I'm actually surprised nobody suggested Pe̍h-ōe-jī as an alternative script for Min Nan already.

I'm tossing around the idea of learning some Taiwanese (Hokkien) this summer, and (when I do actually learn it) inevitably will be using Peh-oe-ji, but I'd hardly suggest adding it to the list. I think the Minnan entry does justice enough.

Though I wouldn't mind seeing a "Taiwanese" entry, similar to our "Cantonese" entry.

[Tenebrarum]

On the Northern-Southern Vietnamese issue, linguistic facts are clear: They are two very distinct groups of dialects (among others), at least as different as American English and British English. Though I have a feeling that the gap is actually larger.

Differences range from phonology (consonants, vowels, number of tones), to vocabulary (the names of everyday objects e.g. foodstuff, kitchen utensils, clothing items, automobiles; counting particles...), to grammatical helpers in a sentence. The vocabulary divide is so basic in some instances, that it even shows up in the written language.

On that note: The written language does not feel specifically Northern or Southern in most cases (except the more personality-driven texts like poetry, works of fiction and online discussions). It's a loose bridging standard that most people adhere to.

I don't know what you would like to do with that piece of information, but if English, French, Spanish and Portuguese get numerous dialects recognised by the forum, I can't see what ground one might use to exclude Vietnamese, except that the two varieties are subnational instead of national in nature.

As for flags: I'm against using flags in general, for any language. Languages and people are more than a piece of cloth design. But obviously you'll have to settle on a solution then if you decide to split them.

[Luís]

I don't know what you would like to do with that piece of information, but if English, French, Spanish and Portuguese get numerous dialects recognised by the forum, I can't see what ground one might use to exclude Vietnamese, except that the two varieties are subnational instead of national in nature.

We had a situation a while back with Japanese where a lot of varieties were added only to be removed later on, so I guess we just want to be sure native speakers agree with the solution.

I'll try to add Southern Vietnamese to the list tomorrow.