User talk:Kahin He

translatewiki.net

Introduction

Getting started

FYI: You can now translate cpx by script

Most clean-up works for splitting cpx-* translations are done.

Winston Sung (talk)‎

Traditional and Simplified characters

Hi,

I'd like to complete the configuration of this language in MediaWiki.

It looks like the current translations in translatewiki are written in a mix of Chinese Traditional and Simplified characters. How is this language usually written - Traditional, Simplified, or both (depending on location)?

Amir E. Aharoni (talk)‎

Do you speak about Portal:Cpx for Puxian Chinese (where the user wanted to indicate that it is enabled with a "mixed script", rather than requesting for separate namespaces for Latin, Simplified Han, and Traditional Han scripts, and then sorting the translations)?

For now it seems that most or all translations have been made using the Latin script (but Kahin He started to translate in the [cpx] using Han characters, creating the mix); I'm not convinced that [cpx] should be "mixed script" like he indicated with the generic script code "Zxxx" for undetermined scripts: these 3 scripts are clearly determined and should be correctly identified in translations, independantly of the existence of some fallbacks from one script to another in the same language, or to another language like Min Nan, when there are missing translations.

Since the beginning, [cpx] used Latin as its default script (as it was initially requested). So [cpx-Hant] or [cpx-Hans] should be used for these new translations using Han characters (just like with other Chinese languages, where [zh] was deprecated and sorted by script, making a possible extension for [zh-Latn], i.e. romanized with Pinyin by default or possibly using IPA-based or Wade-Giles romanizations with an additional code extension; on the opposite [nan]=[nan-Latn] still uses Latin by default and it is wellknown and used with a standardized Latin alphabet; [nan-Hant] or [nan-Hans] should be used otherwise and not mixed into translations for [nan]=[nan-Latn]).

But Wikimedia Incubator also does not distinguish scripts for that Puxian language: incubators started for Wikipedia or Wiktionary are using both for "essential" portal pages (the distinction is made article per article), there's still no separate wikis and no clear indication whever the Han-written texts are simplified or Traditional, and still no transliterator and variant selectors like there are in Mandarin/Chinese wikis [zh]; so readers have to "guess" (for Min Nan and Hakka written in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, this is most probably Traditional Han, but for others this is not clear; however Simplified Han is rapidly gaining standard support for non-Mandarin Chinese languages in Macau and Hong Kong; I don't know if Simplified Han starts gaining support in Taiwan, notably for Mandarin and Hakka, the two major languages, whereas other native Austronesian languages in Taiwan are developping now a Latin-script standard).

Also note that [Hans] and [Hant] are not really distinct scripts, but different subsets of the [Hani] script, with a large common intersection (and for most characters that are different in these subsets, there are transliteration rules implemented in Mediawiki in order to support two existing orthographic standards for Mandarin, and probably not accurate or relevant for most other Chinese languages). If Puxian Chinese does not really standardize any difference between [cpx-Hans] and [cpx-Hant] and accepts both indifferently, then [cpx-Hani] should be used instead of [cpx-Hans] and [cpx-Hant] (and here also this is not a situation of "mixed script"), just like what is done in Japanese (using only some traditional "Kanji" forms), Korean (using only some traditional "Hanja" forms), and Vietnamese (using only some traditional "Chunom" forms as well): we get for example [ja-Hani] for old Japanese texts not using kanas Simplified Han does not seem to be used in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, because they don't really need it (they already have standard Kana, Hangul and Latin scripts widely used; the "Bopomofo" syllabary used in China, similar to the two Kana scripts in Japan, is primarily meant for basic learners of Mandarin and has not gained large use, except in ruby annotations of Han-written school books as a common alternative to Latin-Piyin ruby annotations; but may be Bopomofo is used on Chinese social networks and instant messengers, as a faster way to communicate, rather than using Pinyin-based input methods for Mandarin written in Han).

Similar consideration should be used for other traditional Southern Chinese languages (some of them also using other Asian scripts, such as Yi syllabary, Myanmar/Burmese, Tibetan, Arabic, or even Traditional Mongolian and Cyrillic in Northern or Eastern borders of China, even if Simplified Han is frequently used now along with Pinyin romanization for its input method...)

Verdy p (talk)‎

I think the problem is that there's no any true official formal writing system for Puxian Language, because no people nowadays use Puxian Language to Write for daily use. Most native Puxian speakers regard Puxian Language as a spoken-only dialect. So that those who write articles in Puxian or visit Puxian Wiki are just for linguistics hobby, linguistics research or dialect conservation. Most all Puxian speakers can speak another language (Chinese, English and so on), so there's no need to invent a Orthography for Puxian Language. There's also few books or other anything written in Puxian Language, except The Bible (Written by western missionaries hundreds of years ago), and some article written by Puxian linguistics hobbyists (just for hobby or for dialect conservation). Those hobbyists in China may prefer Chinese Character System; while those in other countries may prefer Latin System more.

Kahin He (talk)‎

Sorry for bringing troubles

Traditional or Simplified depends on location and preference. If a person use Chinese Madarin in Simplified Characters, he may prefers Puxian in Simplified. If he use Chinese Madarin in Traditional Characters more often, he may prefers Puxian also in Traditional.

Most who use Simplified can also read Traditional. For them, how to write depends on the IME settings.

I used Simplified daily, but I noticed Puxian wiki pages are more in Traditional, so I decided to use Traditional. However, the dictionary I use is in Simplified, so maybe several translations I edited may be in Simplified due to my carelessness.

As to the Latin writing system, it is hard for me to use, because the dictionary I use is in Chinese Characters. If bringing troubles, I'm sorry.

Kahin He (talk)‎

Writing system

Hi!

Thanks for your contributions!

I've noticed that almost all the content in the Incubator is in the Latin alphabet, but your contributions are in Chinese characters.

How is this language written usually? Are there any other books or websites in it?

Amir E. Aharoni (talk)‎

This language is one of a dialects in South China. Just like most dialects in South China, it is generally only spoken by people rather than be written. So that most people who speak it even don't know how to write in this language. (Most people even don't know that it can be written.) In addition, almost everybody who speak it can also speak Chinese Mandarin Language well or even better, and more and more people are using Mandarin Chinese instead of this dialect, so there're few books written in it.

Actually, apart from those foreign missionaries in the history, almost no one may write anything in this language, because writing in Mandarin Chinese is more convenient. So, those who write in this language are usually for studying this language, most of whom are interested in Chinese Linguistics, or intrested in Linguistic Preservation and want to preserve this dialect. (The number of the youths who can fluently speak this dialect is decreasing.) Sorry that I've said so much, because my English is not so good, so that I could'nt express myself well.

This language can be written in both Latin and Chinese characters. And I think that the two writing system are equal, because neither of them is used by most people -- most people do not WRITE in this language. (Most South Chinese dialect are rather spoken than written.) So this language is usually not written. It's usually spoken. Most books in this language are written in Latin, because the authors are those foreign missionaries in the history. And nowadays most people who are interested in the Linguistic of this language, like me, when talking online about words or short sentences in this language, may usually use Chinese Characters or more often a kind of simplified phonetic alphabet, just like Chinese Pinyin. Because the traditional Latin system of this language, which was invented by one of those foreign missionaries, is much difficult to use. For writing articles, we usually use Chinese characters. (Those "We" refers to a group of people who speak this language or study its linguistic for amateur hobby and we always talk online in a chat group)

I use Chinese Characters because I can use it more fluently than using Latin system. Also, Latin system is difficult to type, (its letters has "caps" and "shoes"). Moreover, the Chinese Character IME has its thesaurus (or "dictionary"?), so that I can easily input phrases instead of typing letters one by one.

(This may be my first time write such a long article in English. It's much longer than those compositions I'd written in English exams.) (My English is not so good that I might make some mistake in this comment. Hoping that you can understand this comment.)

Kahin He (talk)‎

> "Latin system is difficult to type, (its letters has "caps" and "shoes")." That's your point of view. But for most users, Latin is easier to type and does not require a complex IME (which also requires learning how to use it and there are multiple IME for Chinese, dependant on the system used).

And I don't understand what you call "caps" and "shoes". Letters have varaible height, yes, but this is still graphically simpler to learn and write than sinograms, that don't even have any standard sort order. In fact the most popular IME for Chinese is based in Pinyin... which is a Latin system. You then have to use UI feature to select characters in a proposed list, and this can be very errorprone, and lengthy to do.

And if you use the Chinese IME as a Thesaurus for the dialect spoken in South China, it will make false guesses: you're then translating into Mandarin, not the target language. Many minority languages in China have opted to no longer use the Chinese system that was not so practical. So even in China, they use the Latin script, or Cyrillic, or Arabic. And they have developed useful keyboard layouts for them (may be you don't have these layouts, but many other don't have your prefered Chinese IME on your prefered operating system or webbrowser).

And i a language has mostly an oral tradition, then sinograms are not directly suitable: sinograms are combining a partial semantic and a partial phonetic in the same sign, and this implicit link turns to be wrong for Chinese dialects that hold other phonetics than Mandarin. So to get the proper meaning, would require their locutors to invent new sinograms that are not even encoded in Unicode to get the best match with their phonetic and the correct semantic, or to add surrounding annotation, or modifiying diacritics or alternate strokes to exhibit the actual differences they need (but with oral languages there's no standard to do that and your Mandarin thesaurus will not help). For oral languages, a script capable of transcribing the phonology will fit better, without adding dummy semantics coming from approximations made varaible with Mandarin sinograms.

That's why Min Nan is written now preferably in Latin, Turco-Mongolian languages prefer using Latin or Cyrillic, other Western Chinese languages prefer using Arabic. And other southern cultures prefer using the Burmese script or other abugidas like Tibetan. Mon-KHmer people also use Latin for practical reasons and communication with other people speaking the same language (or very near) in Vietnam. Yi cultures use their own system, and many Mongols still prefer their traditional Mongol script which better fits their language. so even if all these people living now in China are now bilingual in Mandarin, and use the Han script this does not help them preserving the semantics of their native regional languages. There was the same problem in Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese and they developed their own standard and have no difficulties to use it. It's just that you're not trained and used to their method and that Mandarin is your prefered native language and that you've learnt everything first by using Han sinograms and discovered later that there were other scripts. But changing the script unilaterally will not help people (that want to preserver their semantics, notably for poestry, songs, prayers and their distinctive regional specificities: chaing a script unilaterally will jsut create ambiguities and a poorer, less expressive language), and it will take long a time to readapt the language to the new script, with the creation of new orthographic rules)...

Verdy p (talk)‎

Oh! What I called "caps" and "shoes" refers to the letters like "á ē ê̤ n̂g"; to input them I need to use Rime IME, which I also need to use when I input in Chinese Characters; and the capitals of some of these letters -- "Ńg Â É" are even harder to input. I don't know how other editors input them.

em. You said the Latin is easier to learn. But I think in Puxian of China -- where this dialect originates -- at least nowadays, Chinese Characters System is esiar for most speakers (although most of them never read an article in Puxian Language). Someone may not think so, but at least for me Chinese Character System is easier. Because:

1 Most research papers and dictionaries about Puxian Language use Chinese Character System or IPA instead of Latin. 2 In China, only we hobbyist(or "amateur") linguist of Puxian Language may write articles in Puxian; we use Chinese Characters System and Pinyin. 3 Latin System is a little out of date as some pronunciation has changed. and it only apply to the pronunciation of some particular places. It was invented by a foreigner so some prounnciation may be not correct. 4 In the IME we use our own Pinyin, it DOSE NOT has letters like "á ē ê̤ n̂g", so it's easy to type. But unfortunately, it is not suitable to use as a writing system. it only use as Phonetic notation.

Some Puxian Language editor may come from foreign countries like Singapore, they may not agree with my oppinions because their circumstances are different with us. I've asked other hobbyist, they also said the Latin system is hard.

For those who use Latin alphabet daily, like English speakers, it's certainly easy to use Latin System; While we Chinese use Chinese Characters everyday surely don't think Chinese characters difficult.

-- Although we often need to think about which character to use in some words. But using Latin, we also need to think about the word's origin, due to something like Sound Change: For example, imagine that in English, We speak "Ree da boo kinna room" daily, but when we write it, we have to think about whether it is "Read dab pooking naroom", "Rea dap boo king naroom", or "Read a book in a room", (and the most important is that we speakers daily only speak Puxian and hardly write in Puxian). But if using Chinese Character IME, it has a thesaurus, although some words the thesaurus hasn't include, but when meeting with those words, I go to look up a dictionary or ask other hobbyists, both the dictionary and the hobbyists use Chinese Characters or our own Pinyin.

The circumstance in China may be different from that in other editors' countries. The saying goes "Do in Rome as Rome does". Unfortunately, although Puxian of China has a large population who natively speak Puxian, but due to the GFW, only few people in China visit Wiki, leading to that the number of Puxian people in China who visit Wiki becomes as few as, or even fewer than the number of foreign Puxian speakers. As a result, the question which system to use seems to be hard to decide.

em. As to the 3rd Paragraph of your comment "And if you use the Chinese IME ......":

About the layouts, I've never seen any layout to type Puxian and Fuzhou dialect on the Internet except Rime IME which I now use to type Puxian. And the only Puxian Chinese Character IME I've found is also Rime IME which I now use.

About the Thesaurus, the IME I use is a Puxian IME, whose Thesaurus is also based on Puxian Language. It's NOT a Chinese Mandarin IME, it use its own Pinyin (differ from both Mandarin Pinyin and Puxian Latin)

About the translating, To be sure, vocabularies are different between Puxian and Mandarin,

the most differences are those basic and daily vocabularies like "sun, day, banana, and, he, I, of, bike, motorbike, battery, glass, chair, bed, table, child, toilet" and so on, most of them are completely different from those in Mandarin or hard to recognise their meanings for those who speak other dialect;

and There're also a large number of vocabularies are the same as those in Mandarin or have the completely same Word Formation with Mandarin: "Electric bicycle, weather, TV, computer, telephone, mobilephone, paper, cloud, milk, washing machine, fan, door, train, plane, bread", half of them are modern things;

and A number of advanced or scientific vocabularies even have no translations in Puxian, because in daily dialogues people never use them: "Website, mouse of computer, screen, login, logout, search(using a search engine), save, edit, page, user, account, register, link, export, import, code, window, subscribe, General disclaimer" -- most of them are used in Wiki pages or web pages, but they are not used in daily dialogues so it's hard to translate them; as result, the translation of these vocabularies are totally the same as Mandarin, or some of them have a traditional translation but very “蹩脚”(Incongruous). So in Fuzhou Dialect Wiki, Min Nan Wiki and Puxian Wiki Incubator, if change to Chinese Character Pages, we can see a lot of words same as Mandarin; and the different words are mostly function words(or form words).

Chinese Character System also led to an interesting situation -- For example, when a Fuzhou dialect linguistics hobbyist reads Puxian Wiki pages, if changing to the Chinese Character Pages, he can understand most of the article, (if he has learnt some function words of Puxian, he could understand even more), because the structures of Min dialects are similar and even the same; the most national words in these wiki articles are the same with other Min dialects and even the same with Mandarin. Actually, one of Puxian wiki editors is in fact a Fuzhou dialect speaker. With Chinese Characters Min dialect can be translated into each other easier, at least.

If possible, I think that if both Latin and Chinese Characters are accepted, that's perfect. But it may be impossible. The situation is that the number of Puxian editors and readers is too small, And due to GFW, most Puxian dialect hobbyists in China don't use Wiki, leading the fact that only very very few Puxian speakers who have learnt to write in Puxian and have access to Wiki across the GFW are able to visit Wiki and edit on Wiki; While other Puxian editors and readers are all from foreign regions. Other Min dialect also slightly has similar situation: Northern Min Wiki and Central Min Wiki have very few few few editors because they have few foreign speakers and few linguist research it. (sss. Central Min even has no Latin Writing System).

So what I want to express is that Min dialects, except Min Nan and Hakka (which have a large population of speakers, researchers, along with wiki writers, readers in Taiwan ), and Fuzhou dialect (Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian Province so it has more researchers and speakers than other Min Dialects). Other Min dialects like Puxian, Northern Min, Central Min have few researchers, speakers and hobbyists, so also few wiki readers and editors.

sorry, seems off the topic

I want to express that:

For Puxian dialect editors and readers (also do editors and readers of other Min dialects), they edit or read Puxian wiki only for hobby, because they research Puxian for hobby and hope to preserve this dialect; almost no one would use Puxian Wiki as a Encyclopedias, most people who visit Puxian Wiki is for Puxian linguistics study (research or hobby) -- they certainly can speak not only Puxian, but also maybe Chinese Madarin, English or other languages; otherwise, they cannot surf the Internet because there're no Internet facilities in Puxian Language. So people who visit Puxian Wiki are most for linguistics hobby.

Both Chinese Character and Latin has their own advantage. And it may be difficult for Chinese Character users to read and write Latin; Also, it may be difficult for Latin users to read and write Chinese Characters. That's why Min dialects wikis all have the function of Twin Pages -- one in Latin and one in Chinese Characters. And I also noticed that Hakka Wiki page has some buttons that has texts in both Chinese Character and Latin:

"頭頁/Thèu-Ya̍p 交流/Kâu-liù"

I think that if the translations can have both writing systems just like the Twin Pages function in Wiki, that will be perfect. but it seems impossible.

“萝卜青菜，各有所爱”(One man's meat is another man's poison.) For me Chinese Character is more convenient, and Chinese Character is also a correct writing system, even the tradition and original writing system. Latin system has its position just due to its Orthography.

I don't know whehter Only Latin can be used here.

So, if using Chinese Characters is allowed, I think Chinese Character has reason to be retained, it may should have a same status with Latin, if possible, I hope wikis of Min dialects can have texts in both Chinese Characters system and Latin system. If not allowed, I'm really sorry for what I've done. If Chinese Characters bring trouble to those who use Latin more often, I'm really sorry. If there can only be Latin, I feel really pity for us those who use Chinese Characters more often.

I'm also sorry for bring trouble to you. I just hope to be agreed. It also took me a lot of time, to translate, to edit wiki, and to write this comment. And the initial motivation for me to write Puxian Wiki, is just that I want Puxian Wiki to be hatched out, so that more people can see it. But I've gradually found it really "费力不讨好"(thankless; hard to do but few rewards) -- It's hard to do -- I often need to look up dictionaries and often some words are not included in dictionaries, and there're also few materials online, and input systems (both Chinese Character and Latin) are imperfect; There's also no co-workers -- few people edit Puxian wiki, it's really hard for me a single person to manage to edit these translations and wiki pages; It's thankless and rewardless -- because there's few people visiting Puxian wiki, and most Puxian speakers in China are blocked by the GFW.

The only motivation is that: "The initial motivation for me to write Puxian Wiki, is just that I want Puxian Wiki to be hatched out, so that more people can see it."

It's really thankless. Maybe I will never edit more Puxian wiki. At least in 2023 I will not edit much.

Thanks also sorry

Kahin He (talk)‎

Oh! As for your questions,

I think this language is traditionally written in Latin. Also, Writing in Latin may make it look formal, (even though there's nowhere it may be used formally.)

While writing in Chinese characters is sometimes convenient than in Latin and is more academic. Also, many (or even most) linguistic amateurs like me are using Chinese characters.

Chinese characters system is more intuitive(直观的) -- the meaning of words can be easier to get. While Latin system is more easier to get the words' pronunciation, which help to understand the words which are unique in this language.

By the way, the Latin system was invented hundreds of years ago, so that a lot of words' pronunciations has changed, which also makes Latin system hard to use.

(Oh it's too late here. Maybe I should go to bed.)

Kahin He (talk)‎

Oh as for the second question,

the books written in this language are almost old books written by those foreign missionaries.

And the books about the linguistics of this language or the dictionaries of this language most write this language in Chinese characters and just use Latin or IPA for Phonetic notation（标音、注音）。

Kahin He (talk)‎

Thread title	Replies	Last modified
FYI: You can now translate cpx by script	0	17:19, 15 July 2023
Traditional and Simplified characters	3	10:16, 1 January 2023
Writing system	5	09:31, 1 January 2023

Contents

FYI: You can now translate cpx by script

Traditional and Simplified characters

Writing system