Talk:Yue Chinese/Archive 10

This is an archive of past discussions about Yue Chinese. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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RFC: Article name

Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This article was renamed without a full WP:RM, and has a history of many RFCs and RMs on its naming. I think it is highly inappropriate to short circuit WP:RM with an early closure since unlike what is noted as the closing reasoning, there are not months of arguments, but YEARS of arguments on the various talk archives, and the closer only took into account a little of the dicussion. Instead, a full WP:RM should have been used. As it is, I have initiated this WP:RFC to see if there is a wider community opinion on the issue.

76.66.192.73 (talk) 06:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

A Plea

Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Guys, can we please please please shelve any further discussions on the name? By now, it should be clear to everyone involved that no name is ever going to satisfy all parties and will ever be the perfect solution in the quest of finding a label for this beast that is my mother tongue.

In the interest of the article and the people who come here looking for information on the language (Cantonese and Yue), can we banish the name debate to a section in the article, go with where we are now that some uninvolved admin has ruled (whether we love him for it or not) and focus on improving the article? The debates on the name to date would fill a small volume worthy of sitting next to the transcripts of the Yalta Conference but the articles themselves are still shorter than many a comparable language article. Let's move on, please... Akerbeltz (talk) 12:57, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Benjwong has made significant improvements to the article over the past couple of years, as have you, but yeah, otherwise quibbling over the name of the language would seem to be more important to people that the language itself. kwami (talk) 13:54, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to knock anyone's efforts at adding to the article (as I'm sure you know)... but the length of this talk page sure is scary in relation to the length of the article itself. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:31, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Right, sorry, but I'm taking Cantonese and Yue Chinese off my watchlist. Not even Basque related articles produce this amount of - sorry - petty arguing from all sides. Clearly people are more interesting in pushing their view of what the NAMES of these pages should be (rarely making reference to published sources) and I'm afraid I'm too busy for that. Maybe one day, when people are back to expanding the articles, not the talk pages, I'll come back but for now I need a break. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:05, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

How many times must we do this?

Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Clearly a Move Request should have been filed, with a notification of the move request posted here in the discussion page. It would have alleviated the coming drawn-out discussion. Kwami is aware that Move Requests are used for exactly the purpose of moving articles that have naming disagreements. I wonder how many times we must play this game? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 13:31, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

A move request was filed. It was closed by an uninvolved admin after reviewing months of discussion. Take a look at the archives. kwami (talk) 13:34, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, after you moved it once and then another admin moved it back. Come on, Kwami. You're an experienced editor, and we've been through this before. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 02:03, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Dialect or group of dialects or....?

Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

"The issue of whether Yue should be regarded as a language in its own right or as a dialect of a Chinese language depends on conceptions of what a language is. Like the other primary branches of Chinese, Yue is considered to be a dialect of a single Chinese language for ethnic and cultural reasons, but is also considered a language in its own right because it is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese."

I wonder if this paragraph is correct. If anything is a "language", surely it should be Cantonese rather than Yue, which might be regarded not as a language as such, but as a cluster of related dialects...

203.194.119.46 (talk) 14:14, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Any natural language is made up of a cluster of related dialects (well, perhaps excepting ones that have only a single village speaking it). Akerbeltz (talk) 14:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

It's referring to the identification of Yue as a language within the group of Chinese languages or a dialect of the Chinese language: it's an ambiguity that arises with all varieties of Chinese, as explained at length in that article.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:33, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Think about the average reader

Latest comment: 14 years ago16 comments8 people in discussion

Let's look at the first sentence of this article.

Yue (simplified Chinese: 粤语; traditional Chinese: 粵語, Cantonese: Jyut6 jyu5 / Yuht Yúh, Mandarin: Yuè Yǔ^[1]) is a primary branch of the Chinese language

Why is this confusing? 粵語 is translated as "Cantonese", not "Yue Chinese". Nothing is translated as "Yue Chinese". In fact, if you look on the iciba encyclopedia in that link I offer, it explicitly states that 粤语 is known as "Cantonese" in English. It is known within linguistic circles as "Yue", but no one in the world calls it "Yue Chinese".

Flip to any bilingual Hong Kong government document, and you see that 粤语 has always been treated as 'Cantonese' in English. Flip to any advertisement on San Francisco or Vancouver's Chinese newspapers, and you will see that "Cantonese" means 粤语. The two concepts are one in the same. Now we have a "Yue Chinese" article that wants to change this de facto established convention - with the only source supporting it an Ethnologue code. This is not serving the best interests of our readers. Colipon+(Talk) 16:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Not so. It states that the character readings are Yuht Yúh in Cantonese (the HK/Macau variety) and Yuè Yǔ in Mandarin. If one day the Yue people get their act together and standardise the Yue dialects overall, we might well see the addition of a reading for Yue, not just Cantonese. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Standard Cantonese is Guangzhouhua spoken with a Guangzhou accent. Versions of Guangzhouhua spoken without the Guangzhou accent is still Cantonese, just not Standard Cantonese. I know of no language dialects standardised overall as suggested by Akerbeltz. For example there is in the UK one standard English which is based on the English used in and around the Oxford area. It is easy for everyone in the UK to understand Oxford English, but I'll be damned if anyone outside Glasgow can understand Glasgow English. Glasgow English is pretty much a standard for Glasgow, but not for elsewhere. In the same way, most people in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions will find Standard Cantonese easy to understand, but will find non-standard Cantonese (other than their own regiolect) difficult to understand. 86.178.160.7 (talk) 23:34, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's what it states: 粤语，俗称广东话、广府话，当地人称白话，英文叫Cantonese，正名该称[粤方言]，是汉语七大方言中语言现象较为复杂、保留古音特点和古词语较多、内部分歧较小的一个方言。 From Cantonese Wikipedia: 粵語，又叫廣東話、廣州／廣府話、白話，英文叫Cantonese，係廣東（簡稱「粵」）加埋部份廣西、香港、澳門講嘅話，喺東南亞地區同埋一啲粵人移民地方都有人講。 Colipon+(Talk) 16:34, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we all know that both 粤语 and 广府话 are typically called "Cantonese" in English. We have a section on naming to explain just that. But here we have two articles on Cantonese in the broad and in the narrow sense -- surely I don't still have to spell that out for you? I'm sure that anyone who reads Chinese will be able to figure it out. But if you wish to actually improve the article for a change, we'd all be happy for you to do so. And if you're really concerned about the "average reader", then we should remove the Chinese altogether, because for the average reader, who knows no Chinese, it's gibberish. kwami (talk) 16:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

The fact is, no one will work on this article until the names get resolved. It still doesn't look resolved. We basically moved it to a name that is non-existent in real world usage. And no, we should not remove the Chinese characters. As language articles in general use native characters. Try a non-latin based encyclopedia. Look at English on hudong.com, it is plastered with real English characters. It must be complete gibberish for those readers. Benjwong (talk) 03:55, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

That's disappointingly petty of you, Ben. Your earlier work remains; contributions by anyone else who works on this will remain as well, regardless of which names we choose. kwami (talk) 07:06, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if Kwami's intention is to not have "Cantonese" the name at all? That is quite hard to accept. Benjwong (talk) 04:07, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Check yesterday's page history: I changed the lede to "Yue, or Cantonese", only to have it reverted. kwami (talk) 07:06, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that's much like taking an image of a whale, drawing legs on it, and giving it the legend "elephant". ;-) Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot that we wish to fill half the article with parenthetical dabs (this Cantonese, not the other one) and (here we mean the other Cantonese, not this one). That would be much better. kwami (talk) 15:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I also want to offer another dimension on this argument of why a name like "Yue Chinese" not only angers native speakers of the language, but also fails to match any social realities. French is the language of the French people. Basque is the language of the Basque people. Malay is the language of the Malaysians. Cantonese is the language of the Cantonese people. And as far as I can tell, Cantonese people refers to 1) people from Guangdong, or 2) perhaps more commonly, people who speak Cantonese. These native speakers of Cantonese, indeed, see Guangxi Baakwa and all Yue varities of Guangdong speech as "Cantonese" - with the only practical exception being the speech of Taishan. If I am a person from Maoming, by Kwami's definition, I would not be speaking "Cantonese" at all, but rather "Yue Chinese". In fact, if I or my ancestors were to be from any part of the province other than Guangzhou, my language cannot be known as "Cantonese", but rather "Yue Chinese". What nonsense. In practical use, all forms of Yue is referred to as "Cantonese". Kwami, indeed, wants to blank all references to "Cantonese" on this page, aside from a short discussion of it in the 'names' section, which he thinks is adequate. This creates massive confusion amongst readers, native speakers, and even linguists.

The only person who have come forth with reasoned views to challenge the position that "Cantonese" is most certainly not limited to the speech of Guangzhou is User Bathrobe, and even he ended up admitting that "Cantonese" has a much broader definition and we need to carefully follow how these varieties are treated and perceived by its native speakers. Colipon+(Talk) 06:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

What a native speaker might think he's speaking does NOT necessarily square with what linguists will say he's speaking. Most Scottish people will claim they speak Scots when by the linguistic definition they actuallly just speak Scottish English. Native speaker intuitions are important, especially when it comes to the question on identity but this is a linguistic topic here. We're NOT trying to decide if the Taishan feeling of being or out of "Cantonese" (in the HK/Macao sense) is right or wrong but simply if by the linguistic standards Taishan falls under the Yue group. And I'm sure I don't have to point out that linguistic labels are often opaque to your native market stall holder. Which non-linguistic English speaker has heard of Ingvaeonic? We're not forced by law to use the lowest common denominator if it's ambiguous or just wrong. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:08, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

The English name "Cantonese" can be found in a number of old british explorer diaries and records to describe Guangdong dialect (廣東話). It has stuck with people for hundreds of years. The only absolute circumstance that Cantonese should NOT be used is..... if you can prove that the british government with some agreement with the guangdong government both decided that the term "Cantonese" was improperly used. And that they agreed it was a mistake somehow. No such thing exist. Benjwong (talk) 03:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

You will find that as far as the Guangdong (Provincial) Government is concerned, Cantonese is Guangzhouhua. That is to say, the "Canton" in "Cantonese" is Guangzhou and not Guangdong. The seat of the Guangdong (Provincial) Government is in Guangzhou. I have a Cantonese dictionary ISBN 7-218-00050-9/Z.3 by the Department of Chinese, Huanan Normal University, publisher: The Guangdong People's Publishing House, in which in the Chinese it is called "The Guangzhou Pronunciation Dictionary". The term Guangzhouhua is very precise, whereas Guangdonghua in Guangdong itself refers to any number of speeches in Guangdong; although in HK Guangdonghua is limited to Guangzhouhua. Yueyu (a formal literary term) is popularly only reserved for Guangzhouhua and not any of the other speeches in Guangdong. 86.184.44.190 (talk) 22:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Above tl;dr, but the name of this article is abnormal. Articles about other Chinese languages/dialects are called "Common Name Chinese," e.g. Mandarin Chinese, Wu Chinese. This article should be called "Cantonese Chinese." If you're thinking "Cantonese" is commonly used to refer to 廣州話, then it is no different from that "Mandarin" is commonly used to refer to 普通話. Suggestion: This article be named "Cantonese Chinese" or all articles about Chinese languages be called "Name language," e.g. English language in order to be consistent with articles about non-Chinese languages. The article about the Guangzhou dialect be called "Standard Cantonese" in order to be consistent with articles about standard varieties, e.g. Standard German. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.23.214.78 (talk) 17:10, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Last RM decision was too hasty?

Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Who here thinks the last RM decision was too hastily made? The request was filed and the decision was made to move in less than 24 hours with 4/5 votes in the poll taken opposing the move. Personally I thought it was too hasty. But note that I am not stating a preference here for either of the two names. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 13:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

A request is made to hopefully move this back. The only way for that 4/5 (80% oppose) vote to not count is if Kwami had some special research to prove otherwise. Benjwong (talk) 03:53, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

What is Cantonese?

Latest comment: 14 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion

We don't seem to be moving forward with much discussion, so I wanted to revive some of the better points made by knowledgeable users and see if we could move forward cordially with those. We have engaged in all of these debates with the assumption that we must have two articles - one on the Guangzhou variety (currently titled "Cantonese"), one on the greater "Yue" linguistic group (currently titled "Yue Chinese"). Where this model runs into problems is that Cantonese is not only used to refer to the Yue linguistic group in general, it is widely used as such. What I hope to advance is a proposal that deconstructs this "two-article" model in favour of a more practical and easily understandable model (on the part of our readers) and gauge input from editors.

The Two-article model fails most significantly in that "Cantonese", in its most widely used and commonly understood context, describes neither the Guangzhou dialect, nor the Yue linguistic group... This confuses readers and editors alike. In practice, "Cantonese" is used to describe all native Guangdong dialects other than Hakka, Minnan, and Taishan, as well as Guangxi Baakwa, which is almost identical to Guangzhou. Alternatively, "Cantonese" can also be loosely understood as all dialects of Yue that is not Taishanese.

If this is the case, instead of confusing the readers with two articles, both of which could be titled 'Cantonese' in their own right, might it not be better to have a "Cantonese" article that goes through in detail all the things culturally and linguistically associated with the Cantonese language, as well as its de facto standard form? After all, that is what someone who searches up "Cantonese" is looking for. On top of that, we can maintain a "Yue" article that discusses purely the dialectology of Yue as well as other things dealing with technical linguistic aspects of Yue as a whole. We can also resurrect the "Standard Cantonese" article if necessary - not because there is an established "standard", but rather because there has been significant attempts at standardizing the language, and there is a recognized prestige variety of the language. If need be, we can also erect a new article on the 'Cantonese Naming Dispute' to further clarify all the issues, or we can just insert this part in the Cantonese article.

Thus, this amounts to two articles ("Cantonese" and "Yue dialects"), with the option of two more - conveniently describing each topical area in a clear and defined fashion for the ease of readers and editors. Colipon+(Talk) 18:07, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

But that's what we have now. All you're doing is reproposing a name from the last vote. How does "Yue dialects" pacify those who wish to call this "Cantonese" than "Yue Chinese" does? kwami (talk) 18:17, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I beg to differ. "Cantonese" to most people who are aware of it is the language of Hong Kong and Guangzhou, i.e. in the most narrow sense. E.g. if pick up a book on Cantonese, or take a course to study it, download a podcast to listen to it, or see it listed as one of the languages of a DVD you've bought, then it refers to this one language, not any other nor a wider group of dialects.

It is also misused as a way of classifying people of Chinese descent into usually two broad groups, "Cantonese" and "Mandarin" speakers. E.g. here were government provides services in multiple languages as well as Polish and various South Asian language it often splits Chinese people along language lines. Comically so when this is used to provide services in writing, so you can be asked if you want something written in "Mandarin" or "Cantonese" (meaning simplified and full characters). But this is so varied and inconsistent that no conclusions should be drawn from it.

Outside of this when Cantonese is used to describe a language it refers to a single, well understood variety.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:00, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Mandarin has absolutely nothing to do with the name of this article. Where is this discussion going? If you can split Cantonese and Yue to different articles, there needs to be proof that they are different. The name "Yue Chinese" is seriously misleading the public. What's even worse is that not one article points to (廣州話) anymore. Both this article and Cantonese are a complete duplicate mess pointing to (廣東話). This is what happens when 15 moves are sneaked in with no consensus. The contents are completely mixed up. It just forces people to repair these articles. Benjwong (talk) 03:21, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, if the articles are a mess, the solution is to clean them up, not to argue about them being a mess. kwami (talk) 10:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Eemmmm, Kwami, people here are saying you ARE the cause of the mess. 86.184.44.190 (talk) 22:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's easy for them to criticize, since they don't do anything themselves. By "mess", they just mean they don't like the consensus name of the article, which was not (just) my doing; when I say "mess", I mean the state of the article, which is what the word actually means. I will accept criticism from editors who are actually helping the project, but not from those who just sit and pout. kwami (talk) 01:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Move?

Latest comment: 14 years ago19 comments12 people in discussion

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved for procedural reasons. I see that there are alternate discussions below but am closing this move as 'moved for procedural reasons' while you figure this out. --RegentsPark (talk) 13:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Yue Chinese → Cantonese (Yue) —

Support move The page move archive clearly shows there were no agreement in moving this page. The administrator who made the move just did it based on the one person who opposed. Process was rushed and possibly biased. Benjwong (talk) 03:43, 2 April 2010 (UTC) Benjwong (talk) 03:43, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
That move discussion's lead part contains "The result of the move request was: moved to Yue Chinese". Please resolve this dispute. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

So from now on Cantonese is a secondary name to "Yue Chinese" because two people on wikipedia User:Angr and User:Kwami over-rided every discussion decision. Not one of the previous archives ever agreed to moving permanently to Yue. Neither one of them can even find a real world usage with "Yue" let alone "Yue Chinese". This is seriously embarrassing for the community. Benjwong (talk) 06:02, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

No, "Cantonese" is secondary because we reached consensus that the primary meaning of that name is Cantonese. kwami (talk) 10:01, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes, there is little real world usage of "Yue". Much like there is little real word usage of E8_(mathematics) or synanceiidae or phosphorylation: they are terms used only in academic and specialist contexts. But this is an encyclopaedia, so covers many obscure topics, which often are so obscure that English does not have a popular name for them.

As for "Cantonese", as kwami writes there's an article for that. If you think the months of discussion here too short then also review the longer discussions on that article, the merge and rename of it, which settled on a consensus of that article being called Cantonese. It seems futile to revisit that debate now.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:30, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Those samples are not good. Yue and Cantonese are not any final names decided by anyone. In fact the Guangdong/HK/Macau government hasn't published any official English names to go by. I am sure some scientific community agreed synanceiidae is the right name for synanceiidae. Benjwong (talk) 00:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Support Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:51, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

OC, we just had another uninvolved admin (Anthony Appleyard) respond to the RfM and refuse to move the page on the grounds that the request is closed and that we should resolve any further dispute ourselves. kwami (talk) 14:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

In my experience, Admins are generally quite reluctant to reverse their colleague's decisions to avoid conflict. Even when I brought the sudden page move by User Kwami to ANI, the move was reversed only on the grounds of a wiki technicality, not on Kwami's clearly troublesome behaviour. Colipon+(Talk) 14:16, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Closing ranks, it's called. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:35, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Support - The previous Move Request which resulted in the article's current name was closed in less than 24 hours with 4/5 votes opposing the move. More time and consideration was needed. Move this article back for now. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 14:08, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Please re-read why the move was closed. The discussion has been going on for months, with clear votes in favour of "Yue Chinese", good reasons for it given here, and no reason for keeping it at the compromise "Cantonese (Yue)". For me that's what's lacking in this debate. While there were good reasons for the move I have yet to see a single good argument for the name "Cantonese (Yue)". We already have an article on Cantonese, we don't need another one.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:52, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

There were also clear votes in favour of keeping "Cantonese (Yue)". Please read Talk:Yue_Chinese/Archive9#Runoff_poll, which was initiated by Kwami. It resulted in "Yue Chinese" actually only having minority support. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:28, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment - I think we should take a step back and think about all this a little more. Regardless what has been done, it is quite confusing if we move this article back to Cantonese (Yue) since we already have an article called Cantonese. The way I see it now is that this article should describe a higher level group of languages similar to Cantonese. While the Cantonese article should focus on the dialect used in Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Macau. Tvtr (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose reasons given before --LLTimes (talk) 21:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a vote. We don't decide things by vote anyway, and an admin has already responded to the RFM and refused it. kwami (talk) 23:13, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Strong procedural support the last WP:RM was improperly closed, it should be reversed, and a full discussion should take place. 76.66.192.73 (talk) 06:50, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Proceedural support That move was not consensus; and the reasoning less than convincing. We use Hakka (language) because the speech is normally (like its speakers) called Hakka in English; there is no system which would lead the reader to expect Hakka Chinese. Angr disagrees with practice and with policy. That's fine (and if enough people agreed with him, practice and policy would change); but an admin should close on the basis of consensus and policy - not against both and for his private preferences. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

That Kwami again!!!

Latest comment: 14 years ago49 comments8 people in discussion

Mr Kwami, I know old habits die hard, but could you please not interfere with subjects of which you have absolutely no knowledge over? Wikipedia is not your personal playground. Please have some decency and feeling for other people, and most of all show some Wiki ettiquette. You will also probably derive more pleasure in editting articles to which you do have some knowledge, such as African languages, where you will be able to contribute to the benefit of the world. Editting articles on Chinese languages is not compatible with your knowledge level on the subject. 86.178.160.7 (talk) 23:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you would like to do a better job? Any contributions are welcome. Though of course it's easier to complain than to contribute. Funny how, apart from Benjwong, none of the complainers actually do anything, though there's plenty to do. kwami (talk) 00:00, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

What complaints? Kwami, you are simply calling other people's contributions complaints. If we make "contributions" in your fashion, there will be anarchy in these pages and titles will change everyday. You should be glad that we are tolerant of your unreasonable conduct Kwami. Once again Mr Kwami, have some decency and stop messing about on these pages. Wikipedia is not your personal play thing Mr Kwami. 86.176.116.195 (talk) 00:57, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Editors are confused

Kwami, editors are extremely confused because these names don't conform with reality. Thus even if editors know a lot about the subject, they don't know which subject fits under which article and so on, and then they look at this discussion page to see the on-going disputes, and thus feel they need to contribute. There's now two articles which describe supposedly two different topical areas, but editors either do not understand this or do not find it inappropriate. This confusion is caused by the naming of the articles, and the fact that two articles exist to describe overlapping topical areas. That is perfectly understandable, especially if native speakers are contributing - because they need to establish what "Cantonese" means first.

Let's get to the root of the confusion here. Most editors who contribute to these articles are either native speakers of the language or people with significant knowledge about the language. They all come to these articles having a good idea in their head of what "Cantonese" means to them, and just because Wikipedia wants a strict definition of "Cantonese", it does not change the meaning of Cantonese in common usage. Let's try to look at a multitude of perspectives on the simple question, "What does Cantonese mean?", to see why this conflict is happening at all.

In Southeast Asia, Cantonese can refer to the language of anyone who have migrated from Guangdong, though there is a tedency to translate Cantonese to "广府话", which ostensibly limits "Cantonese" to the speech to Guangzhou.
In Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, "Cantonese" means 粵語 or 廣東話, and is called such in the communities that speak it. This can be easily verified with any bilingual publications. In this case, "Cantonese" refers to all Yue dialects, with the exception of Taishanese, which is often listed separately (this is the convention I've grown used to).
In Hong Kong and Macau, "Cantonese" is officially translated as 粵語, and colloquially as 廣東話. And 粵語, as all Chinese linguists agree, is the official designation given to all Yue dialects, including Taishanese.
In Guangdong, three distinct names are used - all of which are translated as "Cantonese" - these are 广州话，广东话 and 粤语. These do not mean the same thing, but they are also not mutually exclusive. Many people simply confuse the usage altogether and think they all mean the same thing.
In many places with native Cantonese speakers, but most prominently in Guangxi, the endonym used to describe "Cantonese" is 白话 (Baakwa).

I hope you get what I mean. Each editor who have had a different experience with the language will have a different idea on what it means, and thus edit the articles differently, and possibly having different definitions of "Cantonese".

Linguists, on the other hand, cannot seem to agree on what to call the language. They do seem to agree, however, the Yue dialects (aside from Taishan), are largely mutually intelligible and have minimal variation compared to say, the Min languages in Fujian. Some choose to call the larger dialect group "Yue" for the sake of avoiding confusion and keep consistency with other topolects, some will choose to call it "Cantonese"; many discuss the names in detail. Indeed, as user John Blackburne points out, many books instructing Cantonese teach the dialect of Guangzhou and Hong Kong - but does this really mean that "Cantonese" is strictly defined as GZ+HK, or does it mean that dialect has simply emerged as the de facto standard?

If Wikipedia were to cater to linguists and linguists alone - then our two articles should appropriately be named "Yue" and "Guangzhou dialect". The problem is, Wikipedia must follow WP:COMMONNAMES policy. This means that we must define "Cantonese" as what most people know it as - especially when there is no consensus even within the linguistics community about what to call the language. In my view, this is very problematic because "Cantonese" means different things to different people, even different things to different linguists. As such, this two-year-long names debate about what to call this article isn't actually about the name per se, the root of the problem is that people cannot agree on what "Cantonese" is.

Until we solve that problem, we will never move on from the current deadlock. Colipon+(Talk) 02:13, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Editors aren't confused. I think you underestimate the intelligence of the people who contribute here. The opposition is because people don't like the name, not because they aren't able to understand it. The situation is no more confusing than Mandarin vs. Beijing dialect, Wu vs. Shanghainese, or Minnan vs. Taiwanese. There may be a translation problem for some, but that's simply a matter of learning the details of English; we don't decide the names of articles based on how other languages use a word, but on how English does. As for Common Name, that's exactly what we're doing: we reached consensus that common usage of Cantonese is for Canton dialect; thus the use of Yue for the language as a whole. To take an example from biology, there are many species of snake called "tiger snake", but it would be a mockery of our encyclopedia to move every one of them to the same article just because they share a name. Common names needs to be balanced against precision.

I understand that some would prefer "Cantonese" to mean Yue and for Canton dialect to receive a more specific name, and I have nothing against that, but that involves renaming Cantonese, not just arguing here. If people wake up one morning and realize that the term "Cantonese" should really be the name of this article, and agree to move the other to "Standard Cantonese" or "Canton dialect" or whatever, then there would be no problem renaming this article. That's even what I tried doing at first, but people cried foul to that too, and so far we don't have such an understanding. If you can get people to agree to move Cantonese to a more specific name, then I'd personally be fine with moving this article to "Cantonese". kwami (talk) 04:41, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, in all honesty, the best thing you can do is just to never move another Chinese language article again. I'm surprised you keep doing it when you know these things are under serious dispute, and come back as though other editors are in the wrong. It's disgusting. Stop it. Colipon+(Talk) 13:05, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I have a question - is "Yue Chinese" really a more common name than "Yue" by itself? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:29, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

No, more commonly just "Yue" is used, because "Chinese" is clear from context. And in our article on Chinese dialects, we just use "Yue". However, that word has other meanings, including other (ancient) languages, and so IMO is not by itself sufficiently clear as the name of the article. (And that opinion would seem to be shared by other editors.) For most of the world, we'd simply call it "Yue language", but that causes problems in the case of Chinese. kwami (talk) 04:41, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

What I don't understand still is how come Mandarin Chinese and Standard Mandarin can co-exist with no problem. There is no one saying "Mandarin Chinese" need to be moved to "Beifang". Which I swear is even more common of a name than Yue, and would put it at that same category level. It is getting strange. What next? Tangerine to Orange because they look similar? Benjwong (talk) 00:03, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget Beijing dialect.

As I said above, I'd be happy with "Cantonese" for this article and s.t. like "Guangzhou dialect/Standard Cantonese/Canton dialect" for the other--indeed that's where the articles once were,--but we reached consensus that it is the other article that should be named "Cantonese". Therefore before we name this article "Cantonese", we would need to reopen that discussion to move it to a more precise name. The problem with that is that there are problems with all of the names: "Guangzhou dialect" implies that Hong Kong isn't included; "Canton dialect" is ambiguous with Yue, due to the secondary meaning of Canton being Guangdong; "Standard Cantonese" is not appropriate because it isn't a standardized language; etc. Not to say that those objections couldn't be overcome, but you remember how fun that interminable debate was! kwami (talk) 00:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I am trying to figure out the push to Yue and why this dialect specifically. Benjwong (talk) 01:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not this dialect specifically. Mandarin used to be known as Pekinese, Wu as Shanghainese, and Min as Fookienese; these are now seen as being different levels of classification. Cantonese can still be used at the Wu level or the Shanghainese level, so if we want to be more precise, which one do we confine it to, or do we avoid it altogether? We decided to use it for the narrow meaning; if we had decided on the broad meaning, perhaps today we'd be at the "Guangzhou dialect" article arguing that that should be called Cantonese! kwami (talk) 01:09, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't argue "Guangzhou dialect" should be Cantonese. That much is true and should stay. If that dialect makes up a huge portion of what makes the "Yue" branch, then why not just call this "Yue (Cantonese)" as a classification? It seems so simple. I am also not against "Beifang (Mandarin)" to be honest. Benjwong (talk) 01:27, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not against that name, actually. I argued for it several times: Of the several things known as "Yue", this is the one also known as "Cantonese", so it makes sense as a dab as well as accommodating both names. But each time I argued for "Yue (Cantonese)", it was rejected. kwami (talk) 01:32, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I am ok with Yue (Cantonese) if that is what you can settle with. I am still open to names. Maybe "Cantonese (Yue branch)" along with "Cantonese (Guangzhou dialect)". If the disambig page Cantonese (disambiguation) page is necessary to avoid confusion, it might be worth putting up as the main. Benjwong (talk) 01:47, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

But it's not just me. I suggested "Yue (Cantonese)" in the last discussion, and neither side wanted to compromise. Moving Guangzhou dialect would be another matter; if we need to get that done before we move this, it'll be a long time coming. Personally, I think that whichever article we have at "Cantonese", a hat note should be enough to avoid confusion. kwami (talk) 05:21, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

LOL Kwami, you haven't got a clue on what you are talking about. 86.176.116.195 (talk) 00:49, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Standard Cantonese

I would like to see why people still think 'Standard Cantonese' is inappropriate. Just because there is no formal standard doesn't mean there isn't a standard - Standard American English is the recognized Standard of American English, but no document ever stipulates it as such, and no institution regulates it. It's a comparable situation with Cantonese. You have a largely consistent standard where the vast majority of Cantonese speakers can agree what pronunciation is considered 'standard' and 'prestigious', how to speak in a university classroom; there is only small variation between Hong Kong and Guangzhou 'standards'. The Hong Kong government also has a very standardized Romanization scheme for Cantonese, and there is a recognized way of how to teach Cantonese in schools - which is also evidence that a 'standard' exists.

Thus, I am unsure why "Standard Cantonese" was shelved, and there was definitely no consensus when Standard Cantonese was moved to "Canton dialect", and then subsequently "Cantonese". Colipon+(Talk) 17:15, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

The poll and requested move are here and here, so you can judge for yourself whether consensus was reached and why. For me there are two reasons not to use "Standard Cantonese". One is that it's not used when referring to the language: it's just called "Cantonese", without anyone being confused over what's meant. Second there is no standard: it has largely avoided being standardised as it's not a national language. There are various ways of romanising Cantonese but none is a standard, and even if it were that would be a standard romanisation, not a standard language. The same is true of teaching: a standard curriculum does not mean the language being taught is standardised. English is taught here and in the US to a standard curriculum but that does not mean it is standardised.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:49, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I'm okay with Standard Cantonese, though it isn't my first choice. But there are two perhaps minor problems I can think of, besides whether it's really standardized: Is the standard based on Guangzhou, or on Hong Kong? That was part of the debate and reason for avoiding the term. And is the article concerned with that standard language, whichever it is, or with the dialect the standard is based on? That is, is it closer to Standard Mandarin or to Beijing dialect? Like I said, those are perhaps minor objections (we could discuss how both Guangzhou and Hong Kong have been considered the basis for the standard/prestige form, for example), but we'd need consensus at that article to move it to Standard Cantonese before we could move this to Cantonese, if that's your goal. kwami (talk) 17:59, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Let's not forget that these page moves were done indirectly - it was moved first to "Canton dialect" on User Kwami's insistence, and then because there were problems with that, "Cantonese" was introduced. Many editors in that discussion did not know that a parallel discussion was also taking place at the "Cantonese (Yue)" article as well. And even then several people opposed the move. I maintain that simply changing the names of these articles is useless, and it's naive to think that the naming system today ("Yue Chinese" and "Cantonese") will just stay as it is as long as we shut out opposition long enough or just ignore other opinions. This is not the case. We need to think of a solution that caters to the editors, the readers, and most importantly the encyclopedia. "Cantonese" and "Yue Chinese", defined as the Guangzhou/HK dialect and the Yue dialect group, respectively, confuses the editors, confuses the readers, and makes the whole topical area in this encyclopedia terribly confusing. To me, there is only two options - having an article on "Yue" (whatever its name, preferably "Yue dialects") that discusses the Yue dialectology and linguistics and restricted purely to the taxonomy side of the issue; a second article on 'Cantonese' that describes all the sociolinguistic aspects of Cantonese, how its used, and what standards there are. This proposal requires us to tweak slightly the topical areas covered by the two articles in question. The second option is to move this article back to "Cantonese" and the other back to "Standard Cantonese", "Cantonese" meaning Yue and Standard Cantonese discussing the attempts at standardizing the language, how the language is usually taught in textbooks abroad, and variations between HK and GZ Cantonese. Colipon+(Talk) 18:09, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think that other editors are as clueless as you portray them, Colipon. There was constant interference between the discussions on the two articles, which is why we parked this one at "Cantonese (Yue)": to get it out of the way so that the other article could be dealt with. So obviously people were aware of both, and that their decision for one would affect the other. (I can't vouch that all of them knew what they were talking about, but clearly many of them did.) And moving back to Standard Cantonese was one of the primary options. That name was rejected; it's not the case that it wasn't an option because no-one was bright enough to think of it. Of course, we can always revisit that decision, but misrepresenting the arguments doesn't help any.

Dialectology vs sociolinguistics is certainly one way we could do this. Would we then have no article specifically on Cantonese, parallel to the one on Taishanese? I do wonder, moreover, why we should take that approach with Yue/Cantonese, when we don't with other languages? The problem, after all, is in the name, not in the subject matter: The English name "Cantonese" is ambiguous because, although its primary meaning is of or pertaining to Canton (i.e. Canton City), it can also refer to the province for which Canton was named. That is an issue of English nomenclature that is unique to this situation, but makes no difference to the actual subject. kwami (talk) 18:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

A large number of editors are stuck on the idea that somehow if we change the "right names" of these articles that the problems will solve themselves. It's honestly not that simple. We need to tweak the contents of the articles as well. I offered this at at Talk:Cantonese#Concentric Proposal, where I was supported by User JWB, but was opposed by John Blackburne and Hong Qi Gong, with kwami sounding rather ambivalent. Colipon+(Talk) 18:35, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

IMO we shouldn't decide to alter the scope of an article merely because we disagree on naming. All other Chinese languages have at least an article on the abstand language, and typically articles on the major dialects as well, and I fail to see that Cantonese should be an exception merely because the name is ambiguous. Of course, it would be wonderful if these articles were so well developed that we required separate pages for Guangzhou dialect, Standard Cantonese, Yue, and Cantonese sociolinguistics, but we're a long way from there. kwami (talk) 18:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I can see where you are coming from, if only from the perspective of keeping consistency alone. This is why I also proposed the alternative solution of having a "Yue dialects" article (on here) for the Abstand variety, and a general "Cantonese" article to serve general interest reading on Cantonese, focused on the GZ+HK variety (but inclusive of other definitions). This would mean a) changing the name of this page to "Yue dialects", and b) tweaking the contents of the "Cantonese" article. I also favour this solution over the "Standard Cantonese" solution because I think more editors will agree with it. Colipon+(Talk) 18:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, but that leaves us in the rather odd position of having either (1) an article on the dialects of a language without an article on the language itself, if Cantonese has primarily the meaning it now does, or (2) articles on various dialects of Cantonese but not on the prestige dialect, if Cantonese is redefined to be Yue, or (3) a fudge somewhere in between these two. Again, the motivation would seem to me to be to avoid problems with the English name, rather than anything inherent in the Cantonese language. kwami (talk) 19:21, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I just want to make it clear that I don't want to 'redefine' Cantonese as anything. Wikipedia is not responsible for defining what "Cantonese" is. Cantonese is what people have always understood as "Cantonese", and as I wrote above, just "what is Cantonese" varies depending on who you talk to. We should explain this in detail in the Cantonese article, but make its focus the GZ-HK dialect. The Yue dialects article would be essentially what this article talks about now - taxonomy, linguistics etc., nothing else. Colipon+(Talk) 19:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

But if a popular conception is unfocused or incoherent, part of the job of an encyclopedia is to bring clarity. Not to redefine the word, but to say, we're going to discuss aspect X of the word. Again, as a more extreme example, one could argue that an article on any of various banded snakes should be called "tiger snake", as that's the common name, and then argue that all snakes that go by that name should be covered by that article, regardless of the incoherency of the result. The point of dabs and hatnotes is to help people navigate through the mess caused by common names. kwami (talk) 01:54, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

(←) The snakes article is the way it is because a recognized biological classification institution has deemed it to be the "proper" naming convention. Here not even linguists can agree on what "Cantonese" really means. Colipon+(Talk) 14:23, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Herpetologists can no more agree on what "tiger snake" means, because neither term is defined in their respective field. Or maybe I should say that they agree that the terms are undefined. Herpetological guides may use "tiger snake" to be more accessible to a lay audience, and linguists may use "Cantonese" for the same reason. Which snake is called "tiger snake" and which lect "Cantonese" is fairly arbitrary, but I don't see that as a good reason to change the scope of either article. Similarly with numerous deities named "Artemis" etc. IMO the scope of the article should be conceived on its own merits, and if the name is a problem, we can create a section to address that, hat notes, a dab page, etc. kwami (talk) 15:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a very specific definition of what a "standard" language is, and Cantonese does not meet the criteria. See Standard_language#Features. Aside from that, I don't think "Standard Cantonese" is more common than simply "Cantonese". But getting back to this article's name. I really suggest we either move it back to "Yue (Cantonese)" or move it to some form of "Yue (XXX)". It's becoming obvious from the discussion here that the term "Yue Chinese" itself is not the most common, but more of an artificially enforced convention here on WP which follows the "XXX Chinese" rule. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, the simpler name is generally going to be the more common, simply because it's simpler, just as "China" is more common than People's Republic of China, but I agree with you in not caring for "Standard Cantonese" for several reasons. As for "Yue Chinese" vs "Yue (Cantonese)", both work for me, though "Yue Chinese" is not arbitrary, but follows the nomenclature of the primary source of language classification we use. (The vast majority of our language article names do.) I don't know if the editors who objected to "Yue (Cantonese)" still would. kwami (talk) 15:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Last time we had a poll "Yue Chinese" was overwhelmingly more popular than "Yue (Cantonese)". I don't know if anyone strongly objected but more people preferred the name we have now. If you re-run the poll with different choices the result might be different, though probably not much as people can always vote as they like whatever the poll suggests.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

No offence Kwami, but this "nomenclature of the primary source of language classification we use" is precisely the kind of artificial convention I'm talking about that only exists on WP, which doesn't exist in the real world, and at times goes against the rule of using common names. As for the last poll on renaming, JohnBlackburne, again, I point you to this: Talk:Yue_Chinese/Archive9#Runoff_poll. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That poll was run after first, as though "Yue Chinese" was most popular "Cantonese (Yue)" was not far behind, to try and establish a consensus around a compromise. But those participating largely ignored this and simply repeated their vote from the first poll, i.e. it did not tell us anything new.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, I don't want to redefine anything. I want to cover the following things with each of the articles, I hope this clarifies.

Cantonese
- Definition, naming dispute
- Attempts at standardization
- Phonology (pronunciation of HK+GZ dialect)
- Basic Grammar (HK+GZ dialect)
- Cultural usage (sociolinguistics of "Cantonese" around the world - especially in Southeast Asia and North America)
- Written Cantonese?
Yue dialects (or whatever other name we come up with)
- Dialectology
- Linguistic analysis
- Phonology
- Relation and intelligibility compared to other Chinese topolects.

Does this sound reasonable? I may be missing some things. Colipon+(Talk) 19:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds fine to me, but I may not be recognizing the implications. How would it be different from what we have? kwami (talk) 20:15, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

At this point "Yue (Cantonese)" works. That means this page needs to seriously clean-out info that actually belongs to Cantonese with no overlap. Benjwong (talk) 01:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, of course there's going to be some overlap, just as in any two related articles. What needs to be removed? kwami (talk) 14:26, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

The cultural aspects of Cantonese (refer to structure above) is largely related to the province of Guangdong, and to some extent Guangxi. This "definition" of Cantonese excludes only Taishanese and several other smaller varieties. This definition of Cantonese prevails in most Western countries, notably Canada and the United States, but not necessarily Southeast Asia. Thus the cultural implications of "Cantonese" is undoubtedly overlapped with Yue (or synonymous to it), thus we choose to only cover the cultural sociolinguistics in the "Cantonese" article, and the linguistic analysis itself in the Yue article. I hope that clarifies. Colipon+(Talk) 16:00, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, the brackets in a disambiguation page is meant to disambiguate with other articles of the same name, not an alternative name. This is the reason neither Yue (Cantonese) nor Cantonese (Yue) would be seemingly fitting of the policy at WP:DAB. That being said, they are good compromise options. I also offer more neutral and policy-abiding options such as "Yue (dialect group)" or "Yue (linguistic division)" or "Yue (language division)"; that is, Yue (dialect group) as opposed to Yue (state) or Yue (people), not as opposed to Cantonese. Similar problems occurred at Basque Country - where it took months for editors to figure out what should be put in the brackets of the title for disambiguation. You can say the results look rather awkward, but it is something that we could consider here. Colipon+(Talk) 16:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Since AFAIK the cultural aspects tie in with the prestige dialect, and with who identifies with it, it makes sense to me to include that with the prestige dialect. But AFAICT, there is no significant coverage of cultural aspects on this article to move. Thus I'm still not clear on this. But this is largely irrelevant to whether we rename the article, isn't it?

I was thinking "Yue (Cantonese)" as opposed to "Yue (ancient Tai state/language)" etc., so I thought that might work. But of course I see nothing wrong with the current name either, which is good enough for several publications, such as the one Angr cited, is associated with the ISO code, etc. kwami (talk) 22:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Does not have to be in bracket. Why not Yue Cantonese? If you settle for just Yue. This article should contain a balanced description of the different dialects is what I was trying to say. The majority of the contents currently in this article deals with the Guangzhou standard Cantonese dialect. Benjwong (talk) 23:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

"Yue Cantonese" would contrast with "Non-Yue Cantonese", which makes no sense.

Most of the stuff that covers Guangzhou dialect is not limited to it, and so would belong here. The later history is Guangzhou, but it would be odd to cut off the history in the middle; the sound are largely Guangzhou, but also cover other dialects. (That could perhaps be rewritten for better balance.) We certainly shouldn't purge the article of coverage of Guangzhou dialect, any more than we would for any other dialect (say Beijing dialect at Mandarin, or Shanghainese at Wu), just move anything specifically about Guangzhou to that article, other that brief mentions here to orientate the reader. kwami (talk) 00:07, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Now I am really confused. I thought you and JohnBlackburne wanted to present Yue as a main branch. Which is why you are pushing hard to make it "Yue Chinese" and get rid of Cantonese from the title. If this article is really just Yue, after the varieties section, everything should be moved over. Benjwong (talk) 22:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It is a main branch. I've not tried getting rid of "Cantonese" from the title: though I prefer the current title, I've made proposals with "Cantonese" in them as well. If this is just Yue (yes, that's the whole point) why should the rest be moved? Where would it be moved to? kwami (talk) 23:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Just add my 2¢ that the sound section could do with some attention from someone familiar with the different dialects. From what little I know there are a couple of points which seem specific to Cantonese. Later it explicitly mentions Cantonese and Cantonese sources, but then that should be in Cantonese or Cantonese phonology. But it really needs expert attention, to draw out the common features of the dialects.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

This is like saying you have an article on Latin. But all the phonology contents are about English only. If the page is moved to Yue Cantonese, then at least the contents match what the title is. And as the biggest branch, most people would accept it. What this page is now.... is IMHO half and half of everything. Benjwong (talk) 01:47, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Just a plea to return to the status quo ante (or one of them) of Cantonese (linguistics) (or another parenthetical) and standard Cantonese. Both of the articles are about Cantonese and all Cantonese is Yue so neither the current situation nor the propose solution make sense. An argument was made that standard Cantonese doesn't meet the (OR) criteria for a standard language but it seems that all but the fourth apply to standard Cantonese (the same, incidentally, as English). — AjaxSmack 02:30, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Kwami's page move of today

Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

The page was restored to its previous location earlier today by RegentsPark. However, Kwami's moved it again. I warned Kwami about his page-move warring, and I've asked RegentsPark to move it back and protect it form further moves. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Protecting the page won't make a difference to Kwami. He's an admin. I can't stress enough how much better it would be for everybody if he just does not move this and the related Cantonese article ever again. Just leave it to neutral admins to move it based on move requests. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

We had a neutral admin, one of only two at WikiProject Languages, but that wasn't good enough either. kwami (talk) 19:56, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

They will only be satisfy if you or other admin stands on their side, that would be a neutral admin ;) --LLTimes (talk) 22:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Move explanation

Latest comment: 14 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

I have no opinion on what the appropriate name for this article should be and I closed the request as 'moved' for purely procedural reasons. The closing editor closed the previous move request after only one day with the clarification the discussion has in fact been going on for months. This was procedurally incorrect. The purpose of listing a move discussion is to get more eyes to examine the request and to allow other editors to bring up points of policy (or content) that may affect the outcome and, in the case of that request, this opportunity was not given to the broader community. It is also the role of the closing editor to evaluate the arguments given for and against the move and, even though the discussion had been ongoing, insufficient time was given for editors to present their case in the context of a move request. Finally, in the context of the request I closed, I determined that there was a consensus (in fact, there was overwhelming consensus) to revert the move for procedural reasons, so I did that. Out of process actions leave behind a great deal of frustration that can result in editors leaving the project and are best avoided. My suggestion is that any further moves should take place only after a full move request is considered or an RfC determines the appropriate title. Going against consensus is, IAR notwithstanding, never helpful to the project.--RegentsPark (talk) 15:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

There were many who want Yue Chinese as the title but only few or should i said four were the loudest here, just look back. These endless debate just make many of us not to involve in it, as you can see from the long walls of text above. I can say the amount of people who want Yue Chinese are equal or greater than those who want the current title (Cantonese Yue), which is even worse than the before "Yue (Cantonese). Thanks you, maybe try read back a few page next time, like here [1].--LLTimes (talk) 17:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

If I may clarify, I closed a specific move request on very specific grounds (procedural). As far as I'm concerned, I read the move request correctly and closed it correctly. But, since the grounds were purely procedural, that does not give me any special insight into what the right title for this article is, nor does it give me a special say in what happens next with this article. It is my suggestion that this be resolved formally, because otherwise it will fester, but this is just a suggestion, and it can be accepted, ignored, or just thrown into the mix that is already there.--RegentsPark (talk) 22:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

But we've already had an RfC, this one. It turned into editors arguing points, as discussions here often seem to. It was called after a poll which was a bit more conclusive, as the most popular name was Yue Chinese, but there was no consensus.

The policy/technical issues are first that Yue Chinese follows the conventions for naming varieties of Chinese. It's not popular as really it would be few people's first choice but we arrive at it through a process of elimination as these are the Yue group of dialects, or languages, but Yue dialects or Yue languages would fall foul of maintaining a NPOV on naming the varieties of Chinese. Second the current name is easily confused with Cantonese, which was renamed to that from Canton Dialect after a long series of discussions which established consensus on that article's name. This articles name was before that agreed as a compromise, when it was unclear which article was the main one on Cantonese, but now that has been resolved it is clear this article is on the Yue varieties of Chinese, not Cantonese.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should ask Angr to wait an appropriate amount of time, and then to decide whether any new arguments have been brought to bear that affect the situation? RegentsPark, what would be an appropriate length of time? The request just prior to the move request was open for over a month. It seems to me that plenty of time has been allowed already. (First the opposition said to leave it open for a week, after they said another month, and after that they said another three months. IMO that's completely unreasonable.) kwami (talk) 22:24, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

^ Ethnologue

[1] Ethnologue

[1]