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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Disambiguation page a little confusing after the move

Check out Standard Chinese (disambiguation) :

Standard Chinese can refer to the following:

See also

notice how the word mandarin points to this page. Should the disambiguation page be deleted? if not surely a line should be added for Mandarin Chinese and the Mandarin line adjusted to fit with the somewhat confusing consensus we have now about naming of this and related articles. Metal.lunchbox (talk) 08:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I've had a go at revising it in line with WP:DABSTYLE. I'm not sure mentioning Mandarin Chinese is needed here. Kanguole 08:46, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Consistency in lede

This is a continuation of the strand at Talk: Mandarin Chinese, where I said:

The article Standard Chinese starts out with
"Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin....The phonology is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese,...."
So the phonology of Mandarin Chinese is based on its own Beijing dialect?! No, the phonology of Mandarin Chinese (in its narrower sense) is based on the phonology of the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese (in its broader sense).

I have a (perhaps) better suggestion than my previous one for dealing succinctly with the dual use of the word "Mandarin": Maybe we could change the opening of the lede to

"Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin, the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, or Putonghua...." Duoduoduo (talk) 18:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


It would be sufficient to say "the Beijing dialect of Chinese" or even just "the Beijing dialect" or "Beijing speech".

Beijinghua is not synonymous with the national language; it has peculiarities that are not found in the standard.

There is no legitimate dual use of "Mandarin" - the standard language is the primary referent and the proposed dialect area is a derived sense that requires qualification or context. --JWB (talk) 20:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I would write the lede as: The official language of China was known as guanhua in the late Imperial period, and the English term Mandarin is a translation of guanhua. Today's versions are the PRC's official language putonghua, Taiwan's official language guoyu, and Singapore's standard version of Chinese huayu, which all still refer to the same language with minor variations.

I would avoid excessive mention and especially bolding of Standard Chinese which is a disambiguating description or a Wikipedia standard and by far not the most common term actually used, as bolding would misleadingly suggest. --JWB (talk) 20:25, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The vocabulary is drawn from the large and diverse group of Chinese dialects spoken across northern, central and southwestern China

This is yet another example of thoughtlessly giving unwarranted primacy to the (unsettled) partition of Chinese into major dialect areas. Does anyone think that words are more likely to be adopted into standard national speech from Sichuanese than from Shanghainese or Cantonese, much less have evidence for it? --JWB (talk) 20:17, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

No Need for Minority Presence

We don't need to list every single country where there is a Chinese-speaking minority. We should simply list those countries where Chinese is in the majority or an official language--ROC, PRC, and Singapore. --Taivo (talk) 02:08, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Disagree. Look at the Cantonese article. That one, on the other hand, broaches the opposite extreme, where every major single city worldwide is mentioned (and not referenced), which I don't think is warranted, either. Note that Mandarin has spread, but does not have as widespread an overseas diaspora as Cantonese - yet. A happy medium or compromise would be ideal, namely selective mention of overseas Mandarin-speaking locales, solidly referenced and accompanied by informative content. However, the fact is that the United States carries by far the largest Mandarin-speaking diaspora population in the Western Hemisphere, and with a highly disproportionate and growing number of the Mandarin-speaking immigrants destined for and living in New York City, for reasons that are not relevant to this discussion. To simply ignore this phenomenon and pretend it doesn't exist would be remiss, especially when the numerical presence and cultural impact are significant and increasing. The New York Times reference quoted is also an absolutely excellent, insightful, informative, and obviously reliable reference.

So in fact, there are two aspects of content in contention: the first being the infobox listing, as discussed above, which by the way already has a subgouping for countries with official Mandarin status; but the second of which I believe to be actually even more important, Taivo (talk) has apparently chosen to ignore completely and deleted without explanation, namely the fact I noted in the History section that Cantonese is being supplanted by Mandarin as a lingua franca in New York City, an issue of extraordinary significance, which carries future implications worldwide across Chinese diasporas, as this will likely happen worldwide, perhaps with a several year time lag after NYC. 96.242.217.91 (talk) 03:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

If you want to add that paragraph, I won't object, but I still object to adding the entry in the template without a consensus. --Taivo (talk) 06:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yet another name debate- Mandarin Chinese

Some of you probably can't get enough of naming debates about Chinese language related articles. If that's you then head on over to talk:Mandarin Chinese#Requested move where there is a proposal to move that article to Mandarin dialects. That debate is highly relevant to this article and the proposal is based on the idea that most readers searching for "Mandarin Chinese" are probably hoping to find "Standard Chinese". The current article is about the dialect group and should be named more descriptively -> "Mandarin dialects" while "Mandarin Chinese" will be made a redirect to "Standard Chinese". Since so many of you here have experience with this naming topic. I'm inviting you to participate in the debate, try to read existing debate above the proposal first though, to avoid kicking dead horses. Metal.lunchbox (talk) 23:48, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

1955 and 1956, definition of putonghua

the history section says "The word 'Putonghua' was defined in October 1955 by the Minister of Education Department in mainland China as follows: "Putonghua is the common spoken language of the modern Han group, the lingua franca of all ethnic groups in the country. The standard pronunciation of Putonghua is based on the Beijing dialect, Putonghua is based on the Northern dialects [i.e. the Mandarin dialects], and the grammar policy is modeled after the vernacular used in modern Chinese literary classics."[10]"

I think the last part was not added until the next year. Compare article from People's Daily in 1955 (has no mention of grammar and literary classics) with decree issued by State Council in 1956 (has mention of grammar and literary classics):

http://www.cssn.cn/news/175394.htm http://www.gov.cn/test/2005-08/02/content_19132.htm

Since there were two conferences in 1955 and the People's Daily article was apparently published between them it is possible the definition with literary classics was used at the second conference, but there is no source for this! And in any case, it was not the Ministry of Education that called the second conference, it was the Chinese Academy of Science (中国科学院). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.170.234.239 (talk) 03:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Wa State

Standard Mandarin is one of two official languages of the Wa State, alongside the Wa language. The Wa State is an unrecognised rebel autonomous state within Myanmar comprised of ethnic Chinese and Va people. The Wa State Government Website is available in Chinese, and here is a television news report from the Wa State, spoken in Standard Mandarin. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 07:23, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

In response to this edit by Saruman-the-white, being an "unrecognised state" doesn't make it any less significant. We list Taiwan, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in many articles as sovereign states of limited recognition. A sovereign state is defined it that it has a population and it governs itself, and the Wa State meets this definition. Wikipedia is neutral in its point of view, and we do not make question on legitimacy based on a state's recognition status. Under the same token, Taiwan is unrecognised, yet one wouldn't even think twice when including it in an article such as this one. Furthermore, the area controlled by the Wa State is larger than that of the Vatican City, Monaco and many Pacific/Carribean islander countries, so the size argument is also quite absurd. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
SUPPORT!!! 2sc945 (talk) 12:29, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Official Language

Hi, Standard Chinese is also the official language of two International official organizations so far as I know. They are United Nations(UN) and The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO). Since I have found all the other languages pages(English, French,etc) containing the official language status of International Organizations, I think it would be better to keep the page of this item the same format as the other languages. Thanks for all your work. Regards,S — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psctcn (talk • contribs) 09:25, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation of "After the Republic of China was established in 1912"

I don't wish to rehash the debate conducted 5 years ago, but I think it would be helpful for new students of the history of Standard Chinese if the link anchored to "Republic of China" in the section which begins "After the Republic of China was established in 1912" were updated from [[Republic of China]] to [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]]. As it stands, the link points to the modern political unit, and not the historical one to which in the section in question in fact refers. May this change please be granted? Respectfully, Diaspore (talk) 05:58, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

The 2007 debate seems to have been about what to call the modern entity. In a 1912 context, your suggestion seems clearly appropriate. Kanguole 09:22, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Citation found - cannot edit due to semi-protection

http://english.visitbeijing.com.cn/jb/n214766209_5.shtml This 53% is defined as a passing grade above 3-B (i.e. error rate lower than 40%) of the Evaluation Exam. Another survey in 2003 by the China National Language And Character Working Committee (国家语言文字工作委员会) shows, if mastery of Mandarin is defined as Grade 1-A (an error rate lower than 3%), the percentages were as follows: Beijing 90%, Shanghai 3%, Tianjin 25%, Guangzhou 0.5%, Dalian 10%, Xi'an 12%, Chengdu 1%, Nanjing 2%.[citation needed] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wkpd2011 (talk • contribs) 16:56, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

References on Putonghua

I do not care what this or other articles are called on Wikipedia but I would like to learn about Putonghua as it is defined by the Putonghua Evaluation Exam (普通话水平测试). Many of the references given in this article say in their titles that they deal with a wide variety of usage, and not with the official standard. The others that I have seen also do this. Can someone list a reference that describes official Putonghua? Colin McLarty (talk) 00:25, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Really. The article is called "Standard Chinese" and says this is "standardized variety of Chinese." Could someone add a reference that gives the official standardization? Colin McLarty (talk) 17:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Macao

The basic law says "Chinese" and everything official I can find at gov.mo just seems to repeat that: "Chinese" with no distinction whatever made between 广东话 and 普通话. Searching the site gives many more hits for "Mandarin" than "Putonghua", but a good chunk of those are about things named Mandarin and all seem to deal with things like Stamp Festivals, language centers, &c. and not to be anything authoritative. Accordingly removed them from the list of "official" languages pending some official source for the claim. — LlywelynII 04:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Modern Standard Mandarin

User:Benlisquare obviously feels strongly about mentioning "Modern Standard Mandarin" in the lead sentence. May I ask why? It is not in common use at all. It is not in common scholarly use at all: excluding "Modern Standard" from the term, "Mandarin" and "language" pulls in 129,000 results to MSM's 303 at Google Scholar.

Should it be mentioned within the article? Absolutely. When "Mandarin" is explained and its history detailed, it's obvious that when people say "Mandarin" today they mean a "modern" "standard" "Mandarin" and not the 官语 of days gone by. It's worth mentioning that some linguists explicitly call it by that name and we can even bold it down there. But should it be mentioned in the lead in the same sentence with "Mandarin" and "Putonghua" as though it were on equal footing in the English language (even among linguists)? No, not really. — LlywelynII 04:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Request move to Putonghua

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Discussion was initiated by a sock of a site-banned user, and no support has been forthcoming. Favonian (talk) 15:59, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Standard Chinese → Putonghua – The proposed name is far more common than the current one, as demonstrated by this ngram, as well as by this one. In most contexts, you would not distinguish between the standard form a language and the language itself. But we already have articles on Mandarin Chinese and Chinese language, so this one needs to be called something else. The Holy Four (talk) 03:24, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

No, per WP:USEENGLISH. This is the English Wikipedia, we use the best name in English. Wander into any bookshop or library, looking for dictionaries, phrase books or other language guides and they will use "Chinese", sometimes with "Mandarin". Never Putonghua.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 04:19, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
OK, I went to the bookstore and I got me a [http://www.amazon.com/Berlitz-Chinese-Mandarin-Book-Chinese-Publishing/dp/2831562708/ref=sr_1_2?s= Berlitz Chinese-Mandarin] book. Is that the kind of thing you are taking about? Because that is so not what this article is about. This article about how a particular dialect of Mandarin was selected and promoted as a standard, and its relationship with other dialects. The Holy Four (talk) 06:35, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
VERY bad idea. Putonghua is a name that is ONLY used in Mainland China. In Taiwan, nobody would ever use this term: it is known as Guoyu. In Singapore it is known as Huayu. Likewise, nobody there would ever use the term putonghua. In Malaysia it is also known as Huayu, along with most overseas Chinese communities. You can't rename the article putonghua because 1) that is not an English term, it would be like renaming standard french to le francaise norme or whatever it is on the English wiki and 2) putonghua is ONLY a mainland China term which is not used outside of Mainland China. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saruman-the-white (talk • contribs) 12:39, 14 November 2013
No. Putonghua is not the English language name. The words putonghua are are only used by Chinese speakers. Standard Chinese is near enough a correct translation of putonghua though I think Modern Standard Chinese or Modern Standardised Mandarin would be more precise the name as it is does not need changed. Rincewind42 (talk) 13:24, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
  • It is official, in that it's the variety of Chinese pushed by the government of China for 50 years or so. It's commonly known outside China as "Chinese" or "Mandarin" but both of those are ambiguous, even among people familiar with the varieties of Chinese. So 'standard' serves to highlight that it's the variety of Chinese chosen by the Chinese government - the official variety. Again "Putonghua" is not English and just not used by or known to the vast majority of English speakers. --JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 04:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
  • So whose the current title for? It misleads non-specialists as to what the name of this subject is. Anyone reasonably familiar with China has already encountered the word “Putonghua.” On the China Daily site, the phrase “Standard Chinese" does give you 276 hits, but most of them are about “the standard Chinese greeting”, “a standard Chinese phrase,” and that sort of thing. That compares to 999 hits for “Putonghua.” — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Holy Four (talk • contribs) 07:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
  • But this article is not written for the tiny percentage of English speakers "reasonably familiar" with China. So we use the common name of the language, "Chinese", prefixed by "Standard" because that's what it is and to disambiguate it from other varieties and wider groupings of varieties.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 03:19, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

By that logic 'standard Japanese', 'standard German', etc are also 'homespun' translations and no good. In Japanese, the name of the standard variety is "標準語" but on the English wiki it is called Standard Japanese. Also, as I said, putonghua is a MAINLAND-ONLY term, so we may as well end the discussion here as it is never known by that name in Taiwan (Guoyu) or Singapore, Malaysia and most overseas Chinese communities (huayu). As such the name would not representative and can't be used.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 13:17, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

China Daily newspaper is not a good guide to the use of the words putonghua in common English. A newspaper like China Daily will have a manual of style that dictates which word to use based on the editors preference. China Daily is a Chinese run and owned paper that need not reflect normal English use. A better indicator would be to look for the number of times putonghua is used by a paper such as the London Times or the Washington Post. I searched the Washington Post and found just 2 examples of the word putonghua. In each case the word putonghua was in parentheses and preceded by the word(s) 'Mandarin' or 'Standard Mandarin' e.g. "Standard Mandarin (Putonghua)" Rincewind42 (talk) 15:46, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Another point is, Putonghua actually oly refers to the PRC standard. For example, in standard mandarin (Guoyu) in Taiwan 垃圾 is pronounced le4 se4 (in putonghua it is la1 ji1), 星期 in Guoyu is xing1qi2 but in Putonghua it is xing1qi1, 氣質 is qi4zhi2 in Guoyu but qi4zhi4 in putonghua and many other differences. As such, if you changed it to "putonghua", you would only be referring to the mainland standard and excluding the Taiwan standard (and Singaporean which is more similar to the Taiwan standard in practice) as the Taiwan standard mandarin is definitely not "putonghua".

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


Reply to Saruman-the-white: ja:標準語 is the generic term Standard language, not "standard Japanese", even though the "standard language" in Japan is Japanese.

"By that logic 'standard Japanese', 'standard German', etc are also 'homespun' translations and no good." Correct, none of these are common names; they're clarifying phrases. --JWB (talk) 09:20, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

"Standard Chinese" is no more awkward than using 中文 in place of 汉语/漢語. :-) Sai Weng (talk) 10:58, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 January 2014

Error and citation suggestion: Under section 3.1, Standard Chinese and the educational system, the last paragraph where it talks about the standardized test of Putonghua. It is inaccurate to say a level of 1-A corresponding to an error rate of 3%, which may be confused as an error rate in daily spoken language. Instead, it should be a less than 3% of error in the standardized test, or a test score of higher than 97%. The same goes for the other levels.

Reference: http://pth.linqi.org/psc/dengji.html

Original text: People raised in Beijing are sometimes considered inherently 1-A (一级甲等)(Error rate: lower than 3%) and exempted from this requirement.[citation needed] As for the rest, the score of 1-A is rare. According to the official definition of proficiency levels, people who get 1-B (Error rate: lower than 8%) are considered qualified to work as television correspondents or in broadcasting stations.[citation needed] 2-A (Error rate: lower than 13%) can work as Chinese Literature Course teachers in public schools.[citation needed] Other levels include: 2-B (Error rate: lower than 20%), 3-A (Error rate: lower than 30%) and 3-B (Error rate: lower than 40%). In China, a proficiency of level 3-B usually cannot be achieved unless special training is received. Even if many Chinese do not speak with standard pronunciation, spoken Standard Chinese is widely understood to some degree. The China National Language And Character Working Committee was founded in 1985. One of its important responsibilities is to promote Standard Chinese proficiency for Chinese native speakers. Xxing05 (talk) 22:05, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Done Dmelc9 (talk) 18:15, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Further reading

A Mandarin-Romanized Dictionary of Chinese: Including New Terms and Phrases, Now Current By Donald MacGillivray

http://books.google.com/books?id=tMEPAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false


http://www.lexilogos.com/english/chinese_dictionary.htm


Rajmaan (talk) 04:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Does it bother anyone else

That this article is basically lying?

Problem

It currently states (and other pages currently reflect) that

In English, "(Modern) Standard Chinese" tends to be used when contrasting with non-Chinese languages,[citation needed] while "Mandarin" tends to be used for both this standard and for Northern Chinese when there is a contrast with other varieties of Chinese. However, in both English and Chinese, "Mandarin" (官话, Guānhuà) has largely taken over the latter meaning,[citation needed] so phrases like "Standard Mandarin (Chinese)" have become more common.

is simply not true at all, except for the usage of 官话 within Chinese. The equation of "Mandarin" exclusively with 官话 is false, except among a subset of scholars and (apparently) Wikipedia editors.

Sources

"Chinese" (tout suite) is used when contrasting with non-Chinese languages; "Mandarin" remains (far and away) the non-scholarly standard when distinguishing this dialect from others within China. It's actually the standard even within scholarly use by a 3 to 1 margin per Google. ("Standard Mandarin" has become more common but remains uncommon by comparison with its controlling adjective, which is "Mandarin" and not "Standard".) It is the official use of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia; it is actively used by the governments of Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and the United States (although the last often defaults, like Macao and the UN, to simply saying "Chinese" as in this Census report). Type in 普通话 into Google translate, even on their Chinese servers, and it tells you the English is "Mandarin". Type it into Baidu fanyi and it tells you the English is "Mandarin". Do it the other way round and it will mention 官话 and 北京话, but the primary translation is still "普通话". Of the first 50 links going into Mandarin Chinese (some of them from major articles like D, dialect, and France; others from Chinese articles like Chinese numerals, Hong Kong, and Chiang Kai-shek), all except 2 want to be directed here and not to an article about the northern dialect family. (The two exceptions, China and Chinese language, presumably directly reflect the editors responsible for this page.)

Relevant policies

Now, I'd be bold and just fix all that by myself, but there are obviously invested parties and I have no interest in an edit war. I'll even grant you that there are sometimes reasons to break perfectly straightforward rules like USEENGLISH COMMONNAMEs. There is a case to be made (and obviously some editors are heavily invested in the idea) that, since we usually call this dialect "Chinese", it makes sense to have the article at "standard Chinese" rather than at "Mandarin Chinese". There is even some validity in the argument explicitly made in various move discussions here and at Talk:Mandarin Chinese to ignore the common English usage in favor of what the editors see as "correct" English usage (That's completely against policy – and not in an IAR-friendly way – but I can see where they're coming from).

Suggested action

Could we please establish a consensus that our articles should not lie about what the standard English use is? and, once correction of such misstatements occur, work together to keep any page owners from reverting corrections of such claims?

I'll establish a related discussion at Talk:Mandarin Chinese as well, given that the stats above establish that this page is the overwhelming PRIMARYTOPIC of that namespace. — LlywelynII 03:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

If we call MSC "Mandarin", then what do we call Mandarin? — kwami (talk) 07:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Mandarin is MSC. See "sources" above.
As for where to move the article currently occupying the Mandarin Chinese namespace here at Wikipedia, that's a question for the new move discussion over there. In the meantime, this discussion is just for establishing a consensus for the discussion on this page. That's not really a problem since we're just trying to accurately reflect reliable sources and avoid an edit war. — LlywelynII 11:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Indeed the standard language is the primary topic for "Mandarin Chinese", and the dialect group is usually referred to as the "Mandarin dialect group" or the "Mandarin dialects". It is also the primary topic for "Standard Chinese" and "Modern Standard Chinese", and is even more commonly called "Chinese", but of course that name is particularly ambiguous. WP:COMMONNAME says "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." I'll argue that this is such a case, quoting Jerry Norman's Chinese (Cambridge Language Surveys), p.136:

The English term "Mandarin" as a designation of the standard language, and as a term for the large dialect group to which the standard language belongs, is obviously merely a translation of guānhuà. In view of the fact that the Chinese now avoid this term in referring to the standard language, it is clearly inappropriate to retain the term "Mandarin" in English in this sense: one should rather use "Chinese" as the ordinary correct designation of the modern standard language; in contexts where this might be ambiguous, "Standard Chinese" should be employed. However, for lack of a better term, "Mandarin" may be retained as the name of the large dialect group to which such regional forms of Chinese as those of Peking, Xian, Chengdu and Nanjing belong.

This suggests that this article should remain at "Standard Chinese", which is common in scholarly usage but also broadly recognizable. However the article on the dialect group should be renamed "Mandarin dialects" so that the name "Mandarin Chinese" can redirect to this article, which is its primary topic.
By the way, phrases like "known ... as Mandarin (under the Chinese name 國語 Guóyǔ)" make no sense. Also, the appearance of a name on a government-funded website does not make it an official name. Kanguole 10:13, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
first reply
The phrase makes perfect sense. The official English name is Mandarin, as sourced. That translates the official Chinese name Guoyu on Taiwan and the official Chinese name Huayu in Singapore. "Guoyu" and "Huayu" are not official English names anywhere.
A rewrite to describe the Chinese official names is fine. Something like:

The official names of Standard Chinese include:
    普通话 (blahblahblah, lit. blah) in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau, rendered in English as Putonghua;
    国语 (blahblahblah, lit. blah) on Taiwan, rendered in English as Mandarin; and
    华语 (blahblahblah, lit. blah) in Singapore and Malaysia, rendered in English as Mandarin.

It's clunkier, but less confusing to readers such as yourself. What we should not do is claim that transliterations or literal translations of the Chinese characters are in any sense official for English use. They're not: Mandarin is, as sourced.
It's also not government-funded. It is government run and operated, which does make it official English usage. The confusion that previously was occurring was treating official Chinese usage as controlling English usage, which is flatly untrue. — LlywelynII 11:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Switched to this format, given the mess created upon the addition of PRC usage of Mandarin. (Which, as below, I'd argue was just common use slipped past the official line on some minor articles, the way many Chinese sources still reference "Everest" despite the party line being Zhumulamafeng.) — LlywelynII 12:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
second reply
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I would argue that the sources just introduced for use of "Mandarin" in the PRC are pretty specious. Compared with the Tourism, Gov't Ministry, and translated Constitution I sourced (all of which presumably carefully reflect whatever the local party line is), hosted news stories offering translation ("Putonghua, or Mandarin,..."), faulty copy editing ("Chinese mandarin"), or cribbing American usage ("in Oregon" ... "Mandarin") don't seem very authoritative at all. That is why I went for pretty major sources for mine; if you can find better ones (Taiwan's constitution or laws, e.g.) by all means use them but (with respect) this latest batch seem like weak tea. — LlywelynII 12:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
The article shouldn't be linking to examples of usage at all, per WP:PRIMARY, because there are plenty of discussions of the various names in high-quality secondary sources. Typically they discuss the various Chinese names, as well as both popular and scholarly English usage. Usage in English-language publications from the Chinese, Taiwanese and Singaporean governments seems a niche topic of little significance. Kanguole 16:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Official English usage is significant and usage in official translations of the Constitution is rather more dispositive than misc. newspaper clippings. Granted, though, PRIMARY exists for a good reason (to avoid us fighting over what counts as a "good source"). If you can come up with a better secondary source that outlines the official translations of the relevant parties, by all means do so.
Otherwise, we just have to fall back on don't be DISRUPTive and give UNDUE weight to something we're both pretty sure of (PRC & HK like "Putonghua", Taiwan & the rest like "Mandarin", and Macao goes with generic "Chinese" for all things 中文), just because we don't have an ideal source for it yet. — LlywelynII 04:19, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I do wish you'd stop going on about behavioural policies. The main reason for Wikipedia's preference for reliable secondary sources is not to allow editors to co-operate, it's to ensure that articles reflect mainstream views of the field. Kanguole 10:19, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
User:LlywelynII's input of "In mainland China and Hong Kong, it is officially translated into English as Putonghua or Putonghua Chinese" and "a usage which sometimes also occurs on the mainland" is quite incorrect, especially the "sometimes" part. The key word is "English".--Thomasettaei (talk) 18:40, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
And to answer LlywelynII's posts above, obviously it is known as "Putonghua" in Chinese in China, but if you search their government portal, the vast majority of English language articles uses Mandarin. This is simply based on search results. This is also true if you search official government press such as Xinhua (Mandarin yields far more results than Putonghua). That definitely does not quantify as "sometimes", which is ambiguous and vague. I think this should be reworded.--Thomasettaei (talk) 18:40, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
User:Thomasettaei, howdy.
A, we're getting off track. The problem is the current treatment on the Chinese pages treating "Mandarin" as though it doesn't mean 普通话/国语. I take it that your searches do confirm for you that this page should not be claiming that "Mandarin" is an exceptional or archaic use: do you agree? That's the real topic here and at the move discussion at Talk:Mandarin Chinese (where I'm arguing that that name should redirect here).
B, you're welcome to reword it. Hopefully you can do so without making the phrasing too awkward.
My basic point is that where it is politically touchy (the Constitution & HK), the careful and official wording of the PRC seems to be English "Putonghua". (Obviously, I agree that the Chinese use isn't controlling at all here: the entire error I'm trying to fix on these pages are edits claiming English "Mandarin" ≡ Chinese "官语" but not "普通话".) Kang is right above that I don't have secondary sources explicitly stating such a policy; you and he are also right that there are plenty of informal sources that are fine with the more common "Mandarin". I would say that there is a qualitative difference between the sources we're talking about; but (pending a source outlining an explicit policy) I'm fine with ditching the mention of official English-language policies as long as we don't go back to pretending the Chinese use is English or even controlling of English use (which it previously was doing). — LlywelynII 04:19, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
This whole quest for official translations is off track. There is usage in Chinese, and there is usage in English, and we have good secondary sources on both, e.g.:
  • Norman, Jerry (1988). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 135–138. ISBN 978-0-521-29653-3.
  • Li, Charles N.; Thompson, Sandra A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-0-520-06610-6.
  • San, Duanmu (2007). The phonology of standard Chinese (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-0-19-921579-9.
None of these talk about English-language publications by the Chinese or other governments, and why should they? These governments are not authorities on English usage.
In addition, there should be little need for citations in the lead. The lead should be a balanced summary of the content of the article, and that content needs to be properly cited. But not to primary sources. Kanguole 10:19, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Having this page at "Standard Chinese" bothers me quite a bit, and after reading Llywelyn's arguments above I would say I concur with the majority of his points. The page is also problematic because is is confusing for people looking up the concept of "Mandarin" on the internet; when they do that their intention is probably to look up this page, not the page on Mandarin Chinese, which as someone pointed out above should be renamed "Mandarin dialects". My vote is to move this page to "Mandarin Chinese" and move what is currently "Mandarin Chinese" to "Mandarin dialects." It also bothers me greatly that Cantonese is at "Yue Chinese", but I am not ready to take up that battle any time soon. Many of these Chinese-language name moves were conducted under the auspices of User Kwami, a former administrator who has since then been de-sysopped in an unrelated case. However, due to the damage caused to the structure of these articles over the years, the amount of wiki-bureacracy involved to now move this article and other Chinese language articles back to their WP:COMMONNAME places is quite prohibitive, and unless anyone has hundreds of hours devoted to this administrative litigation, I am not optimistic that it can be done. What we have currently is a very messy encyclopedia on the topic of Chinese languages. Colipon+(Talk) 15:58, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, your suggested revision is worse, and if everything went according to you, we would have a very biased, and very dirty version of the article. The only thing preventing biased individuals such as yourself, Colipon from destroying the encyclopedia is the administrative system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.65.248.139 (talk) 06:21, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Native speakers

Since standardized languages are artificial constructs without native speakers, what's the problem with saying that, especially since we have a direct source? — kwami (talk) 01:03, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

According to Norman (1988), p. 251, this artificial construct has been acquiring native speakers, children of people who use putonghua as their main language in the mixed-language environments of modern cities. Liang Sihua (2014), Language Attitudes and Identities in Multilingual China: A Linguistic Ethnography, discusses a similar phenomenon in cities like Shenzhen. Kanguole 07:43, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
Okay, that's a useful source. — kwami (talk) 17:38, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
Who says a) that the language described in this article, Standard Chinese, is one of the "standardized languages [that] are artificial constructs" (which would be an essential part of the argument of claiming it has no native speakers, by this reasoning) and who says directly, in any case, that the language described in this article has no native speakers? Y.R. Chao always thought otherwise since the standard was redefined during the 1920s to refer to the Beijing dialect, a language with more than 1 million native speakers at that time. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:34, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
Then we should merge this article with Beijing dialect. But everyone (apart apparently from some native speakers of Beijing dialect, who imagine that they speak Putonghua) knows that while Putonghua is based on Beijing dialect, it is not Beijing dialect, and sometimes not even intelligible with it. A common example is the ying in "English", which in Beijing dialect is iong. BTW, it's been said that in the 1920s, Standard Chinese had only one fluent speaker, Y.R. Chao. AFAIK, he never said that SC is Beijing dialect. — kwami (talk) 18:34, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, Beijing dialect is absolutely not Standard Chinese, especially since it refers not only to the standard of China but also to that of Taiwan and Singapore. 1920s Beijing dialects may have been the basis of Standard Chinese, but even in the 1920s it wasn't the same. I went to Peking U. for a while and what we spoke in the dining hall and what we learned in class were not the same; a lot of us in the Chinese Language Program had a hard time in classes because what we spoke outside the classroom wasn't what we learned inside it. The native Taiwanese in our class was the one who had no trouble with Standard Chinese class except for the inability to pronounce sh, zh - but he often had a hard time understanding "Lao Beijingr" for both phonological and vocabulary reasons. (I remember when he figured out shéi was s(h)uí "who" and he was so mad.) Ogress smash! 19:35, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Note

  • Reference of "unknown native speakers in 1988" is now cited. I shouldn't remove it as it seems to be the only relevant source, although from the readers' point of view this outdated information is far from helpful and maybe confusing, too.
  • A reference to how Standard Chinese is defined in syntax and lexicon was cited in previous editions. I think it is you who removed it for some reason, yet I think it is valid to cite this reference.
  • The second paragraph of the introduction is broken into seperate lines. I paraphased it it in previous editions. You undo my paraphrasing for some reason, yet I think it is valid to paraphrase it into a continuous paragraph.
  • @Thomasettaei:. Happy Saturday. Lovewhatyoudo (talk) 07:05, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Move

I redirected Mandarin Chinese here because Mandarin almost always refers to Standard Chinese, as opposed to the group that encompasses Southwest Mandarin an Zhongyuan etc. Using the term Mandarin to refer to those seems restricted to linguists. The title of Mandarin Chinese (group) should still respect the naming concensus.--Prisencolin (talk) 05:50, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Saying that Mandarin "almost always" refers to Standard Chinese is another way of saying that is doesn't always refer to Standard Chinese. Leading sinologists like Victor H. Mair use "Standard Mandarin Chinese" (SMC) to refer to what is here called Standard Chinese, and "Mandarin Chinese" for Wikipedia's Mandarin Chinese (group).
I believe that Mandarin Chinese warrants a disambiguation page. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:12, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia was created to reflect the wealth of knowledge humankind has gained, and certainly not what is taught in language courses to foreigners alone. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:40, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
P.S. I don't exactly like unsourced statements involving expressions like "almost always" and "probably." Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:44, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
It's not just classes designed for foreigners, in schools in Chinese-speaking countries, the only Mandarin that is supposed to be taught is Standard Mandarin, even in Southwest Mandarin regions.--Prisencolin (talk) 18:56, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
You don't understand what I mean. Wikipedia is supposed to be scientific — as opposed to your intuition or bellyfeel. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:22, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
According to Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar: "In popular as well as linguistic usage, [Mandarin] is represents the to the speech of Beijing, which for centuries has been recognized as the standard language, because of the political and cultural influence of the city.--Prisencolin (talk) 20:24, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes. I'm not saying that all scientists agree on what "Mandarin" means, but that the term is ambiguous. There are no compelling arguments to ignore renowned sinologists such as the above-mentioned Victor H. Mair who once wrote: "... even within the huge collection of speech forms that fall under the umbrella of "Mandarin," there are many varieties that are more or less mutually unintelligible." (source) — The term Mandarin Chinese calls for a disambiguation page. — My impression is you are not a sinologist. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:52, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
I'm not really expect on the subject, but that's the point, until I read through these articles I was confused as to the relationship between this Mandarin and what most people call Mandarin. I'm sure other people are as well. In any case, I just might support your proposal to make Mandarin Chinese a dab page, depending on what you'd want the current article with that title to go.--Prisencolin (talk) 22:13, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
The problem is not you aren't a recognized expert, but your lacking expertise. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 22:40, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
Speaking of Victor Mair, why don't we just email him, I mean he responds to comments the language log blog all the time. If anyone's got the expertise, it's that guy.--Prisencolin (talk) 22:56, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
Do so. Victor is open to all input. Please don't forget to point him to this discussion. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 23:12, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

I strongly opposed the move from "Mandarin Chinese" to "Standard Chinese" and I think it confuses almost all of our average readers. In particular, in the anglosphere, "Mandarin" or "Mandarin Chinese" almost always refers to Putonghua. There has been a conflict between pedantic linguists who insist on classifying languages by their scholarly 'genetic' definitions and those who feel that the subjects should reflect how it is commonly understood. There is no perfect solution, but considering we are trying to serve the interest of the readers, I am tipped towards the latter (that this page is renamed "Standard Mandarin"). Colipon+(Talk) 13:24, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

If you take a look at this discussion it is clear there was really no consensus to move in the first place. Colipon+(Talk) 13:28, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Was I looking for Standard Chinese when I found this? Perhaps. Was I lookng for a language which only a few Chinese speak as their native language? No I was looking for the language spoken by most Chinese. And then the question arose, so what do the Chinese speak who don't speak Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, etc.? In that sense the nonexpert reader, looking for the language spoken by the majority of Chinese, is indeed looking for the Mandarin dialects. This is confusing just like if you searched for Hindi and the article said it didn't actually have many native speakers. Readers are probably looking for both the standard language and the vernacular (and may not realize there is a difference).169.231.23.59 (talk) 01:33, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Reconstructing how I got here, I searched for "Mandarin" and saw "Standard Chinese: the official language of the PRC." So sure I did want to find this article (based on that description) but the number of native speakers threw me for a loop. No, I may have even found this from List of languages by number of native speakers, which illustrates the problem even more. It took me a while to find the actual Mandarin Chinese article--and note that Wu, Yue etc. are linked from that list so it really does leave the reader confused about what Chinese people speak. 169.231.70.55 (talk) 01:51, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Discrepancy in number of L2 speakers listed in right column

Currently the right info column of the page says that 7% of China is an L2 speaker of Standard Mandarin. It currently sites two sources, both of them saying two things: 30% of the country cannot speak Standard Mandarin, and only 7% can speak it "fluently and articulately." What about the other 63%? Elsewhere on the page it states that 53% of Chinese can communicate effectively using Standard Mandarin. I realize that the definition of an L2 language is vague, but I feel that the 7% figure is too low, considering over half the country is at least conversational in it. This may mislead readers into thinking it is a relatively useless language with a very small number of speakers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.177.28.100 (talk • contribs) 05:58, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree that "communicate effectively" is a mre reasonable standard for an L2. Kanguole 09:38, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

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Hong Kong & Macau: Official Language?

I would like to point to a discussion at User talk:LiliCharlie#Mandarin as official in Hong Kong and Macau which was started by Moalli a few days ago after I had reverted their edits here and there. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:34, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

According to the reference you provided, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English. "Chinese" is somewhat ambiguous, but official documents are produced in English and Standard Chinese, and government meetings offer simultaneous translation in those languages and Cantonese. So it does seem that Standard Chinese is an official language of HK (and similarly for Macau). Kanguole 20:52, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Unless someone provides evidence to the contary I'm going to re-add the two special administrative regions early next week. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

It is erroneous to say that Standard Chinese is the official language of Hong Kong. First, it is true that in most cases the written language of Hong Kong is "Chinese" - a style of writing based on Standard Chinese, but not exactly the same. Plus no one will read those texts in Standard Chinese in oral. I would say that it is just a form of 'literal Cantonese". Moreover, Standard Chinese is never a working language in any government department. I guess those who proposed have to clarify the meaning of "De facto".41.36.135.44 (talk) 22:52, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

This is interesting discussion. User:Citobun recently removed from infobox the Hong Kong flag, so I would welcome if Citobun join the discussion, because it would be nice discussion about what was His reason, because I agree that Chinese standard language is official in Hong Kong (as well as English and Cantonese). When Honk Kong officials say they use Chinese and English I understand they mean they use Standard Chinese and Cantonese and English (probably they wanted to say that Cantonese is dialect of Chinese language or like that, having more or less common written system, that is traditional, that is, in turn, predecessor of simplified Chinese characters system, so they didn't mention the Cantonese language, but I think the Cantonese language must be written in some Hong Kong documents as official language and there just poor references on the Hong Kong documents in the infobox that mention only Chinese and English). Also I say again lots of thanks to User:LiliCharlie who so quickly read my new reference from South China Morning Post and found that I had error rewriting numbers from the article, so I fixed and would ask her if she is pleased my redress or not. Nice to meet all Wikipedians here. Faithfully --PoetVeches (talk) 18:41, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
I think also there is no sense to mention here Latin word "de facto", because here must be only considered word "de jure", so, as far as I know, the three: Standard Chinese, Cantonese and English, are all official languages in the Hong Kong SAR "de jure", isn't it? --PoetVeches (talk) 23:17, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
In Cantonese/Chinese it was called 兩文三語 policy, which roughly two (兩) written languages English and Chinese (but ignore the fact two writing systems, traditional and simplified Chinese characters), and three (三) spoken languages. More of the announcements by the government were in Cantonese (in the British Hong Kong era, full English), with real time translation to Pǔtōnghuà (Standard Chinese)/English sometimes by RTHK. However, no one sing the national anthem in Cantonese but PTH. Also, some formal oath (such as appointment as the chief of HK) was conducted in PTH. The Basic Law of Hong Kong did not specific which dialect of Chinese is official, but also protect the traditions of HK. Also, it was a current affair topic for school that using PTH to teach Chinese language lesson, had score lesser than the city average (thus blaming the use of non-native spoken language to teach native written language).
In a one sentence, Standard Chinese is a de jure standard in HK, but not de facto. You can dig out census data for native speaker of PTH. Also, many people claimed they are bilingual in PTH and Cantonese (or more languages), but cannot be verified by the census bureau actually. Matthew hk (talk) 05:18, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Official languages have little to do with the actual number of speakers among the population, but with their special legal status and their actual or potential use in legal documents and administration. (The word official derives from Latin officium "duty, service; office.") Example: Namibia introduced English as their sole official language in 1990 when less than 1% of the population were English speakers, and several other African nations did similarly. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 06:39, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
it is pretty much depends on the wording the users want to use in infobox (with or without de jure bracket), or just skip the two SARs as they are part of China. Some off-topic, the PTH of the current Chief Executive of Macau is an internet meme, which i personally understand what he was saying, but it seem it was a Macau accent PTH, or just Cantonese people try to invent his own tone. Matthew hk (talk) 06:49, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Official langages are languages state officials (and not necessarily other people) have to use. This is always a legal (=de jure) matter. De facto official languages are not official languages, as in the US, where there is no official language at the federal level, but a debate whether or not to introduce one. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 07:03, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
The Official languages in Hong Kong are "Chinese" and "English" (Basic Law, Article 9), that's your de jure status. The official version of Chinese is not specified (nor English, for that matter - British, American, Australian?), so whatever is, in practice, used at "official" levels is (or even are) is what is de facto official. As there are no comprehensive rules anywhere for what versions are to be used and no document to establish any stricture, WP will be at a considerable stretch to state, with support, what the de facto languages are, both written and spoken, in a truly definitive manner. The suggestion that Standard Chinese is the official language of Chinese in Hong Kong is, thus, completely unsupportable and must not appear here. sirlanz 07:19, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Yes. I know that in Germany judges had to decide whether Low German (which is not mutually intelligible with Standard German, and historically a different language) is part of the official German language. It would be interesting to see what happens if some state official in HK started to use, say, Taiwanese based on HK's Basic Law. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 07:34, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
I doubt it need many translators for native Hong Kong, Cantonese speaking judge and lawyer for a court that was conducted in PTH instead of Cantonese. Thus, it just the matter of "editorial judgement" on should or should not add to the infobox, for a language that not exist in real society. Also unlike English, those accent are mostly mutually intelligible, (except those rural Australia accent or strong Scottish accent), Cantonese and PTH are not mutually intelligible. HK People just trained by TV program to have the listen skill for Standard Chinese, but most Mainland Chinese people are remotely understand Cantonese. Written Chinese may mutually intelligible after converting the characters. Matthew hk (talk) 09:11, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
As sirlanz pointed out, neither Cantonese nor MSMC/PTH are the languages that are official in HK. Article 9 of HK's Basic law stipulates: "In addition to the Chinese language, English may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislature and judiciary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region." From a legal point of view it remains unclear which of the numerous varieties are subsumed by the terms "Chinese" and "English" and which are not. Even Dunganese and Scots (≠Scottish English) might be covered, who knows. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 10:07, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

There was another article in the basic law for protecting the traditions and the original way of living, underlying which dialect is the official one. There is no legal case to sue to the High Court yet for the specific language/dialect issue yet. Matthew hk (talk) 10:16, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Grammar section

Using colour, either coloured text or highlighting, would make the section easier to follow. Use a different colour for each part of the phrase; 

[Yesterday got angry] 
foreign affairs policeman canceled [did not pay]
[those people]'s visas.

Ensure that the text contrasts with the background for accessibility (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Accessibility#Color). For colours info refer to : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Font_color & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Using_colours . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.111.90.165 (talk) 15:07, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

update need

update need — Preceding unsigned comment added by Obesecisco (talk • contribs) 15:34, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: mentioning elasticity/flexibility

I'll be concise for those knowledgeable, and refer to brief and basic bibliography for those who are not. The Chinese elasticity/flexibility is a lexical property of chinese terms, two sides of the same coin, which must be reflected in the very same entry for a certain lemma. Therefore, for example the fifth version of the prestigious XDHYCD (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian) applies mutual annotations in the respective entries, so that the entry for 煤 mei ‘coal’ reads "noun, … also called 煤炭 mei-tan ‘coal-charcoal’", and the entry for 煤炭 meitan ‘coal-charcoal’ is annotated as "noun, 煤 mei ‘coal’". Unfortunately, currently even in wiktionary this is wrongly reflected in the broadly termed 'compounds' section, as a synonym or after 'see also', and only for the monosyllabic version. Please, before commenting read the following brief article (and if necessary further references within it); if you still have any questions, I'll be glad to try and answer them. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~duanmu/2014Elastic.pdf Finally, elasticity from Xiandai Hanyu Cidian 2005 has been tabulated in the following open access thesis deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116629/1/yandong_1.pdf I hope an enriching discussion ensues for this critical lexicograhical issue --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:34, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

This is going too deep for a general article on the language; it is far too technical for general readership; neither is it of profound importance. Thus, I do not support the idea. sirlanz 06:21, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
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