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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 76.66.192.73 (talk) at 06:50, 3 April 2010 (→Move?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

RFC: Article name

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)[reply]

A Plea

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

How many times must we do this?

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Dialect or group of dialects or....?

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 14:33, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Archives

I would ask all users to please refrain from archiving topics that are still under discussion as though debate has been "closed". Colipon+(Talk) 16:20, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The debate primarily concerned the RM. The RM is closed. Thus the perfect time to archive. Request for comment was open and left here. If you wish to re-open the move debate, feel free to do so, but we do need to archive once in a while! kwami (talk) 16:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you have the audacity to even manipulate the archives to serve your own ends, then I have nothing left to say. All the power to you. Colipon+(Talk) 17:11, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My beef with you (kwami) is not so much what you have done, but how you have gone about it. Speaking only for myself, I can see evidence that, while you have your supporters, followers, cronies and sycophants, many editors - about half, if I count right, of those who have commented in this field - have lost respect for the way you conduct affairs here on Wikipedia. Your tenacity is admirable and is on the par with the most vicious POC-pushers I have ever come across. You lawyer, twist and bend the rules as they suit you, bully, and make yourself judge, jury and executioner. <sarcasm>I take my hat off to you.</sarcasm> Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:14, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Think about the average reader

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Last RM decision was too hasty?

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

What is Cantonese?

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 21:00, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Move?

Yue Chinese → Cantonese (Yue) —

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 13:30, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Closing ranks, it's called. Ohconfucius �digame! 14:35, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 14:52, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • Strongly Oppose reasons given before --LLTimes (talk) 21:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

That Kwami again!!!

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
  1. ^ Ethnologue
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