User talk:Justinrleung/Archive 20

IPA for Teochew in zh-pron

Just so you know, I've noticed and error in this. The Teochew pronunciation for the "o" vowel is not the same as the Hokkien pronunciation. In fact, Teochew "o" is the same as Hokkien "ō͘". Likewise, Hokkien "e" and Teochew "ê" are not the same sound. Hokkien "e" is more similar to the French "é" and Teochew "ê" is more similar to the French "è". Do you think you can make the changes? The dog2 (talk) 03:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Speaking of which, isn't the Cantonese "i" also supposed to change it's sound to a French "é" in "ing" endings? The dog2 (talk) 03:38, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Hmm, I don't know about these changes. For Teochew, it is true that it's slightly lower (more open) than /o/ and /e/, but it's probably not low enough to be /ɔ/ and /ɛ/. Most sources use /o/ and /e/ from what I can tell. For Cantonese, it's already changed (/ɪ/ vs. /i/); different sources use different symbols, but I think we should stick to /ɪ/. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I guess we can keep the Cantonese pronunciation then. I'm not sure how much exposure you have to Teochew since it's very rare in Canada, but my impression is that Teochew "o" sounds more like /ɔ/. Of course, the caveat is that I am more familiar with Hokkien than Teochew, though in Singapore, they are the largest and second largest Chinese dialect groups respectively, so I've had a fair bit of exposure to both. See [1] (about 22:13 to 22:27) and [2] for examples on how the Teochew "o" is pronounced. Likewise, see [3] for an example on how to pronounce the Teochew "ê". Aside from the tone difference, the difference in the vowel of 茶 is noticeable different between Hokkien and Teochew for me. What do you think? The dog2 (talk) 04:26, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: I don't think we should change it unless there's a reliable source backing it (not just videos). I know you're probably more familiar with Teochew than me, and I'm not doubting your intuitions/perception, but vowels are tricky. Also, there's no need to make the distinction between /e/ and /ɛ/ in Teochew since they're not contrastive. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:32, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

OK, I see what you're saying. I agree with your point on the /e/ and /ɛ/, but with /ɔ/ and /o/, it could cause confusion between "o" and "ou", since Teochew "ou" does sound similar to /o/ (though it is subtly different). As for reliable sources, the guy doing the explanations in two of those videos is a university professor of Teochew, so I'd generally trust his pronunciation. In fact, while there are of course many exceptions, Hokkien "o" often corresponds with Teochew "o", and Hokkien "o͘" often corresponds with Teochew "ou". The dog2 (talk) 04:49, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: It's all notation, to be honest. We write "ou" as /ou/, so no confusion would be made with "o" /o/. It's not about who's pronouncing things (any Teochew native speaker would do), but if it's actually written down in IPA. Of course, many sources rely on impression/perception, so it's not necessarily truly reliable. That said, published sources are more "reliable" than us trying to listen to things. I've found this on Singaporean Teochew, and indeed she uses /ɔ/ and /ɛ/. I don't know if this should apply to all varieties of Teochew, though. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 05:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

The Mandarin IPA is fairly detailed. I think it wouldn't hurt. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 07:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@Suzukaze-c: True, but I don't know if we have the resources to have something more detailed for Teochew. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:01, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘While of course there are other differences we can listen out for, in Singapore, one of the things we use to distinguish a Hokkien and a Teochew speaker is from how they pronounce those vowels I mentioned. And least in the Singaporean context, the word 好 would be pronounced /ho⁵³/ by a Hokkien speaker and /hɔ⁵²/ by a Teochew speaker. The dog2 (talk) 19:21, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Expand table for Teochew and Hainanese

Just wondering if this would be worth it. I'm no expert in this, but if someone has the resources, I think adding Chenghai, Jieyang, Chaoyang, Puning and Shanwei (and I'm not sure if Lufeng is significant enough) will probably give us a better idea on the regional variations of Teochew. And for Hainanese, perhaps Sanya and Qionghai should get entries too. Sanya is of course Hainan's main tourist destination (at least for Chinese domestic tourists), and the Qionghai dialect is what Hainanese opra is based on, and in fact, besides Wenchang, Qionghai was the other main source of Hainanese immmigrants to Southeast Asia in the early 20th century. The dog2 (talk) 19:17, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: We definitely could expand. Jieyang and Chaoyang can definitely be added cuz I have some resources. (I could probably borrow the book on Chenghai dialect from my university's library when the self-isolation is over.) I don't think I have any resources on Puning, Shanwei or Lufeng. The research on Hainanese seems to be very limited. I think Qionghai and Wanning are doable (though coverage is seriously limited). I don't think I have any resources on Sanya. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:57, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

There used to be more resources online, but many of the government websites are down or have taken down the e-books of 地方志 for some reason. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I know that the Sanya dialect is definitely quite distinctive because when I made a trip to Hainan, my Hainanese relatives had difficulty understanding the Hainanese spoken in Sanya, and they had to resort to speaking Mandarin to communicate. I just unfortunately don't have the resources. And speaking of Shanwei, didn't you say that Shanwei city proper has some differences from Haifeng? I don't have dictionaries, but I can try to watch some news broadcasts from Shanwei and see if I can pick up some words from there. Shanwei dialect is actually some sort of a curious halfway state between Hokkien and Teochew proper, so I can often figure things out. With regards to dialects of Teochew, 潮州音字典 sometimes provides information regarded the regional pronunciations of Puning and Chenghai. The dog2 (talk) 20:05, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Every dialect is worth including, but it's about what we can do. Sanya seems to be out of the question for now. I'm not sure about what dialect they actually use in Shanwei news broadcasts. I don't know enough about the sociolinguistics of the area to know whether they're using the speech of Shanwei (proper) or Haifeng dialect (which seems to be more prestigious in the area?). As for Teochew, pronunciation is one thing we could expand for Puning and Chenghai, but not vocabulary items (yet). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 20:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

OK, I guess we can add those then. Speaking of which, maybe we should add some more Cantonese entries. I think Huazhou should probably be added for instance, since it's a pretty unique Cantonese dialect that speakers from Guangzhou have difficulty understanding. Perhaps Zhaoqing, Gaozhou, Maoming and Qingyuan should also get entries under Cantonese. I can look through that Guangdong TV variety show to find expressions for these tables. — This unsigned comment was added by The dog2 (talk • contribs) at 01:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC).

@The dog2: We have lots of Cantonese already. Qingyuan is already there. We don't have Zhaoqing (proper), but we do have Gaoyao. Maoming, Gaozhou and Huazhou are interesting, but I haven't found good resources on those dialects. 誰語爭鋒 is an interesting show, but we need to be a little more careful (as I've said many times). The choice of characters is often questionable (the scholars, while generally okay, tend to think/guess on the spot). It is also unclear which dialect they're talking about - they often identify the dialect by the prefecture-level city, which could cover many different dialects. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:34, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Depends on which prefecture-level city. For Zhuhai for instance, they will say Doumen if it's Doumen, because the Doumen dialect is so different from Zhuhai proper. In Zhuhai proper, the dialect is very similar to standard Cantonese, and I had no communication issues. They also tell you which specific city for the questions involving the prefecture level cities of Jiangmen and Maoming. The dog2 (talk) 02:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Not for all cases, and when they don't specify for Jiangmen, I don't think they're usually talking about Jiangmen (proper, specifically Baisha subdistrict). Of course, this needs to be taken case by case. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 03:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. In some cases it's pretty obvious though. For Zhuhai, Sze Yap Cantonese has very distinctive phonology, so you can easily tell Doumen apart from Zhuhai city proper. But yes, I see what you mean. The first time I watched the show, I was actually surprised to hear the Zhuhai representative speaking Sze Yap, because I only heard regular Cantonese when I visited Zhuhai myself. That said, I only visited Zhuhai city proper and did not go to Doumen. The dog2 (talk) 14:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Speaking of which, I don't think there's any harm in adding some of those other dialects we have limited resources for to the module. In many of our tables, we leave those entries blank, so perhaps we can have them there so if a native speaker or someone with the right resources comes by, they can contribute. The dog2 (talk) 15:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

That is true. I'll add some of these when I have a chance. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 15:43, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Teochew equivalent of 錯

So what's the correct character for the Teochew equivalent of 錯 then? I can't seem to find it in any dictionary, but I feel that it should be in the synonyms list. The dog2 (talk) 22:37, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I've seen 誕 or 賺. I'm not sure which. The pronunciation is dan7. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 23:21, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Module:zh/data/dial-syn/男人

Should we clearly indicate that it's the 查埔 pronunciation for 丈夫 in Module:zh/data/dial-syn/男人? There may be confusion for inexperienced readers otherwise. RcAlex36 (talk) 03:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@RcAlex36: I've made some adjustments to the entries. Let me know what you think. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:05, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Looks good to me. Thanks. RcAlex36 (talk)

徛 vs 蹛

I did a search in iTaigi and 徛 did not come out. Only 蹛 did. So I was not adding this blindly. I would have left it blank if both came up, but only one did. So given that, I don't think I'm being unreasonable to presume that only 蹛 is used in Taiwan. The dog2 (talk) 07:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: I'm guessing you just searched for the Mandarin word (which is not enough). Sense 2 of 徛 in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 is "住、居住". One more thing: do not include Tainan when there's one word used - we just need two representatives of Taiwan when we don't have enough data. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:50, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Isn't standard Taiwanese supposed to be based on the Tainan dialect, in the same way that standard Cantonese is based on the Guangzhou dialect? The dog2 (talk) 07:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: It used to be a prestigious dialect, but the Kaohsiung dialect seems to be more representative now. The main feature of the Tainan dialect that differs from General Taiwanese is the -ioⁿ rime, which is -iuⁿ in General Taiwanese. The pronunciations in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 are based on the phonology of Kaohsiung for the primary reading and of Taipei for its secondary reading. (See this.) I have 臺灣閩南語辭典, which is based on the Tainan dialect, so that's why I sometimes add words based on it. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 08:01, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

So anyway, in this case, do you think it's safe to say that 蹛 is General Taiwanese? The dog2 (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Yes, but I wouldn't add it to the table because it's committing it to specific locations rather than "General Taiwanese". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:03, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

How about we add it with a note, say "GT", that it is General Taiwanese and not associated with any particular region? The dog2 (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: I generally use that when we have data on the 10 locations in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典, but there are still words used in General Taiwanese that haven't been assigned to any region. I've already added Tainan anyway based on 臺灣閩南語辭典, so I don't think it's that necessary. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 21:14, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Ojisan/obasan for Taiwan

Should we add these to the dialect synonyms table for Taiwanese. I know that in Taiwan, people commonly use the Japanese ojisan and obasan for uncle and aunty respectively, which is a legacy of Japanese colonial rule. The dog2 (talk) 04:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Please see our entries 歐吉桑／欧吉桑 (ōujísāng) and 歐巴桑／欧巴桑 (ōubāsāng). At least one has a reference. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: From what I know, these two terms are not used for family members, but for "uncle/auntie" as used in Singapore and Hong Kong, especially middle-aged. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

半夜

I created the dialectal synonyms module for this, so could you maybe please have a look and add in the equivalents in Hakka and maybe Fuzhou Hua or Shanghainese. The dog2 (talk) 23:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2:  Done (for now - there's probably more to add, but I'll leave at this for now). I don't know what made you think you could put 半暝 into every Taiwanese location. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I thought this would be consistent throughout Hokkien since it was fundamental vocabulary. The only variation I've ever heard is in pronunciation, but not lexicon. The dog2 (talk) 01:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Please do not assume based on your own knowledge. I've given you many warnings. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:07, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

拍 in Penang

The Penang Hokkien dictionary only shows "mau1" and not 拍, so I'm wondering where you got this from. The dog2 (talk) 01:38, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Look up phak3, which is also listed as a synonym of mau1. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:44, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Cantonese equivalent of 罵

Hey there. As we all know, one of them is 鬧, but I heard another one in a video that sounds something like "chap". Do you have any idea what it is? See [4] (around 7:32). The dog2 (talk) 06:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Ah I see, that's 插. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:10, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

成天

Hi Justin. Was just wondering why we give Pronunciation 1 and 2 here? A different pronunciation for Min Nan has not been provided. ---> Tooironic (talk) 19:26, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Tooironic: I think it's just that the definition under pronunciation 1 isn't used in Min Nan. I'm not sure if we should combine them though. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

All good. I was just curious. I have been compiling this list for a while. 僅供參考. ---> Tooironic (talk) 20:41, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Lufeng or Haifeng

I got most of the expressions that I added recently from this video. I'm happy your assessment but it doesn't sound like Lufeng to me. I think the word for "home" in Lufeng is 內, while he uses 厝. The dog2 (talk) 13:23, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: I mean the video itself says it's 海豐, so it's okay as a source. (Do you have a source that says 內 is used in Lufeng?) Just remember to put the link in your edit summary, or else it's hard to verify. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 20:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

In this video (around 0:24) it sounds like he sings "轉內". And in fact, it seems like he use 呾 instead of 講 like they do in Haifeng. The dog2 (talk) 21:00, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: I see, very interesting! — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 21:04, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

By the way, for labelling purposes, do we consider the Shanwei dialects to be Hokkien or Teochew? I find it has features of both, but because Shanwei is in Guangdong, the dialects there were traditionally considered to be dialects of Teochew. The dog2 (talk) 21:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: I think it should be considered Teochew, but for labelling, when we need to be specific, it should just be "Haifeng Min", "Shanwei Min", etc. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 21:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Template issues

I remember {{lb|zh|mainland China}} used to give the same display result as {{lb|zh|Mainland China}}—(Mainland China), but {{lb|zh|mainland China}} seems to be no longer working. I checked, and {{lb|zh|mainland}} and {{lb|zh|Mainland}} aren't working either. Any idea why this is happening? RcAlex36 (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@RcAlex36: I've noticed as well, but I can't seem to figure out why. @Erutuon, Suzukaze-c, any idea why this is happening? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:14, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@RcAlex36: I've confirmed that somehow the aliases "mainland China", "mainland", "Mainland" are not present in the output of Module:labels/data, when they should have been transferred from Module:labels/data/regional, but I haven't figured out why yet. (The search-and-replace dialog in the CodeEditor is malfunctioning for me at the moment, so it's a bit more difficult than usual to debug the problem.) — Eru·tuon 19:42, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay, fixed. There was a typo in an edit of Module:labels/data/regional by User:Julia that caused the aliases defined up to that point to vanish. — Eru·tuon 22:58, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Tone sandhi in Teochew

Although I'm not the most familiar with IPA, I noticed that unlike for Hokkien, tone sandhi doesn't seem to be reflected for Teochew, whose tone sandhi system is just as complex as in Hokkien. Is there a way to rectify this? Also, if you have the resources, could we indicate the pronunciation differences between Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang, just as we do for Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou in the case of Hokkien? The dog2 (talk) 23:45, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Tone sandhi is shown for Teochew (although I'm unsure if the values are correct). Which page are you not seeing tone sandhi? For dialectal differences, it might take a little longer. I could definitely try to work on making it into the system if I have time. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 23:56, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I was looking at the page for 大人, but maybe it's just the case that tone sandhi does not apply in that instance. The dog2 (talk) 00:58, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Yup. There's no sandhi when the first character has a 7th tone (at least according to some sources - other sources say it changes to 12). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:36, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

麵薄

To answer your question in the comment, in the Singaporean context, 麵薄 refers to the type of noodles used. The dish you see in the picture would be called 肉脞麵. 麵薄 can be used in numerous different noodle dishes and likewise, you can also use other types of noodles in 肉脞麵. The dog2 (talk) 06:17, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: I think this is mostly a SE Asian word (especially Singapore and JB, and maybe Teochew as well). The second definition is probably wrong then. I also have huge doubts on the Hokkien pronunciation (probably should be poh8 rather than pok8 - but I don't have a source for this). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:36, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I've always pronounced it as pok8, but I could be mispronouncing it. Speaking of which, I wonder if 麵囝 is a uniquely Singaporean term. I know 幼麵 is not because I've heard it used in Hong Kong. The dog2 (talk) 06:40, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: 麵囝 probably is uniquely Singaporean. See this. 幼麵 may also be used in Mandarin, at least in Singapore. And it seems like 麵薄 should be poh8 rather than pok8 per this. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:33, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I've heard 幼麵 used in Mandarin before, but I wasn't sure if it was standard. I will say though that it is common for us to just code switch to the Hokkien name even when speaking Mandarin. The dog2 (talk) 14:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

昌吉卦

@Tooironic Is the term 昌吉卦 supposed to be a common noun or a proper noun? I have been thinking of making definitions for all 125 gua of the Lingqijing. --Apisite (talk) 10:31, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@Apisite: I'm not sure. Before you create these, though, are these gua attestable outside of Lingqijing? If not, I don't think they should have entries. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:47, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I have no idea about these terms. ---> Tooironic (talk) 19:41, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung, Tooironic: That's why I made a selfly subpage. --Apisite (talk) 11:53, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

銀針粉

I was wondering how we should do the dialectal synonyms table for this one. I'm not sure if a standard Mandarin name even exists, so I don't know what we would call the table, but in Singapore, we call it 米篩目 in Hokkien and 老鼠粉 in Cantonese. I'm not sure what the local Mandarin name is because everyone just codeswitches to the Hokkien or Cantonese name. The dog2 (talk) 17:49, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: We could probably have 米苔目 as the Mandarin term - it's the Mandarin term used in Taiwan. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:50, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Treating Cantonese as a synonym of Mandarin? Can I start adding Scots as a synonym of English? Someone explain how synonyms can be applied to words in closely related languages. Iambluemon (talk) 22:30, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@Iambluemon: Since we have put all varieties of Chinese under the Chinese header, we can do this. It's probably better to call it "dialectal equivalents", but "dialectal synonyms" works. Scots is currently treated as a separate header, so we wouldn't have Scots words as synonyms under English. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:23, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Add hainamese

Hi could you add nan-pron-Hainan to zh module pron thank you. — This unsigned comment was added by 111.65.47.107 (talk) at 17:14, 12 May 2020 (UTC).

Hi, it will be added eventually, but there needs to be some things worked out (like tone sandhi). Also, our module will be following the Hainanese Transliteration Scheme - please do not make changes that "fit" IPA better. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:32, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Hey, I'm just curious what else in Hainanese tone sandhi need to be worked out. I'm reading the Wikipedia article of 海口话 and the rules look straightforward to me, though it seems that in the Haikou dialect, the sandhi is almost negligible, unlike in Wenchang dialect, which seems to be more evident. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 01:10, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: I don't know how the tone categories in Haikou dialect correspond to the Wenchang dialect's tones. Hainanese pinyin is designed for Wenchang dialect. Haikou basically doesn't have tone sandhi, but I'll have to figure out how we can adapt Hainanese pinyin to it. If you're interested, maybe you can try? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:36, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Some complications with using Hainanese pinyin for the Haikou dialect:

1. Presence of finals in Haikou not found in Wenchang (given my limited sources of Wenchang) like "ɔp" and "ɔm", maybe it could be written as "ob" and "om"

2. Differentiation of "ɛ" from "e", "ok" from "ɔk", and "iong" from "iɔng"

3. With tones, what's weird is that in Hainanese Transliteration Scheme, I see 8 tones that to me correspond to the 8 tones found in Haikou dialect, but it seems that Wenchang dialect only has 6 isolated tones (but maybe something is differentiated in the tone sandhi). As for Haikou dialect, the 8 tones as numbered in the Chinese article of 海口话 looks like it corresponds to the 8 tones found in the Hainanese Transliteration Scheme.

Just wondering, is your idea to use the same romanization for both Haikou and Wenchang in Wiktionary? I guess that'll be less confusing, and more similar to what we did in Hokkien. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 00:01, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: I think using Hainanese Transliteration Scheme for both Haikou and Wenchang would make the most sense, but as you've pointed out, there are lots of issues that need to be examined carefully before we make it public. I'll be completing User:Justinrleung/Wenchang phonology soon, but even with what we have, you can see tones are a messy issue. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:33, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

功能界別

I just added functional constituency as an English entry but I can't make heads or tails of the Chinese term, specifically 界別. Is it Cantonese? I can see "taxonomic kingdom" in a few Chinese–English dictionaries, but otherwise the results on Google just relate back to HK functional constituencies. —Nizolan ^(talk) 16:39, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Nizolan: Hanyu Da Cidian defines 界別 as "劃分；區別". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:47, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks—I noticed a few Hong Kong government documents where it's used to refer to an economic sector more generally like "the IT sector" = 資訊科技界別, though that doesn't seem to be a definition we have for either 劃分 or 區別 (but I guess it would parallel the Latin etymology of "sector"). Afaik the normal Mandarin translation is 部門. Should the literal gloss for 功能界別 then be "functional sector"? —Nizolan ^(talk) 16:57, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Nizolan: Yeah, that seems right. The "sector" usage is probably a Hong Kong usage. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:57, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Part of speech

@Tooironic, @Suzukaze-c Is "idiom" allowed as a part of speech for Chinese chengyus? Most chengyus on this site use it, but it is explicity disallowed in Wiktionary:Entry_layout#Part_of_speech. I would appreciate if there is a ruling on this issue. RcAlex36 (talk) 07:17, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@RcAlex36: I think we may need to start a vote on this for this to be allowed. The status quo for Chinese seems to go against WT:EL, but it would be very painful to go through each chengyu and change it. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:39, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Teochew

Hey there. I'm just wonder if these might be helpful for you. I still think the pronunciation module for Teochew needs to be tweaked because the tones are slightly different for Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang, while when you get to Shanwei, the vowels change quite significantly to the point that it's almost like Hokkien (and even some vocabulary follows Hokkien rather than standard Teochew). 林倫倫 is an actual university lecturer who is an expert in Teochew, just like 周長輯 is a university lecturer who is an expert in Hokkien, so I think books written by him can be considered reliable and authoritative. The dog2 (talk) 04:02, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

@The dog2: Thanks. I've got some of these books already. I just haven't got to implementing them into the pronunciation modules. Also, the Teochew romanization doesn't seem to work for dialects in Shanwei (like Haifeng) because these dialects usually distinguish -n from -ng (like Hokkien). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:42, 19 May 2020 (UTC)