Talk:Hokkien

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Wrong pronunciation of "o" in Hokkien‎‎ is being used[edit]

@Freelance Intellectual: No offense, but your reverting the pronounciation of Hokkien back to the wrong one is not an improvement to the article.

As a native speaker of Hokkien, I would like to point out that the correct pronunciation of "o" in Hokkien is o as in log, not o as in hot. Some other Hokkien speakers on Forvo also demonstrated the same pronunciation. And the source lists the same one as a suggested pronunciation as well.

The MOS:PRON you cited also says "and occasional exceptions may apply". Therefore, to avoid misleading readers, I suggest that the article uses the correct pronunciation (/ho-kien/). Matt Smith (talk) 15:43, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As the name and the fact it links the transcription to Help:IPA/English imply, IPAc-en is about English only. Nardog (talk) 21:43, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me, but do you mean we don't have to stick to IPAc-en and can use /ho-kien/ in this case? Matt Smith (talk) 03:01, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What? No. "ho-kien" and "ˈhɒkɪɛn" in the source are both about English and convey the exact same information, just in different notations (see explanatory notes). The pronunciation of 福建 in Hokkien ([hɔk˥kiɛn˨˩]) is already in the Names section. Nardog (talk) 03:13, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's unfortunate. Wikipedia is not supposed to communicate misinformation to readers, and for this reason, I'm citing the WP:Ignore all rules policy and propose that the pronunciation be changed to /ho-kien/. Please let me know whether you have any objection about that.
CC User:Freelance Intellectual. Matt Smith (talk) 05:29, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The current transcription is cited and verified. "/ho-kien/" isn't. And like I just said, it represents the same exact pronunciation by English speakers as /ˈhɒkiɛn/ does, just using conventions not found elsewhere on Wikipedia. Replacing IPA with it makes no sense. Nardog (talk) 05:51, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Matt Smith and Nardog: I agree with Nardog. /hɒkiɛn/ is correct for the usual pronunciation of "Hokkien" as an English word (including by bilingual Hokkien-English speakers in South-East Asia). In some articles for languages, the lead gives both the English pronunciation and the pronunciation in the language itself, which typically differ, since languages do not have the same sounds, e.g. vowel length is phonemic in English but not Hokkien, so IPA ː is used when transcribing English but not Hokkien. For some examples of articles giving pronunciations in English and the original language, see Sinhala language and Persian language. In the case of the Hokkien article, the name of the language is already discussed in its own section (as Nardog pointed out), and multiple names are also given in the infobox, and so I don't think this information needs to be repeated in the lead. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 09:17, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think such a discussion will go no where as long as you adopt suggestion from the source rather than from native Hokkien‎‎ speakers.
After a closer inspection, I found that the source does not seem to be a reliable source. Please let me know what you think about this. Matt Smith (talk) 12:51, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I come from a Hokkien-speaking family and speak Hokkien on a daily basis. But in any case, it doesn't matter what Hokkien speakers say in Hokkien (including my own family), because the IPA in the lead of the article is giving the pronunciation of "Hokkien" in English, as both Nardog and I have been trying to explain. The article also gives IPA for "Hok-kiàn" as pronounced in Hokkien in the "Names" section ([hɔk˥kiɛn˨˩]). I appreciate that you care deeply about Hokkien. Please continue to care, but please also realise that giving the Hokkien pronunciation of "Hok-kiàn" is not the same as giving the English pronunciation of "Hokkien". They are different, just as the Taiwanese/Hokkien pronunciation of "Tâi-gí"/"Tâi-gú" is not the same as the English pronunciation of "Taiwanese". Freelance Intellectual (talk) 13:25, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have added an additional reference, to the Oxford English Dictionary, which supports /ˈhɒkiɛn/ for both British and American English. Note that Wikipedia uses a broad cross-dialect transcription (see: H:IPA-EN), and OED's /ɑ/ vowel for American English corresponds to Wikipedia's /ɒ/ (see: Phonological history of English open back vowels#Unrounded LOT). The OED also gives a variant American pronunciation as /ˈhoʊkiɛn/, but I think it would be confusing and unnecessary to give an uncommon variant pronunciation in the lead of the article. The OED does not give /ˈhɔːkiɛn/, which was the suggestion that began this discussion. An example of the unrounded American realisation of /ɒ/ can be seen at this point in this video: Meta’s Zuckerberg Reveals First Speech to Speech AI Translation System (With Hokkien). Freelance Intellectual (talk) 08:53, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm seeing that in the Wasabi article, Japanese pronunciation (pronounced [waꜜsabi]) which based on Help:IPA/Japanese is used. Is there Help:IPA/Hokkien or similar guidance we can use for adding the Hokkien pronunciation to at least let readers know how "Hokkien" is actually pronounced in Hokkien? Matt Smith (talk) 03:20, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Freelance Intellectual: I don't think your restoring an unreliable source is in accordance with Wikipedia's policy WP:Verifiability#Self-published_sources. The author is not an established subject-matter expert and has no work in the relevant field which has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, at least not from what I know.

We do not allow exceptions just because you think it is "correct and well-researched". I think the otherwise, by the way. But what you think or what I think does not matter. Wikipedia has its own policy.

The WP:Reliable sources content guideline also says: "The verifiability policy is strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, and sections of articles—without exception". Please do a self-revert. --Matt Smith (talk) 07:02, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English is a well-respected reference work which is cited not only in this article, but also in 16 other articles on Wikipedia. Please note I did not add these references myself, but rather this reflects that many other editors believe this to be a reliable source. The homepage of the dictionary also includes an incomplete list of other works that cite it, and Google Scholar records 19 academic publications that cite it: Lee: A dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English - Google Scholar. I believe this more than meets the requirements of WP:RS. To help us reach consensus, I would like to ask for another opinion, from @Justinrleung:, who was involved in the previous discussion of the pronunciation of "Hokkien" in 2017, and who is still active on Wikipedia. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 08:12, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Verifiability#Self-published_sources does not say self-published sources can be used when "many other editors believe this to be a reliable source".
Furthermore, is the author a subject-matter expert? From what I could find on the internet, he majors in the law field, not in the linguistics field. So he does not appear to qualify as a subject-matter expert in this case.
Regarding your link of Google Scholar, I found that many of those publications are about Singlish or other Southeast Asian Englishes. That brings up another question: The Dictionary of Singlish and Singaporean English itself is about Singlish, not about English. We probably could consider taking it into account if this article is about Singlish. But since this article is about an English word, I doubt the source is a suitable one. Matt Smith (talk) 10:50, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Singapore English is English. South-East Asian English is English. As another example of the dictionary's status as a scholarly work on English, it is listed by the National University of Singapore Libraries as an online resource for the English Language, alongside links to other prestigious institutions such as the International Phonetic Association and the Linguistic Society of America: BrowZine and Other Resources - English Language - LibGuides at National University of Singapore. As for its relevance, there are some names for languages and places (e.g. Gaelic, Samoa) which are pronounced differently by English speakers in that place and elsewhere in the English-speaking world. As South-East Asia is both an important region for Hokkien and also a region where English is widely spoken, it is relevant to include a source for the pronunciation of "Hokkien" in this region, not just for its pronunciation in the UK and USA. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 11:43, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Matt Smith and Freelance Intellectual: I have no opinion on whether The Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English should be included as a source in the entry. The OED should probably be considered the main source here and is probably sufficient for the purposes of the article. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 13:42, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. I'm fine to set aside the question about Singlish for now. But still, the self-published source does not conform to the WP:Verifiability#Self-published_sources policy. I think the OED source is sufficient. Matt Smith (talk) 14:06, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned above, the pronunciation of "Hokkien" in South-East Asia is relevant, and not indicated by the OED. I would welcome suggestions for a better source for the pronunciation of "Hokkien" in English in South-East Asia. I acknowledge that the dictionary under discussion is self-published, but Wikipedia's policy is not an outright ban on such sources. I believe it satisfies WP:SCHOLARSHIP, as it has entered mainstream academic discourse. The work is considered reliable by experts in the field, e.g. Professor of English Linguistics Jakob R. E. Leimgruber writes that "the entries, etymologies, definitions, etc., are of a very high standard": Teaching and Learning Guide for: Singapore English (Leimgruber, 2011). Freelance Intellectual (talk) 14:36, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SCHOLARSHIP, to my understanding, refers to those that have been published by reputable academic institutions, not those that are self-published. Please see the second item in WP:SCHOLARSHIP:
  • Reliable scholarship – Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.
As mentioned before, the author also does not qualify as a subject-matter expert, according to WP:SELFPUBLISH. This policy is strictly applied and without exception, according to WP:RS.
The Oxford English Dictionary source alone is sufficient for the purposes of pronunciation. In my opinion, the lede does not need to have one extra, debatable source for that. Matt Smith (talk) 03:38, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:V is strictly applied (claims must be verifiable), but WP:RS allows exceptions (rules about reliability have exceptions), as stated at the top of each page. With any self-published work, we need to be very careful, to establish whether or not the work is reliable. Previous work by the same author is one possible source of evidence, but not the only source of evidence. As stated in WP:SCHOLARSHIP, "One may be able to confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking what scholarly citations it has received". There is ample evidence, discussed above, that the dictionary has entered mainstream academic discourse and is regarded as reliable by the academic community. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When WP:RS says WP:V is strictly applied, it does not say it only refers to "claims must be verifiable". Therefore, it appears to be that the entirety of WP:V is strictly applied.
Regarding WP:SCHOLARSHIP, I would say Reliable scholarship is a prerequisite of Citation counts. That is, the "source" mentioned in Citation counts refers to those that have been published by well-regarded academic publishers. A self-published work is not one such scholarship to begin with.
Both WP:V and WP:RS require the author of a reliable self-published work to be an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. The author in this case clearly does not meet that requirement. Matt Smith (talk) 05:45, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, if we still cannot reach a consensus, maybe the only solution is escalating this issue to the next level. You can express your opinion and/or let me know you disagree, and I'll proceed. --Matt Smith (talk) 07:06, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note that it says "when", not "only when". It is not a requirement, but rather a guideline. A self-published reference work compiled over many years, with an extensive bibliography, with input from multiple contributors, and with substantial academic recognition, is not a usual case of self-publishing. I hope we can reach consensus.
@Nardog, Justinrleung, and Valjean: you have edited this article recently. Do you have any thoughts? It seems there are two issues here:
1. Is the Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English a reliable source? Rejecting it in all cases would affect 16 other Wikipedia articles as well, overturning implicit consensus. I believe the source is reliable, based on the evidence I have outlined above.
2. Is a source necessary for the pronunciation of "Hokkien" in South-East Asia? I thought it would be helpful, as I have mentioned above, in contrast to cases like "Gaelic" (/ˈɡeɪlɪk/ vs /ˈɡalɪk/) and "Samoa" (/səˈmoʊə/ vs /ˈsaːmoa/). Justin(r)leung has expressed uncertainty about whether it's necessary in the lead. If we want to keep the lead simpler, perhaps it could be moved to the Names section. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 11:26, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For the time being, I have no plan to search for the 16 other Wikipedia articles and do something to them, though there is a possibility that I may accidentally run into any of them in the future.
Among the 19 academic publications that cites the self-published website, I noticed that 6 were written by the same author (JRE Leimgruber or J Leimgruber) and 2 by another same author (J Lambert). With this amount of different authors citing it, I would hesitate to say the self-published website is well-recognized. Of course, the policy does not define how notable is considered well-recognized, so interpretations can be subjective.
Justin(r)leung's expression, if I understand correctly, is more for using the Oxford English Dictionary source and retiring the self-published one. OED is obviously better and sufficient, so I see no need to have one extra disputable source for the pronunciation. --Matt Smith (talk) 08:40, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Justin. Reliability is not a binary; it's not like a source is either 100% reliable in any circumstance or unsuitable for any purpose. The dictionary in question falls under WP:SPS, and for the purpose of this article the OED is more than enough. That doesn't necessarily mean it should never be cited in any article. Nardog (talk) 10:38, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, so to summarise, I think we have consensus that we should remove this specific citation, but that it could be cited in other cases. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 13:13, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Nardog: I'm not sure I agree that's how the OED's transcription should be interpreted. The OED also has /i/ for the HAPPY vowel, but they used /ɪ/ in their transcription. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 19:07, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They don't use /i/ before vowels (e.g. [1]). But our Help:IPA/English being WP:DIAPHONEMIC, /i/ is the diaphoneme to use. Even if the OED didn't use /i/ anywhere for BrE, the fact it transcribes the same vowel with /i/ for AmE makes this clear. Nardog (talk) 19:17, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks for clarifying! — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 19:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And thanks for giving me an opportunity to clarify my botched edit summary ;) Nardog (talk) 19:32, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Include one more pronunciation[edit]

I just learned that there is an article for Taiwanese Hokkien, and I'm seeing that it includes two pronunciations. I know that those pronunciations are similar, but my point is that only including one pronunciation in this article is inappropriate, especially when another pronunciation is widely used among native Hokkien speakers. You can do a search for "Hokkien" on YouTube to verify that.

For the aforementioned reason, I would like to propose including one more pronunciation in the beginning of this article, that is, /ˈhoʊkiˌɛn/, as mentioned in the source.

Does anyone have objection? Matt Smith (talk) 05:58, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Added. --Matt Smith (talk) 02:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox, etc. problems[edit]

@Mlgc1998,

  1. I know it was a big edit, but I'm not sure this state is too much better, though it is a bit. the purpose of an infobox is to relate a key summary of an article at a glance. If you actually have to read or add footnotes to an infobox, it is likely not doing its job. See WP:INFOBOX and perhaps {{Infobox military conflict}} for some further discussion of this, maybe.
  2. re: "Hoklo": I appreciate that it was wrong in this case, but I try to use article names whenever possible, have you considered investigating whether Hoklo people should be moved to Hokkien people?

Remsense诉 16:14, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The infobox is completely overloaded, which defeats its purpose.
A further issue is that Ethnologue speaker figures for the Southern Min group as a whole have been applied to Hokkien, which is a subset. I realize that sometimes people say Minnan for Hokkien, but that's not what Ethnologue is doing. Kanguole 16:49, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not have access to Ethnologue, so I wasn't able to look for an answer to my question there: is there any RS that states an estimated total number of Hokkien speakers specifically? (As opposed to members of the people group broadly construed)—I was a bit surprised (but not overly so) that I couldn't find anyone putting forward a simple, if inexact figure like that. Remsense诉 16:54, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Mlgc1998, do you have any particular rationale for having reverted my reduction of the infobox? You've also wordlessly reverted many of my other attempts to bring the body of the article into compliance with site style guidelines, like overlinking. It seems enough of a pattern to seem possessive after a point. Remsense诉 04:55, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense
  1. I've condensed it a bit to that form now to improve the readability more there. The ones that I've put back to keep are mostly because some of those specific places or regions in the footnotes and dialects, particularly the countries lesser known to have existing Hokkien speakers are not well documented so besides that infobox, I'm not sure if they're documented in other wiki pages besides infoboxes, but ethnologue did document before that there were speakers too existing in those other countries and places and one could actually occasionally meet them online or irl too sometimes and there are a few indirect sources hinting at their existence but I suspect just understudied to not be mentioned that much at least on anglosphere sources we could more readily access.
  2. the issue with the name for the people of the ethnolinguistic group itself is mainly that someone else may keep putting it back to "Hoklo people", cuz either some Cantonese and/or Hakka speakers may put it back cuz historically they tend to generalize Southern Min languages speakers (usually Hokkien, Hai Lok Hong/Haklau, and Teochew speakers) as all "Hoklo" (學佬 /hɔːk̚² lou̯³⁵/ in Cantonese and 學佬 /hɔk̚⁵ lau³¹/ in Hakka) or people from Taiwan may keep putting it back to "Hoklo people" because they are more familiar with that term they more ordinarily use in Taiwan and people from Taiwan don't usually like the implications of "Hokkien people" (福建人) since to them, it still pertains to Fujian province that Taiwan long ago was once part of, but later got their own Taiwan province during Qing era, so there are people from Taiwan who will have the thinking that they are 臺灣人 (Taiwanese) now, not "Hokkien people" (福建人) anymore, especially there are also Taiwanese Hakka speakers in Taiwan who normally call the Taiwanese Hokkien speakers in Taiwan as "Hoklo" (學佬 /hok̚⁵ lo³¹/ in Hakka) to differentiate from themselves. Meanwhile in most Hokkien-speaking communities in Southeast Asia, native speakers have not typically heard of "Hoklo", like if you ask Hokkien-speaking elderlies and boomers that face-to-face, they'd give you confused looks, because from their historical perspective, at least those in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, and by extension those few around mainland southeast asia countries, the Hokkien-speakers there live together with multiple other chinese ethnolinguistic groups too so to them, calling themselves "Hokkien" to differentiate with those other groups makes sense and is the norm, then in the Philippines, usually the Hokkien-speakers are the only chinese ethnolinguistic group in a region most of the time, so to them, they themselves are the default average "Chinese people" in the Philippines, but language-wise, to differentiate with Mandarin and people-wise, to differentiate also with the rare few Cantonese in the Philippines, "Hokkien" might as well can also used and is also understood to refer to them, since they mostly came from Fujian (Hok-kiàn) too anyways, so in Southeast Asia, "Hokkien people" is completely fine, but for people at least in Taiwan and maybe some cantonese and hakka speakers, "Hoklo" is like what's normal for them and they might take issue with the name of that page being changed, especially people from taiwan are usually the ones who like to disassociate themselves with the country over the straits and are usually up in arms about their stance on the matter. For now at least on other pages where it does not have to choose just one, representing the reality at least is possible.
Mlgc1998 (talk) 06:23, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your dialogue and taking into account my concerns. I find the distinction regarding Hokkien and Hoklo ethnicity is not my foremost concern, and you know more than me do so I trust your choice there. My main concerns are ensuring the infobox carries information in the best way possible, namely:
  1. That it communicates key information at a glance. A rule of thumb is that: if a statement requires a footnote to make sense, it should likely be excluded from the infobox. Omission is better than overburdening the box to handle exhaustive lists, prose, or nuances—it is simply not designed for those, and the information is best served by the infobox giving the lightest summary which directs the reader to the body to learn more.
  2. That it only summarizes information already stated in the body of the article. This seems to largely be the case, but it's important that no piece of data is only related in the infobox.
  3. Also addressed is the concern above about your very high total population estimate. I think it may be preferable to leave the parameter blank if we don't have an explicit number, so as not to conduct original research
Here's my attempt, for reference. Having "China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia" for the |location= parameter might be a bit too short, but it's not so far off the mark. Remsense诉 06:42, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense Are you looking for the ethnologue sources for the population figures provided? I have the archived links for those:
China: China | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Taiwan: Taiwan | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Malaysia: Malaysia | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Singapore: Singapore | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Philippines: Philippines - Languages | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Indonesia: Indonesia - Languages | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Cambodia: Cambodia - Languages | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Hong Kong: Hong Kong - Languages | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Thailand: Thailand - Languages | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Brunei: Brunei - Languages | Ethnologue (archive.org)
Vietnam: [2]171.236.49.114: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia this random ip added it. not sure where that person got it from
If confused on any terminologies on what they mean in their explanations in ethnologue there, u may ask me what they meant there. like in china, they usually generalize Hokkien by calling it "Min Nan" and for years in wiktionary, we have used the "nan" language code for Hokkien by default because teochew used "zhx-teo" before and hainanese and luichew used a different code too before and other southern min languages have not been added and extensively studied yet. Mlgc1998 (talk) 07:19, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This ambiguity is a real problem: I want to reemphasize that omission is always better than papering over inaccurate information. These sources do not textually together say that there are 46 million+ Hokkien speakers, that is something you've pieced together in a way that likely constitutes an improper synthesis, which is original research. Remsense诉 07:32, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense the Ethnologue entry for China also writes "46,757,560", but if you dont believe that, that's the result of condensing all the numbers there before from the multiple countries that were written separately before. Idk if the number sounds surprising to those across the ocean but some of these numbers from some of those countries are actually old data already too. Hokkien speakers were historically the usual stereotypical chinese sea merchant people roaming around southeast asia and taiwan from southern fujian for the past centuries. In Taiwan, they literally outpopulate most everybody else there and there's a reason why historically the overseas chinese lingua franca in singapore, malaysia, philippines, indonesia, brunei was hokkien even tho there are also other chinese groups there cuz they outpopulated the other groups and were the first chinese group in those countries too. In the Philippines, the spanish friars during the late 1590s to 1600s decided to learn Hokkien for most of the 1600s cuz they thought Hokkien was the default "Chinese" when they came to southeast asia, not until a century later in the 1700s when they comprehended the vastness of the other more chinese languages in china. Can try to look at the supposed population figures as well in the lead of Cantonese and the infobox of Hakka and even the population figures per province of China. Those are big numbers and that's normal in Asia, especially China, where the population figures of each province are normally enormous even back then. Guangdong province's supposed 2020 population is literally 126,012,510 and Fujian province's 2020 population is supposedly 41,540,086, while Taiwan's 2022 population is supposedly 23,894,394. There's a reason why Hokkien was one of the languages chosen to send a short message clip on the Golden record of the Voyager mission. It's one of the languages in the world with a ton of speakers and descendants, just sadly overshadowed by other "Chinese". Mlgc1998 (talk) 08:01, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure why you assumed my issue was simple unfamiliarity with the fact that a lot of people speak Sinitic languages. The issue, like I've already said explicitly, and like Kanguole wrote explicitly above, is that your sources do not state the claim they are attached to: the Ethnologue entries are for Min Nan as a whole. Have you been writing this article treating the two as synonymous? They are not. Remsense诉 08:03, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense They are Still synonymous Now as of this writing and this was not decided by me, I mean look at Min Nan Wikipedia. It's been like that since like the early 2000s or something. I am not the one who has been treating them synonymously. you can question the mainlanders in China and the ROC government in Taiwan why they continue to think that way for the past decades. The | ISO request to split apart "nan" has not even been accepted yet, despite years it has been requested. Before it, | previous requests were denied as well. you must understand the history of what's been going on with this language and its closest kin in the past years and I've been telling you above that even in wiktionary, since the early 2000s, "nan" = Hokkien by default, because that was the only Southern Min that was widely known about and had extensive sources and the others were severely understudied, even tho there were a few dictionaries made for Teochew, Hainanese, Luichew/Leizhou and some others at least, which years later, people started putting them online too and later it dawned on people that it doesn't make a lot of sense to treat "Southern Min" or "Min Nan" as one language, so these past years, the wikipedia articles regarding this topic is being edited by different people trying to express that and those must be what you guys read. It has only been the past year or so at least in Wiktionary when the admins there have decided to stop using "Min Nan" and replace it all to "Southern Min" and treat Hokkien, Teochew, Hainanese, Leizhou Min (Luichew), and likely a few more in the future as legit independent languages, that they've de facto been acting as anyways for the past centuries already that people just didn't care or want to point out cuz oh the experts say they're a bunch of "Chinese dialects". If you can see the title of the infobox now, it says "Min Nan" under "Hokkien". This is not because past editors have put the name of a branch under the name of the language. This is because "Min Nan" is one of the vying names of the language that up till now, at least mainland china sources and the ROC MOE of Taiwan still stick to. Many scholars outside of China do not find this ideal that's why there are also pages now trying to explain and expound upon "Min Nan" as "Southern Min" and how its now a family or branch of languages while trying to extensively look into the other understudied next of kin of Hokkien. If you still don't believe it, I can show you a bunch of Hokkien dictionaries and all throughout mainland China sources and even Taiwan's (ROC) MOE treats Hokkien and Min Nan as synonymous but refuses to call it "Hokkien", cuz that word comes from 福建 Fujian and if they used it, it's as if they're accepting to call the language 福建話/福建话 (Fujian language), but Fujjian has many languages, which is why they stick to 閩南語/闽南语 "Min Nan language"/"Southern Min language". "Hokkien" just makes sense in English and other languages cuz it's literally the pronunciation of the place they come from in the language itself. If you look inside these and understand the entries there, the only "Southern Min" language there is Hokkien.
  • 洪惟仁 [Ang Uijin], ed. (2023). zh:《閩南地區方言地圖集》 [Dialectal Atlas of Southern Min]. Linguistic Society of Taiwan. ISBN 9789579906548.
  • "臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典" [Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan]. Ministry of Education, R.O.C. 2023.
  • "臺灣閩南語按呢寫". Ministry of Education, R.O.C. 2013.
  • 林宝卿 [Lin Baoqing], ed. (2007). 《普通话闽南方言常用词典》 Putonghua Minnan Fangyan Changyong Cidian [A Mandarin-Hokkien Dictionary of Commonly-Used Words]. Xiamen: Xiamen University Press. ISBN 978-7-5615-2903-4.
  • 周长楫 [Zhou, Changji], ed. (2006). 闽南方言大词典 MINNAN FANGYAN DA CIDIAN. Fuzhou: 福建人民出版社 [Fujian People's Publishing House]. ISBN 7-211-03896-9.
  • zh:董忠司, ed. (2001). 臺灣閩南語辭典 [Dictionary of Taiwanese Minnan]. Taipei: zh:五南圖書出版公司. ISBN 957-11-2270-X. OCLC 47853170.}
  • 厦门大学中国语言文学研究所汉语方言研究室, ed. (1982). 《普通话闽南方言词典》 Putonghua Minnan Fangyan Cidian. Fuzhou: Fujian People's Publishing House.
Otherwise, you can search in Google Books "Min Nan" and read how some of the texts treat it like, you will find some amount of them treating Min Nan and Hokkien as the same thing. The same can be said of "Amoy" but that's another can of worms. Mlgc1998 (talk) 09:49, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Friend, could I ask you to be a bit more brief? There are three sentences in what you've posted that directly reply to what I've said, and it's a bit much to read through it. You do not need to lecture me as if I am wholly unfamiliar with the topography of Sinitic languages. The point remains again, like Kanguole explicitly said above, that the Min Nan that is synonymous with Hokkien is not the Min Nan that Ethnologue has measured. Your citation to support the figure listed is incorrect and should be removed if this is your only source for it. If I had read this article to obtain my understanding like you've said, I would've come away with nothing because it is not good. You have created an extremely confusing content fork for a general audience to try to piece together because your treatment of terminology is rooted seemingly in anecdotal evidence (which I've also seen you try to cite directly while editing this article).Remsense诉 09:58, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The salient point for the speaker figures is that the Ethnologue page you've taken them from is talking about the Min Nan (Southern Min) group as a whole, also including Chao-Shan, Leizhou, Hainan and more (as can be seen from the Dialects section). The fact that some authors use Min Nan in a narrower sense doesn't mean that you can transfer Ethnologue's numbers to that subgroup. Kanguole 10:25, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense @Kanguole This is obviously new territory for both of you. This is not just a thing that "some" authors do. In fact what you're thinking has been historically the opposite. The idea to accept that it's many languages is a new thing these days even tho the de facto reality has been far divorced a long time ago. I hope you guys take some time to digest the situation as this has been a thing for decades and was always a troubling reality. In chinese society, this has always been swept under the rug.
Ethnologue follows what data each country provides it. From PRC (China) and ROC (Taiwan) government's de jure perspective and stance, "Chinese" zh is one monolanguage with dialects upon dialects and nan is one of those "dialect"/topolect (linguistic variety/language) they call "Min Nan" (閩南話/闽南话) that other countries also call either "Hokkien"/"Amoy"/"Min Nan"/"Southern Min"/"Banlam"/"Fukien"/"Fukienese"/"Fookien"/"Fu Kien"/"Fujianhua"/"Hoklo"/etc. and all those found closely related to it that are not widely known are considered under it as well as mere subdialects/accents as well of that one dialect in their eyes. Many likeminded people also think that way. This has been their orthodox viewpoint for the past centuries and it has not stopped. People living in other countries, such as those in Southeast Asia, see what the de facto reality really is, especially with all the overseas Chinese that have moved there for centuries. Here in English Wikipedia, people from Southeast Asia are typically the ones who know English, so you find articles trying to be accurate to tell you what the reality really is. Off course, the official data from China and ROC gov in Taiwan will continue with their orthodox perspective and the data provided will bound to be according to their canon, but it is the data they declare as Hokkien which to them is called "Min Nan" (閩南語/闽南语). Now Ethnologue and ISO and other international bodies have no say if that's how those countries want to report things, because of course, they provide the data from their land. Of course, other countries like Singapore and Malaysia, record them separately as they do. In other countries in Southeast Asia, the governments there are also not very clear on their idea of "Chinese", which some don't even take any ethnic census in the first place, so in a sense, I don't think you can ever find any sense of certainty in these data that Ethnologue treats as canon, especially many of them are outdated data and there has always been a level of questionability on each of them, but that is the available data and this doesnt just occur in Hokkien. The other "Chinese" languages are like this as well. Nobody can be sure about the accuracy of any of these data, but they are nonetheless the Ethnologue "canon". Now, if that sounds ridiculous, first time?
If you guys still don't get it, have some time to digest the situation cuz the de jure reality has always been ridiculous like this for decades, at least for Hokkien and other Sinitic languages, but the de facto situation minds its own business even if the records aren't clear. Mlgc1998 (talk) 12:56, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, you are doubling down on the fact that your figure is not actually verifiable, because it relies on this hidden bed of knowledge that only you are savvy enough to know about? That's original research, and I'm losing patience. We need a source that explicitly says Hokkien, and not Min Nan, which is treated differently by these sources, full stop. Otherwise, the figure needs to be removed, because you're basically making this article a content fork of Southern Min, which is an unacceptable thing to do to the readership. Remsense诉 13:02, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I usually would never think to do this, but Kanguole has been editing in this space for literally decades, and you need to cut out the smug tone or I'm taking it to ANI. Remsense诉 13:05, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pls don't misinterpret my tone. Explaining things like this and being rejected of simple information I state does not equal to being smug. If Kanguole has been editing here for decades. Why does he not know that China and Taiwan's gov has always interpreted "Min Nan" to mean Hokkien. Mlgc1998 (talk) 14:06, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How they interpret "Min Nan" would be relevant if we were citing them for the speaker figures. However, you want to cite the Ethnologue "Min Nan" entry, so what matters is what that entry means by "Min Nan", and they tell us: it's much more than Hokkien. (We don't know where Ethnologue got their figures: they don't say.) Kanguole 14:27, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kanguole This page IS in effect citing THEM. Ethnologue's data links back to them. PRC and ROC's institutions like MOE and Xiamen University are the ones who continue to perceive things that way. Don't blame me on what they did. I've had my time digesting what they did years ago. I've pressed on taking into account what those institutions have done cuz they continue to do so even NOW. The very reason you guys think otherwise is a result of the work of editors like us who keep explaining the de facto situation despite the existence of their different interpretation. Mlgc1998 (talk) 14:34, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, you are citing Ethnologue. Your assertions about Ethnologue's sourcing are unsupported by evidence, would be OR, and indeed contradict what Ethnologue itself says it means by "Min Nan". Kanguole 14:44, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kanguole Stop being disingenious, ok? If you've been editing wiki for decades, pls act accordingly. I know as much that wiki is large enough for one to not know these dirty little truths on specific topics like this. If I am to be the bearer of truth to you guys, stop pinning it on me. These are not MY assertions. Ethnologue uses state-backed data, as they do from other sources I've come to be familiar with that I'm not allowed to disclose. I've provided multiple links above already coming from ROC MOE (Ministry of Education) of Taiwan and Xiamen University under the Ministry of Education of China. All that is needed is to know how to read Mandarin and at least be familiar with the Hokkien language and for some of them are sadly a paid copy, cuz otherwise the so called evidence will be staring at you blankly right in front of you. If that is not something one is capable of, I have also even provided already to make use of Google Books and search for "Min Nan" and read through some texts showing how numerous of them treat "Min Nan" as synonymous to "Hokkien", particularly usually by scholars from China or Taiwan and sometimes even Singapore or Malaysia or even the United States. We like to use "Hokkien" now in English at least simply because of at least Medhurst and it's convenient for us English speakers or generally non-Chinese speakers, but "Hokkien" is not preferred by scholars from China and some in Taiwan and many normally use "Min Nan". If you're not able to read Chinese characters or have not done what I've mentioned prior, perhaps that's why you still think now that there's no evidence, when it has been staring at you blankly in front of you, "閩南"/"闽南".
Hmm here's an idea since the language barrier might be problem for you guys. In the archived ethnologue link for China, it says in the "Chinese, Min Bei" section "The Chinese now divide Chinese Min into 5 major varieties:". There's that hint for you how Ethnologue has recorded things as per how China perceives these languages. Meanwhile, the info explained in the "Chinese, Min Nan" section is them trying to explain more dialects under "Min Nan", where so called Min Nan (Hokkien) itself is also a "Chinese major variety" and all those other "dialects" listed according to China are all "Min Nan". Now, previously I've presented above sources showing dictionaries of "Min Nan". If you know how to read Mandarin and Hokkien, you can easily see that the book only contains Mandarin and Hokkien and "Putonghua" is referring to Mandarin, while "Minnan" is referring to Hokkien. Mlgc1998 (talk) 15:46, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For example, Ethnologue (23rd ed.) gives a figure of 27.7 million speakers of "Chinese, Min Nan" in China. It doesn't give a reference, just a year. You assert that they got that figure from the Chinese government, and that the figure given excluded Chao-Shan, Leizhou, Hainan and the rest. You haven't provided direct evidence of that, relying instead on a chain of inference from ambiguities elsewhere.
Back in the 18th edition, the entry read "25,700,000 in China (Johnstone and Mandryk 2001)". The reference cited there is Operation World. Are they still using the same source (which is updated regularly) or something else? They don't say.
They do, however, indicate that by Min Nan they mean one of the five divisions of Min proposed by Chinese linguists: Northern (bei), Eastern (cdo), Central (czo), Pu-Xian (cpx) and Southern (nan). Kanguole 18:26, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kanguole If you like accusing people, You're misinterpreting things again and asserting stuff you have no knowledge of. I have been sharing with you my years of experience on dealing with this language. Ethnologue has their own references listed somewhere. These days they put a paywall on everything because of course, this is their work. If they reveal to you their references, this is like a chef revealing to you his recipes. What's the point of their site and work if they reveal that to you for free? Usually if they have no name beside their sourced year, it means it's from a work that has no single author or too many, or it's unstated in that work itself, such as data from a government. They've done this before on another dataset I've seen before and recognized. Also, I have no obligation to provide you direct evidence of someone else's work or classified government data. I have gladly given my time to help you understand the situation and you keep on accusing me with ill will and misconstruing my words as if what they've done has anything to do with me. In the first place before, I was not the one who started using Ethnologue for the native speaker population.
Also, I've stated before PRC gov considers those others (Chao-Shan, Leizhou, Hainan and the rest) as "Min Nan" (Hokkien) as well, as if they are subdialects/accents of Hokkien (Min Nan). From PRC and ROC's perspective, they too are Min Nan / Hokkien, just as all the other Sinitic languages are supposedly some sort of macrolanguage called "Chinese" with layers upon layers of so called "dialects" or "Chinese varieties". If you go to China or ask people in Hong Kong or Macau, and managed to speak to them in Mandarin or Cantonese, they usually only know Hokkien as "闽南语" or "闽南话". If you ask them about Teochew, Hai Lok Hong/Haklau, Hainanese, Luichew, Datian Min, Zhenan Min, Longyan Min, Sanxiang of Zhongshan Min, etc if they even comprehend or have even heard of any of those before, they'll tell you that those too are "闽南语". This includes speakers of all those Min Nan languages raised in China. These are or were very understudied languages that were historically beaten down and swept under the rug (yet still continue to speak and evolve) and the average person there thinks they're all "闽南语" of one language, even if they know they cannot understand each other or "feel" different. If someone wonders and says otherwise in an official capacity there that, aren't they different languages?, a certain amount of people will "remind" them about "unity" or start getting afraid that westerners have influenced them. These days you can even see it among mainlanders online. They'd try to persuade you of their perception they grew up with. It's kinda like how does each country perceive what a "city" exactly is from a "town" or "municipality"? The interpretation differs per country based on their laws. The landscape on perception of what is a "language" are culturally different as well. PRC and ROC are traditionally notorious and hardheaded on this matter.
Anyways, lack of data and information has always been a curse on this language despite its age, just like many other languages in China. People in Taiwan are often frustrated about this situation too and historically, you can observe the number of dictionaries being pumped out in Taiwan around the 20th century compared to China, due to the compulsions and worries of several authors throughout the decades about the lack of data and information on the language a lot of them speak. It's always been a "hunt" for illusive irregular data on this for the past decade/s here in wiki. Same can be said for others like Hokchew, Hakka, Gan, Wu, Sichuanese, Xiang, etc. Mlgc1998 (talk) 20:06, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense That is not "MY" figure. Stop misconstruing this on me. Those are Ethnologue's figures that they themselves got from China and Taiwan's government. Those are there figures. Pls. stop blaming the reality on me. If you cannot take it, it has nothing to do with me. This is about the situation that's been like that for years. Your patience is with them. I have taken my time to explain it to you, yet you keep pinning this to me. Why have I explained this in the first place, if your naivety does not listen. This was already like this before. I did not contribute to any of this. Mlgc1998 (talk) 14:00, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
None of this addresses the validity of the speaker figures for which you've cited Ethnologue. We don't know how Ethnologue gets its figures (they're a bit vague on their sourcing), but we do know that they intend them to reflect the entire Southern Min group, including also Chao-Shan, Leizhou, Hainan and more. This means that we cannot apply those figures to Hokkien. Kanguole 13:26, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense, Mlgc1998, and Kanguole: I agree that the infobox is overloaded and that the Ethnologue numbers for Min Nan should not be used for Hokkien (Ethnologue is already cited on the page Southern Min). Some sources conflate the two, but that doesn't mean Wikipedia should. The extra information in the infobox under Region and Dialects could be moved to the article sections Geographic distribution and Dialects. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 14:12, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Freelance Intellectual are new here as well? I've explained so much already. I don't quite get why this still confuses and now you too are confused. I will repeat it again and "Min Nan" IS referring to Hokkien, as was or is "Amoy" too. I find it amusing now that there are a lot of people who don't want to think of it that way, but let's not forget what the situation was before and some still regard it as now. Though it seems as though you guys are new to this reality. The Ethnologue links shown in the archived links are old data and I was speaking of the perception before that is still a current perception now by some, especially by multiple state institutions. Pls do not misinterpret their historical interpretation and way of doing things, even tho it's not the de facto reality. If @Remsense and @Kanguole cannot wrap their minds on the situation, that is and was simply the reality whether anyone here accepts it or not. Mlgc1998 (talk) 13:53, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not in the source you've cited. Address this discrepancy directly, preferably in two sentences or fewer. If your answer is still "de facto reality" and not printed words, I do not care.Remsense诉 13:54, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Even if you keep denying what they mean there, a ton of other sources that came from China and Taiwan's gov would say otherwise. Easy for you to deny it now, when you haven't pore through the sources I've listed above. Mlgc1998 (talk) 14:10, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kanguole If you're concerned of validity, you can take it up with the people running Ethnologue. A lot of data has always been questionable. If you cannot stomach it in this page, what of all other pages by Ethnologue. It has been like this for years, yet you choose to pin this on me. Mlgc1998 (talk) 13:56, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Other articles are full of misunderstandings and original research" is not an excuse for this one to be. I don't care if you're new here, but I guess veterans haven't read a lick of site guidelines, or understand basic site norms like the ones I've been linking you that you're clearly not reading. Remsense诉 13:58, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense Now, you're projecting. If you're mad about it. Stop pinning it on me. I was not happy about this situation around 6 years ago too, when I found out. Mlgc1998 (talk) 14:03, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the terms "Southern Min" and "閩南語" are cases of WP:AMBIGUOUSNAME. This is not an unusual situation, and the scope of the pages Hokkien and Southern Min is clear. Ethnologue lists Hokkien as a dialect of Southern Min and so the intended scope is also clear. I would love to see better references (but I'm not especially optimistic here). Freelance Intellectual (talk) 17:16, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Freelance Intellectual Ethnologue does now, probably due to looking at how Singapore and Malaysia did their data before and more extensive studies on these Southern Min languages. Older data and some current data are still mixed in with how China and Taiwan sees things though. Min Nan Wikipedia was built off of it and still seems to continue. In English Wiktionary tho, we and the admins there decided around last year to phase out "Min Nan" referring to Hokkien, tho it's still structured with the whole "Chinese" is one macrolanguage logic. The books from China and Taiwan MOE hasn't stopped tho with the whole "Min Nan" is Hokkien tho. Hopefully, yes, I hope better references come in the future for this language and other similarly plagued languages. Mlgc1998 (talk) 20:22, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Mlgc1998, you are not the arbiter of consensus. Three people disagree with you for the same reasons, and no one has agreed with you. You are acting extremely possessively of this article. You do not own it nor have any unique right to decide what it says, and you are ignoring every mention of site guidelines being used to support changes. It is completely unacceptable to revert the infobox to its present overstuffed, unhelpful state (MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE) while offering a single point that amounts to nothing: the parameter is specifically "region", not "polities": saying a language is spoken in an area does not mean it is spoken in every conceivable subarea of that region. Remsense诉 22:19, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For comparison, see the infoboxes and corresponding body layouts of our best articles on loosely comparable languages and language families—though of course every language is different, but it likely cannot be justified that Sinitic topolects are so divergent as to require a totally divergent ideal presentation requiring much more space and less summary:
Remsense诉 23:01, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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