17 years of Cantonese Wikipedia, the Written Cantonese literary movement | #Wikimania2023
Channel: Wikimedia Foundation
Date: 2023-11-23

Full title: 17 years of Cantonese Wikipedia, the Written Cantonese literary movement, and the Wikimedia movement

Founded in 2006, Cantonese Wikipedia has grown in a way that reflects two influences: wider events in the Written Cantonese literary movement and global Wikimedia movement initiatives. This session will look at Cantonese Wikipedia's history and invite a discussion on how Wikimedians contributing to languages with emerging literary movements can learn from each other.

The editorial style and newcomers' attitudes towards the Cantonese Wikipedia have shifted since its foundation in 2006, mainly in response to events in the wider Written Cantonese literary movement and current affairs in Hong Kong and its diaspora, more so than events on Wikipedia itself.

The initial foundation of Cantonese Wikipedia was met with skepticism, at a time when Cantonese was seen as a tributary spoken language to Modern Standard Written Chinese, represented by the Chinese Wikipedia. The early editor community went to great depths to differentiate Written Cantonese from Standard Chinese. Over the years though, culture change in Hong Kong and the Cantonese diaspora, especially the cultural response to political events of 2014-2020, has put the Written Cantonese literary movement into the mainstream. The Cantonese Wikipedia's editorial style converged with the wider literary movement and the community gradually found a group identity that relied less on being different from major world languages like Chinese and English, and more on an authentic Cantonese identity around Hong Kong and its diaspora.

Over the years, the Cantonese Wikipedia community navigated these changes by selectively aligning itself with global Wikimedia initiatives, both technological and curatorial, in a way that reflects the uniqueness of Cantonese culture but encompasses as much diversity within the literary movement as possible.

This session will explore the history of the Cantonese Wikipedia and open up a discussion about the iteraction between Wikipedia culture and world events, and how Wikipedians from different language communities can learn from each other, as we seek to maintain diversity and collaboration in the Wikimedia movement.

Presenter:  Deryck Chan
Presentation slides:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:17_years_of_Cantonese_Wikipedia.pdf