Talk:Zhuang languages

message: The article says that was the name of two Tai languages, one in China and one in Vietnam. I've never heard of a language called Zhuang being spoken in Vietnam. The Tày and Nùng of Vietnam live just across the border and I've read that Nùng is similar to Zhuang (but many Tai languages are similar); there is a minority called Bố Y - they are Bouyei who came from China, some of them in Vietnam (in Lào Cai) even don't speak Bouyei but Chinese.
The terms used - Northern Zhuang and Southern Zhuang - seem rather confusing to me. Does "Northern Zhuang" include Bouyei? And what is actually "Southern Zhuang"? Babelfisch, June 14th, 2004
: I think that person wrote it from Ethnologue.com, which has that division of N & S and spoke Zhuang spoken in China & Vietnam. The person probably meant "one language spoken in two countries" not "2 languages". --Menchi 10:24, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I know nothing (almost nothing) about proper Wiki markup, so I'm going to have to rely on someone else to update the main entry, if you feel my information justifies it.  I am a linguist who has worked on a Zhuang language for a number of years.  Yes, the name "Zhuang" is not used in Vietnam, nor was it used in Yunnan or many "Zhuang" areas of Guangxi until the 1950s.  It is the autonym for some "Zhuang" speakers, but now actually designates the official nationality in PRC to which many Northern and Central Taic language speakers belong.  Northern and Central Taic speakers in Viethan are classified int he VN nationalities of Tày, Nùng, Giay and San Chay.  Families and dialects straddle the border so a PRC "Zhuang" person may have a VN "Nùng" cousin.  Regarding "Northern Zhuang" and "Southern Zhuang" these are translations of the primary division used by Chinese linguists within the "Zhuang language" (or group of languages): Zhuang yu, beibu fangyan (Zhuang, Northern dialect/language) and Zhuang yu, nanbu fangyan (Zhuang, Southern dialect/language).  "Northern Zhuang" basically includes the northern Taic languages whose speakers are classified as Zhuang but not Bouyei, "Southern Zhuang" includes the central Taic languages whose speakers are classified as Zhuang but not the central Taic speakers classified within the Dai nationality.
--User: Lug Dih'ndin, 18 May 2011, 18 May 2011  —Preceding undated comment added 06:36, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: So this is supposedly the same language as (Cuengh), of lang-code za: , at least according to the redir there and the main page of za.wikiquote.org ... this should be addressed in the article. +sj+
Yeah, it is. - Mustafaa 21:21, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cuengh 

message: I think this page should say something more of the old siniform script of the Zhuang, or at least a source should be given for the statement. This is important stuff. --149.159.2.216 02:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A link has now been added to Zhuang logograms which introduces the old sinoform script.Johnkn63 05:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zhuang siniform script 

message: :Image:Zhuang.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 03:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Zhuang.PNG

message: "Zhuang" is a cover term used for many divergent languages. In fact, all of the Southwestern Tai languages (Thai, Lao, Shan, Ahom) are more related to each other than Southern Zhuang varieties are to each other! Here's the tree from the Tai languages article:
*Proto-Tai
**A
***F - Lungchow, Leiping
***E
****H - Lungming, Daxin
****G
*****L - Debao, Jingxi, Nung
*****K
******P - Bao Yen, Cao Bang, Wenma
******O
*******R - Sapa
*******Q - Shan, Siamese, Black Tai, Lue, other Southwestern Tai
**D
***I - Qinzhou
***J
****M - Wuming, Yongnan, Long'an, Fusui
****N - Saek, Po-ai, Yay, Lingyue, Rong'an, Qinbei, Bouyei, other Northern Tai
**B - Ningming
**C - Chongzuo, Shangsi, Caolan
Except for group K, every one of those other varieties fall under the label "Zhuang." This is because "Zhuang" is an identity recently created by the Chinese Communist government (cf. Creating the Zhuang by Kaufman). — Stevey7788 (talk) 21:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ask some linguists and Chinese isn't a unified language either. Some argue that the difference between Taiwanese Min and Cantonese is greater than the difference between Romanian and Italian, and many Chinese languages are not mutually intelligible. Similarly, the Japanese government officially classifies the Ryukyuan languages as a "dialect" of Japanese. After all, a language is a dialect with an army and navy. What makes something a dialect, and what makes something a language? Ask three different people, and you will probably get seven different answers. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The difference here is that, per either Ethnologue or Pittayaporn, the only valid "Zhuang" node is Tai: if the different varieties of Zhuang are a single language, then Siamese, Lao, Shan, and Ahom are varieties of the Zhuang language as well. That is, Zhuang as currently understood is either polyphyletic or paraphyletic; the ancestor of Zhuang is the ancestor of all Tai languages. This is different from Chinese and Lewchew, which are monophyletic (single, well-defined nodes). Regardless of whether you consider them to be single languages or not, the immediate ancestor of Chinese is not the ancestor of anything else, with the possible exceptions of Dungan and Bai, and likewise with Lewchew. — kwami (talk) 02:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zhuang is not a unified language 

message: I became quite confused about the use of the terms Tai and Thai in the Introduction. (The latter term occurs only two times in the article— excluding the References section—both in the Introduction.) Are they intended to be synonyms? The sentence containing "the departure of the Thai from southern China must predate the 5th century AD, when the Tai who remained in China began to take family names" was the one that confused me the most. Is there any way that the Introduction could be rewritten—or perhaps provide a supplementary explanation— to make it clearer?Ricklaman (talk) 07:40, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: They're quite distinct. The following should be distinguished: Tai languages, Southwestern Tai languages  Thai languages, Thai language. --JorisvS (talk) 09:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Pittayawat Pittayaporn claims that proto-Tai has no voicless aspiration, i.e /tʰ/, /pʰ/, /kʰ/, /cʰ/. Therefore, the word Thai /tʰai/ may be a current evolution of Tai /tai/ because the autonym "Thai" can be found not only in the speakers of Central Thai in Bangkok and its surrounding area, but also in some Tai groups in Guangxi that are now labeled as "Zhuang", such as in Longzhou one could find a group calling themselves as Pho Thai /pʰo tʰai/. Bookworm8899 (talk) 18:22, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusion regarding Thai and Tai 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Zhuang languages. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20120229194308/http://www0.hku.hk/linguist/staff/BodomoZhuangBLS12pageApril07.pdf to http://www.hku.hk/linguist/staff/BodomoZhuangBLS12pageApril07.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:23, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Also removed this link from the further reading section for now, as User:Johnkn63 had requested. — Stevey7788 (talk) 16:05, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for removing this. There is still the question as to how many of the other links should remain. The items are all short, mainly off topic and have inaccuracies. Even basic facts are manifestly incorrect, the item The roots of rawness says "Tones 7 and 8 are identical to 5 and 6" which is simply not true. If this were a wikipeddia article we could change it, but it is not, but we can not, therefore surely the correct thing to do is not link to it. Links should be to items that reliable. Johnkn63 (talk) 05:27, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

text: To use the termminology of Wikipedia:Further reading the links in general do not meet the first criteria of being 'topical' more importantly they are neither 'reliable' nor balanced. It should also be noted that further reading lists should be 'limited' in length not exhaustive, that means significant works which these most certainly are not. Johnkn63 (talk) 11:11, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The way ahead is to add links to significant works. Links to very short, off topic, unreliable blogs is not the way.Johnkn63 (talk) 16:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

text: Miyake, Marc. 2012.3itting on fire moved to talk as this 22 line long blog is almost entirely comments on the 14 characters used for naengh in Sawndip Sawdenj so off topic, and unbalanced as makes no reference to other authors explanations of said characters.Johnkn63 (talk) 16:36, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

text: Miyake, Marc. 2011. The roots of rawness moved to talk as inaccurate (see above) and off topic. Johnkn63 (talk) 16:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

text: Moved as of topic Miyake, Marc. 2012. Pondering over water. 2012. Speaking of heaven in Zhuang.Johnkn63 (talk) 07:07, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: All right, makes sense, looks like we'll keep these links here for now. — Stevey7788 (talk) 17:50, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you.Johnkn63 (talk) 07:07, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There are several incorrect Hanyu Pinyin words on this page. Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hanyu Pinyin problems 

message: Old link from Baiyue
* .
that would be helpful for some historical bits here and/or at Kam-Thai languages. Very cursory treatment but shows where recent Chinese scholarship is at on the topic. — LlywelynII 08:59, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources for future article expansion