Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
The only thing that is really uniquely Singapore
I’ve been wanting to write about this for a long time. To me, all the advertisements that scream out the two words “Uniquely Singapore” are the products of the mental fabrication of some guy in the Singapore Tourism Board. I find it so ironic that the one thing that can really claim to be uniquely Singapore has been left out in the cold by not only STB, but the government as well. That thing I am talking about is Singlish.
Singlish is truly unique to Singapore. No where in the world can you find another language that resembles Singlish. And, Singlish is the result of the historial development of cultural interactions between the different ethnicities in Singapore. The evolution of Singlish to what it is today are the efforts of ordinary Singaporeans and not some fantasy conjured up by STB. Shouldn’t Singlish then be promoted a cultural emblem representing Singapore? And, shouldn’t Singaporeans be proud that we have a language that we can call our own?
Unfortunately, it seems to me that the government isn’t too keen to promote Singlish. I believe that the chief fear is that promoting Singlish could possibly lead to deteriorating English standards. However, I think we have to be careful not to conflate bad English with Singlish.
What’s unique about Singlish is that it contain terms that have uniquely Singaporean references. Terms like “talking cock”, “wah lau”, “atas” etc can only be understood by Singaporeans. However, the usage of these terms does not necessarily mean that Singlish is grammatically incorrect. Singlish is perhaps more of replacing some nouns, verbs and adjectives with colloquial terms, but the basic English sentence structure and rules of grammar still apply.
Perhaps what we need to do is to really put out a campaign spelling out when it is appropriate to use Singlish, and when it is not appropriate. I think Singlish is perfect for casual conversation. In fact, I think it’s endearing because only a fellow Singaporean can understand what I am talking about. I won’t use Singlish in a formal setting though. I don’t find it difficult to switch between ‘high’ English and Singlish. I think that problems arise only when people don’t have a strong foundation of English to begin with.
We should be proud of Singlish. I know of some “ang mohs” (a Singlish term!) who are fascinated with Singlish and they think it’s really cool. If foreigners can appreciate Singlish, we should really be going one step further and celebrate it as something that’s uniquely Singapore (and not manufactured by STB). 
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 29/03/2007 at 11:27 pm, and is filed under Perspective. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 5 years ago
Singlish is actually a form of English, much like many other languages and spinoffs known as ‘creoles’. The interesting part is to see how a given language evolves due to regional, geographical, sociolectal and other influences, which leads to a widening of its vocabulary as well as modified language structure.
The thing is, Aaron, that creoles, as well as their evolution, cannot be stopped. I don’t know why our Gahmen is being so puritan on Singlish – the fear that it will corrupt ‘standard’ English is perhaps behind it because they’re afraid that we’ll not be able to communicate with ang mohs and Singapore will lose its economical edge, yadda.
Well, that’s how i see it. The simple fact is however, that many of us do know when to code-switch from Singlish to ‘standard’ English. It’s not all that difficult, not like, say, from Chinese to English. I’m pretty damned proud that i speak Singlish!
And all along, the foundation of English grows even weaker. Consider this, Aaron…MOE scholars (i’ve heard) who are sent overseas to study English Language and Lit are only required to study Lit. No linguistics at all. So how are we going to teach the future generation why this is so and that is not?
Memorisation of verb tables? Reading broadly? Understanding plays a key to learning, not pure memory work. Learning a third language where we learnt the language structure boosted my English in terms of correctness.
After all, Singlish also has political use…for example, ‘welfare’ is a curse-word in Singlish…hahaha…so, yes! It IS something uniquely Singaporean – the most unique of it all. Beats whatever STB thinks up of hands down.
about 5 years ago
Hi Aaron,
I agree that Singlish could probably be one of the few things that we can call, ‘A Product of Singapore’. I think it will be really weird for Singapore to publicly promote Singlish while we are on the other hand pushing hard at the Speak Good English Movement.
about 5 years ago
all the exchange students i know are fascinated by singlish and wish they could understand / speak it (as do i!).
i wonder if there is any real danger that singaporeans could grow up speaking no language well enough to communicate with people outside of singapore?
but you have the same problem in countries like finland, which has a population of like 5 million — they have to learn english because nowhere else in the world do people speak their weird language. so presumably some finnish people speak finnish their whole lives and can’t communicate with anyone outside of finland.
if the government succeeded in eradicating singlish it would be tantamount to finland’s government declaring that the country must suddenly switch to english in order to “be understood.”
about 5 years ago
Another uniquely singapore trait – provision shops having their own prime-time TV show. Think pu wei zhi ye (æ™®å¨ä¹‹å¤œ).
about 5 years ago
“Terms like “talking cockâ€, “wah lauâ€, “atas†etc can only be understood by Singaporeans. However, the usage of these terms does not necessarily mean that Singlish is grammatically incorrect. Singlish is perhaps more of replacing some nouns, verbs and adjectives with colloquial terms, but the basic English sentence structure and rules of grammar still apply.”
Hi,
I disagree with the quoted text. Let me illustrate what I mean:
—————————————————–
Singlish:
“Eh, which bus you want to take ah?”
“Bus 11 lor.”
“Going home, issit?
“No lah, I going to the zoo.”
“Eh, you know hor, Dell is going to sell laptops which got Linux already installed inside?”
“Wah! So good?”
“Ya!! I waited for this a long time liao”
“Alamak! My lappy is buy at the IT Show leh! Den the partitioning damn troublesome one lor! ****”
An attempt to not use Singlish:
“Which bus you want to take?”
“Bus 11.”
“Going home?”
“No, I going to the zoo.”
“You know, Dell is going to sell laptops which got Linux already installed inside?”
“Wow! So good?”
“Yes!! I waited for this a long time already!”
“Argh! My lappy is buy at the IT Show! Then the partitioning damn troublesome! ****”
——————————————————
Do you notice that even if the Lahs and Lorhs are removed, the grammar still stinks? Please tell me how “the basic English sentence structure and rules of grammar still apply”.
about 5 years ago
I’m using a german proxy, by the way. Having problems with directly accessing you site.
about 5 years ago
My take on it is that the “Lahs” and “Lorhs” that you took out, are indispensable to the structure. Removing them would be akin to removing particles such as “ni” and “wo” in Japanese.
Singlish, like any other derived language, has its own “proper” grammar. You can’t just pepper your sentences with “Lahs” and expect it to pass as Singlish.
E.g.:
“Like that lah.” is not the same as “Like that lorh.”, and both are different from “Like that meh.”. If you removed the terms, they all turn into: “Like that.”.
Taking the terms out just turns “proper” Singlish into “poor” English.
about 5 years ago
Singlish is not really unique. Malaysia has “Manglish” (used by Malaysian Chinese) which is very similar to Singlish, sometimes to the point of indistinguishability.
about 5 years ago
“è¯è¨€æ²¡æœ‰æ ‡å‡†æ€§ï¼Œåªæœ‰åœ°æ–¹æ€§â€ ï¼ï¼ 《麻å¡çš„åŽè¯ã€‹(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_p3vCBeZ4)
about 5 years ago
Michael,
You are not getting my point. Your examples are clearly bad English that people are passing off as Singlish. If you read me carefully, I am saying that Singlish is possible with grammatically correct English. The problem is that some people are trying to pass off bad English and Singlish, which in my opinion are two different matters altogether. If you want to prove me wrong, you have to show me that Singlish is incompatible with grammatically correct English.
about 5 years ago
No way is Singlish unique to Singapore. Manglish (Colloquial Malaysian English) is very similar to Singlish.
about 5 years ago
Bill,
That’s new. Do Malaysians actually call it Manglish?
about 5 years ago
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manglish
about 5 years ago
“you have to show me that Singlish is incompatible with grammatically correct English.”
Isn’t a large part of Singlish grammar derived from Chinese sentence structure, directly translated to English, and then with the Lahs and Lorhs added?
On the other hand, Singlish is flexible enough to accomodate grammatically correct English.
about 5 years ago
Michael,
I disagree. Indians and Malays can speak Singlish as well as Chinese people. Do the Indians and Malay know the so-called Chinese sentence structure? The only common language between the races is English, so I really don’t think your assumption for the basis of Singlish is correct.
about 5 years ago
Aaron:
Indians and Malays can speak Singlish as well as Chinese people. Do the Indians and Malay know the so-called Chinese sentence structure?
Indians and Malays learn the Chinese sentence structure by speaking Singlish. Singlish is learned natively by Singaporeans of all races so it wouldn’t be a problem for them to pick up its grammatical structure.
There are several inaccuracies in your post. I’ll point them out.
1. No where in the world can you find another language that resembles Singlish. And, Singlish is the result of the historial development of cultural interactions between the different ethnicities in Singapore. The evolution of Singlish to what it is today are the efforts of ordinary Singaporeans and not some fantasy conjured up by STB.
Singlish greatly resembles Manglish because of a shared common history between Singapore and Malaysia. It did not just evolve in Singapore; it originated in Malaya during colonial times.
Singlish is perhaps more of replacing some nouns, verbs and adjectives with colloquial terms, but the basic English sentence structure and rules of grammar still apply.
No. Singlish has its own grammatical structure. Take for example, the sentences:
“Encik, the men have finished loading the stores.”
vs.
“Encik, the men finish loading the stores already.”
The second sentence is good Singlish, as spoken by most people in Singapore, but is sometimes seen as poor English. Singlish has a much simplified grammar compared to English. You don’t just construct Singlish from English by inserting odd pieces of lah’s and Malay words.
You may want to check out this article:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg/singeh2.html
about 5 years ago
The problem here is that the powers up there, do not seem to be intellectually nuanced, and sufficiently so, to understand that promoting good English can go hand in hand with preserving the space for Singlish to flourish.
It’s a case of being lazy, plain and simple. If you allow people the space to embrace and express themselves in Singlish, their confidence will grow, and that is an easier situation to impress upon the people the need to improve or learn more languages.
Stifling does not work. It has never worked. We need to promote code-switching instead of allowing them to perpetuate this one-sided game of language.
about 5 years ago
To build on what Bill said, Singlish is not that unique. Check out India’s version of English – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglish .
And I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for STB to promote Singlish. You know exactly what happens when a government agency starts working on a grassroots development right?
The government should not promote Singlish, but it should not suppress it either. And I think that’s been the way over the past few years ever since people started complaining of the awkward English that Phua Chu Kang was forced to use.
gerad’s pu wei zhi ye (æ™®å¨ä¹‹å¤œ) example is quite funny and true though! That’s the result of private enterprise!
about 5 years ago
There are plenty of other countries with their own English creoles as well. Take a trip to the Caribbean. Or listen to the black English vernacular (BEV, or Ebonics) in American cities. There is absolutely nothing “unique” about this kind of phenomenon. I do think, however, that the vast majority of Singaporeans are usually not able code switch effectively from “high English” to Singlish like Aaron. Perhaps the STB should advertise this abroad….”Visit Singapore and listen to how we screw up your language. You’ll have all kinds of problems understanding us.”
about 5 years ago
Hey Aaron,
Interesting. I’ve wrote something on Singlish a while back too. See http://humanoidinterface.wordpress.com/2006/10/20/on-language-and-money/
Heh, see ya around in NUS
about 5 years ago
Daniel,
The problem then is not with Singlish, but with Singaporeans! We should not be bashing the tool for our own ineptitude in the language.
In anycase, I will make the case that Singlish is unique. True that Manglish is similar to Singlish, but we have developed some cultural and political differences that differentiates us from Malaysian styled English. It’s just like Hokkien and Teochew: sounds rather similar but is actually different.
I don’t think Malaysians will understand things like Wee Shu-min and peanuts. I think these two events have added another two entries into our Singlish vocabulary.
about 5 years ago
HI,
YEAH! I’m so glad we are on the same line haha…
about 5 years ago
I am proud of Singlish because when I am overseas and with my Singaporean friends, no one else can understand us when we choose not to let them =)
But I think Singlish is something to be proud of, if only we first learn to speak proper English. Too many people cannot translate Singlish words into the English equivalents and that’s where it starts becoming dangerous.
And to add on, many of my foreign friends (not just ang-mohs) want to learn Singlish! Wheeeeeeeeeee!!
about 2 years ago
Hi Aaron,very fascinating introduction there. However, I believe you are severely lacking in the background information of this field. Firstly, Manglish has existed together with Singlish prior to the ‘divorce’. However as time permitted, Singlish slanted more towards the Chinese grammar, while Manglish headed southwards with more influence by the Malay language. The phenomenon of Indians and Malays being able to speak Singlish as well, is because their variety in nature has an influence of their own mother tongue. For example, Chinese tend to use certain dialectal profanities to highlight certain emotions. Malays and Indians on the other hand, tend to use Malay words for these emotions.
Is Singlish suitable for casual conversations? Of course lah! Should Singlish then be completely rooted out? Well, the answer is simple. It has already been removed completely, but only from the three main domains, Education, media (except our two muttons on radio) and parliamentary. The aim of the policy has been achieved, but the lingua franca cannot be removed until the last speaker has died.
about 2 years ago
Dr Goh,
Thanks for your clarification of the difference between Singlish and Manglish. I do not profess to be an expert on language, and all I have to offer is merely my 2 cents worth of thoughts on the issue of whether Singlish should be promoted as something that’s a unique Singaporean cultural phenomenon.
about 3 weeks ago
excellent issues altogether, you just gained a new reader. What would you recommend about your submit that you made a few days in the past? Any certain?|Thank you for every other informative web site. Where else may I get that kind of information written in such a perfect manner? I have a undertaking that and I am simply now operating on, and I have been at the look out for such information.