hello everyone today we're going to
focus on the languages of Singapore
Singapore is one of the few remaining
city states in the world located in
Southeast Asia at the tip of the Malay
Peninsula the archipelago that makes up
Singapore is just a stone's throw away
from Peninsular Malaysia separated from
it by the Straits of Johor despite being
one of the smallest countries in the
world Singapore is a culturally and
linguistically diverse place and as one
of the world's leading financial centres
it continues to attract immigrants and
expatriates from around the world
Singapore was originally a Malay trading
port called Temasek around the 14th
century and later became known as
Singapore it eventually fell into
obscurity until it was established as a
British trading colony in 1819 from 1963
to 1965 Singapore briefly became part of
the new Federation of Malaysia which was
formed from former British colonies in
the region it then became independent in
1965 while under British rule Singapore
had a free trade policy which attracted
Chinese traders and laborers from
Malaysia and China and Chinese grew to
become the majority of the population
also Singapore and India were under
British rule at the same time which led
to a flow of migrants from India today
and for most of Singapore's history
ethnic Indians have formed the third
largest ethnic group in Singapore after
Chinese and Malays Singapore has four
official languages that were chosen to
represent the largest ethnic groups in
the country at the time that the
Constitution was written first English
due to Singapore's history as a British
colony Mandarin Chinese to unite the
large Chinese population Malay which
doubles as the national language of
Singapore because it's the language of
the indigenous population and Tamil to
represent the Indian population of
Singapore on an administrative level the
unofficial lingua franca of the country
is English and it serves as the main
language of instruction in schools the
language of the justice system and the
language of business
the vast majority of Singaporeans are
bilingual as a result of the country's
education policy with seventy-three
point two percent of the population
identifying as bilingual or multilingual
all Singaporeans are now mainly educated
in English but they're also required to
take courses in the mother tongue that
corresponds to their ethnic background
that so-called mother tongue doesn't
necessarily correspond to the students
native language and it's better to think
of it as a heritage language Mandarin is
the mother tongue assigned to students
of Chinese background even though the
students family might use a different
Chinese language or English at home
similarly Tamil is the mother tongue
assigned to students of Indian
background even though they may speak a
different Indian language or English at
home and Malay is the mother tongue
assigned to students of Malay background
even though some may speak English or
another language at home now let's take
a look at each of the four official
languages English the official language
most commonly spoken at home is English
with approximately thirty six point nine
percent of the resident population
speaking it as their first language with
the rest of the population having some
level of fluency there are very few
Singaporeans who speak no English and
amongst the younger generation basically
everybody speaks it fluently English was
made the main language of school
instruction in all government schools
beginning in 1987 before that different
schools offered instruction in different
mother tongues immigrants sent expats
aside there are two basic forms of
English that are used in Singapore first
standard Singaporean English which is
based on the conventions of British
English but is spoken with a uniquely
Singaporean accent and an English Creole
known academically as colloquial
Singaporean English and more popularly
known as Singlish the standard form of
the language is highly promoted by the
government of Singapore through state
sponsored programs such as the speak
good English movement that was
specifically started in order to curb
the use of Singlish but why do they care
if people use English well I suppose
that's because they want people to use a
form of English that can successfully be
used in academic and professional
situations but speaking Singlish doesn't
mean that you can't speak Standard
English standard English and singlish
exists along a socio elect continue
meaning that the form of English used
depends on the social context in the
most formal situations people use
standard English and in the most
informal situations they might use pure
Singlish and they often mix them to
varying degrees depending on the level
of formality of the situation Singlish
is topic prominent like Chinese or
Japanese and as such many sentences will
begin by mentioning the topic of the
sentence first other noticeable features
are that the use of the plural form of
nouns as well as articles and the verb
to be are all optional and also the
grammatical subject can be dropped if
it's clear from the context here are a
couple of examples of Singlish our
drawing so simple how to pass and in
standard English something like how can
we get good marks with such a simple
drawing in this sentence we see topic
prominence with the topic placed at the
beginning of the sentence still god
hating and in standard English
I've still got a headache in this
sentence you can see that the subject
isn't included and there's also no
auxiliary verb and there's no indefinite
article the initial ready 9 in this
sentence the subject isn't included so
you would only know who or what is
finished from the context of the
previous sentences and notice the word
at the end of the sentence lah this word
emphasizes a statement or assertion
there are other similar words that show
uncertainty or indicate that you're
asking a question
these words are borrowed from varieties
of Chinese like Hokkien and in fact many
of the features of Singlish are rooted
in those Chinese varieties and one more
example that chicken rice restaurant
over there see betta Kong their food
died I must try in standard English that
chicken rice restaurant over there has
amazingly good food we've got to try it
if it's the last thing we do this first
sentence starts off like standard
English but then we see this phrase here
see better Kong
taupe Kong is a phrase from Ho Qian
which means very good and si Bay is an
intensifier with the somewhat grim
etymology in the second sentence you see
the topic placed at the beginning again
and there's no subject in the sentence
because it's clear from the context and
then we have this unique adverbial
phrase die die even though the use of
English is discouraged by the government
that doesn't really mean that it's on
the decline in fact too many people
Singlish has become a source of local
pride and identity and just as there
have been attempts to stamp it out and
to diminish its use there has also been
a significant amount of pushback from
locals who want to prevent it from
disappearing completely mandarin after
English the second most commonly used
language at home is Mandarin Chinese
which is used by around thirty four
point nine percent of the resident
population as a first language but if we
add to that all of the other varieties
of Chinese which are around twelve point
two percent of the population then
Chinese comprises the largest language
group in Singapore but to be clear
that's a group of languages not just one
language before the constitution of
Singapore was written both Mandarin and
Hokkien functioned as lingua Franca's
for the diverse Chinese community when
the Constitution was written in 1965 the
government chose Mandarin in order to
officially unite the population and then
in 1979 the government led by Prime
Minister Lee Kuan Yew started the now
annual speak Mandarin campaign to
continuously promote the use and
learning of the language instead of
other Chinese languages this has
resulted in an increase in the number of
Mandarin speakers and a decrease in the
number of speakers of other Chinese
languages and I guess that was exactly
the intention of that program the form
of Mandarin used in Singapore very
closely follows the conventions of the
Mandarin used in China and Taiwan
however just as with English Mandarin
and Singapore has not been able to avoid
the influence of other languages and has
developed a socio elect continuum just
as English has on opposite ends of the
spectrum you have standard Mandarin and
sing durin or colloquial singaporean
mandarin sing durin is a result of the
wide adoption of Mandarin by speakers of
other Chinese languages as well as
contact with languages of the other
ethnic communities sing durin seems to
have some creole elements as well as an
element of code-switching
especially with english the grammar is
essentially Mandarin with a lot of
vocabulary borrowed from other Chinese
languages Malay as well as English and
sometimes entire phrases or clauses are
in English here are a couple of
sentences in Tsing durin
Kernan next week Cousy whole woman's
Jaime in English maybe we can meet next
week after I finish my exams in this
first sentence we see basically a
Mandarin sentence with some English
vocabulary taking the place of Mandarin
words tinkin the Weddell Haru wait da ha
in English the weather today is too hot
I can't stand it in the second sentence
we see an English word and then this
word Bui is a hokey N word meaning
cannot and this word
Tahaan is a malay word meaning tolerate
these two words often appear together in
this phrase meaning something like I
can't stand it
other forms of Chinese spoken in
Singapore apart from Mandarin and
Hokkien include Gil Chiu Cantonese haka
and Hainanese but the government's
promotion of Mandarin is causing it to
gradually replace the others Malay the
third most widely spoken of the four
official languages is Malay or bahasa
melayu which is spoken by around ten
point seven percent of the officially
resident population Malay is also given
special status as the national language
of Singapore as a result of this special
status it's used in the national anthem
in military drills and on the
Singaporean coat of arms Malaya and
Singapore in its standard form is
essentially the same as standard Malay
as used in Malaysia and in Brunei in
addition to standard Malay there's also
a malay creole called baba male or
piranha Khan Malay which is endangered
but is still spoken fluently by some
older people the Piranha khan are the
descendants of settlers who married
local Malays this contact of cultures
resulted in a creole language with
mostly Malay vocabulary but with
influence of Chinese grammar there's
another similar form of Malay called
bizarre male or Malaya posada
a pidgin form of Malay which has no
native speakers decades ago when English
was less widely spoken bizarre Malay
often functioned as a lingua franca it's
now spoken mainly by some older
Singaporeans here's an example of
bizarre Malay I'll give you a sentence
meaning when a Singaporean here's where
goods are cheap he goes there first in
standard Malay Appa Bella or on
singapura Mandan are attending tompa
young men
Gong Wu da da a Kentucky casita a more
or less direct translation into English
would be when person of Singapore hears
about place that has cheap goods he will
go to their next in Bazaar Malay
Singapore Pune Aden telling a dia de
nada mana yang bong goo da da Pataki a
more or less direct translation of this
would be Singapore's
person his ear here where that goods
cheap he goes in the bazaar Malay
sentence the word for when is absent and
then we see a different way of
expressing Singaporean in standard Malay
the word o dong meaning person comes
first and the modifying word singapura
comes after in bazaar Malay the modifier
Singapore comes before and is followed
by the modifying particle punya this
word exists in standard Malay and means
have and actually you can see it as the
root of this word right here Mon punier
but in Bazar Malay it mimics this
Chinese modifying particle let me point
out one more difference in the standard
Malay sentence you see the word for here
manda nod
but in bazaar Malay you see the nod in
Bazar Malay affixes are often dropped
and the word root is used instead Tamil
the least widely spoken of the four
official languages is Tamil a Dravidian
language that is spoken primarily in
southern India and in some parts of Sri
Lanka and is also spoken by a
significant minority in Malaysia it has
approximately 70 million native speakers
worldwide in Singapore nine point one
percent of the population is of Indian
background but only three point three
percent speak Tamil as their main
language at home many ethnic Indians
speak English as their home language or
another Indian language or Malay at the
time when Tamil was chosen as an
official language it was spoken by the
majority of the Indian population of
Singapore but the language has declined
and is now learned as a second language
by the majority of the Indian population
since it's still their assigned mother
tongue this information we've discussed
so far includes the so called resident
population which is comprised of both
citizens and permanent residents of
singer
or the total resident population is
about 3.9 million but there's also a
large non-resident population of about
1.7 million people
the term non-resident is misleading and
you should think of them as non
permanent residents or as expatriates
because we're not talking about tourists
these are people who do reside in
Singapore having one of the freest
economies in the world Singapore has
attracted a large number of foreign
companies and foreign workers to its
shores making Singapore a cosmopolitan
business and finance hub where you can
hear languages from all over the world
being spoken
the main lingua franca used amongst
these diverse groups of people is
English with Mandarin also serving as a
lingua franca for the Chinese community
both resident and non-resident with
Singapore granting permanent residents
and citizenship to new immigrants every
year the linguistic situation there will
certainly continue to be rich and
colorful and vibrant the question of the
day for Singaporeans what languages do
you regularly speak and in what
situations do you use them and for other
people living in Singapore what language
do you use most often there if you speak
English what has been your experience
with Singaporean English and singlish be
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have a nice day
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