Singlish
Encyclopedia
Colloquial Singaporean English, also known as Singlish, is an English-based creole language spoken in Singapore
.
Singlish is commonly regarded with low prestige in Singapore. The Singaporean government and many Singaporeans alike heavily discourage the use of Singlish in favour of Standard English
. The government has created an annual Speak Good English Movement
to emphasise the point. Singlish is also heavily discouraged in the mass media and in schools.
The vocabulary of Singlish consists of words originating from English
, Malay
, Hokkien
, Teochew, Cantonese, Tamil
, Bengali
, Punjabi
and to a lesser extent various other European, Indic and Sinitic languages
. Also, elements of American
and Australian slang have come through from imported television series and films.
and Received Pronunciation
. After Singapore declared independence in 1965, English in Singapore began to take a life of its own, leading to the development of modern day Standard Singapore English. Standard Singapore English began to take root and Singlish began to evolve among the working classes who learned English without formal schooling.
Singlish originated with the arrival of the British and the establishment of English language
schools in Singapore. Soon, English
filtered out of schools and onto the streets, to be picked up by non-English-speakers in a pidgin
-like form for communication purposes. After some time, this new form of English, now loaded with substantial influences from Indian English
, Baba
, Malay, and the southern varieties of Chinese
, became the language of the streets and began to be learned as a first language in its own right. Creolization
occurred, and Singlish is now a fully formed, stabilized, and independent English-based creole language.
Singlish shares substantial linguistic similarities with Malaysian English
(Manglish) in Malaysia, although distinctions can be made, particularly in vocabulary. Manglish generally now receives more Malay influence and Singlish more Chinese (Mandarin, Hokkien, etc.) influence. In addition, Singlish has a set grammar
and particular phonological and grammatical rules, whereas Manglish
does not follow any grammatical rules, and is not mutually intelligible within different variants of Manglish, even disparate regions in Malaysia itself.
Initially, "Singlish" and "Manglish" were essentially the same dialect evolving from the British Malaya
economy, born in the trading ports of Singapore, Malacca and Penang when Singapore and peninsular Malaysia
were for many purposes a de facto single entity.
In Singapore, English was the language of administration, which the British used, with the assistance of English-educated Straits-born Chinese, to control the administration in Malaya and governance of trading routes such as the British East Indies spice routes with China, Japan, Europe and America in those ports and colonies of Singapore, Malacca and Penang through the colonial governing seat in Singapore
.
In British Malaya, English was the language of the British administration whilst Malay was spoken as the lingua franca of the street, as the British did not wish to antagonize the native Malays.
In British Singapore, however, as the seat of the colonial government and international commerce, English was both the language of administration and the lingua franca.
Thus, in Malaysia, even the Chinese would revert to Malay when speaking to Chinese who did not speak the same Chinese varieties. However, in British Singapore, the Chinese would use English when speaking to other Chinese of a different dialect.
In Malaya, the Chinese varieties themselves also contained many loan-words from Malay, and more Chinese loan-words from the Cantonese, rather than the Hokkien languages e.g. Cantonese: Cantonese-influenced "baa sat" instead of the Hokkien-influenced "baa saak" in Singapore (from Malay 'pasar' meaning 'market'), "loti" (from Malay 'roti' meaning 'bread'), Hokkien "gu li" and "jam bban" (from Malay 'guli' meaning 'marble', 'jamban' meaning 'latrine'/WC).
In Singlish, "eating bread" would be translated as "jiak roti", jiak being the Hokkien verb for "to eat", whereas in Malaysia, "eating bread" would be translated as "makan roti" (Malay verb for "eat" + Hokkien transliteration of the Malay word for "bread").
After Singapore's independence in 1965, and successive "Speak Mandarin" campaigns
, a subtle language shift among the post-1965 generation became more and more evident as Malay idiomatic expressions were, and continued to be, displaced by idioms borrowed from Chinese spoken varieties, such as Hokkien
.
continuum. The continuum
runs through the following varieties:
Acrolectal: Acrolectal Singaporean English exhibits an absence of or a much smaller degree of Singlish pronunciation features than do Mesolectal, Basilectal, and pidgin variants of Singlish.
Mesolectal: This is a mix between Standard English
and Singlish. At this level, a number of features not found in other forms of English begin to emerge.
Basilectal: This is the colloquial speech. educated or not, in informal settings, and is the speech usually referred to as "Singlish". Here, one can find all of the unique phonological
, lexical, and grammatical
features of Singlish. Many of these features can be attributed to Asian languages such as the Chinese
languages, Malay
, or Indian languages such as Tamil
, though some cannot.
Pidgin
: This is the "pidgin" level of Singlish, which is probably a good representative of an earlier stage of Singlish, before creolization
took place and solidified Singlish as a fully formed creole. As with all pidgin
s, speakers at the pidgin level speak another language as a first language, and Singlish as a second language. However, since a substantial number of people today learn Singlish natively, the number of speakers at the "pidgin" level of Singlish is dwindling. This is because by definition, a pidgin
is not learned natively.
The coexistence of basilectal Singlish and acrolectal Standard Singapore English can also be analysed as a diglossia
, which is a split between a "high" formal language and a "low" informal language.
The Sociolect Continuum of Singaporean English
Each of the following means the same thing, but the basilectal and mesolectal versions incorporate some colloquial additions for illustrative purposes.
The phenomenon of code switching
, or the alternation between multiple languages within the same conversation, further complicates the linguistic situation in Singapore. Due to international commerce in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, many well-educated Singaporeans aged 40 and below can, in addition to British English, speak French, Japanese, German and Mandarin Chinese.
Since many Singaporeans can speak English at multiple points along the sociolect spectrum, code-switching can occur very frequently between the acrolectal (Standard Singapore English) and the basilectal (Singlish). In addition, as many Singaporeans are also speakers of the Chinese
languages, Malay
, or Indian languages such as Tamil
, code-switching between English and other languages also occurs dynamically.
For example, a local Singaporean might speak in a Singlish consisting of English, Mandarin and Malay loan-words, when chatting with his friends.
Due to its origins, Singlish shares many similarities with pidgin
varieties of English, and can easily give the impression of "broken English" or "bad English" to a speaker of some other, less divergent variety of English. In addition, the profusion of Singlish features, especially loanword
s from Asian languages, mood
particles
, and topic-prominent
structure, can easily make Singlish incomprehensible to a speaker of Standard English. As a result, the use of Singlish is greatly frowned on by the government, and two former prime ministers, Lee Kuan Yew
and Goh Chok Tong
, have publicly declared that Singlish is a substandard English that handicaps Singaporeans, presents an obstacle to learning proper English, and renders the speaker incomprehensible to everyone except another Singlish speaker.
Current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong
has also said that Singlish should not be part of Singapore's identity. In the interests of promoting equality and better communication with the rest of the world, in 2000 the government launched the Speak Good English Movement
to eradicate it, at least from formal usage. The Media Development Authority
's free-to-air TV code states that the use of Singlish "should not be encouraged and can only be permitted in interviews, where the interviewee speaks only Singlish." In spite of this, in recent years the use of Singlish on television and radio has proliferated as localised Singlish continues to be popular among Singaporeans, especially in comedies.
Singlish is strongly discouraged in Singaporean schools
at a governmental level as it is believed to hinder the proper learning of Standard English, and so faces a situation of diglossia
. The use of Singlish when speaking in classes or to teachers, however officially frowned upon, is rather inevitable given that many teachers themselves are comfortable with the variety. For many students, using Singlish is also inevitable when interacting with their peers, siblings, parents and elders. The government continues to wage an uphill battle in discouraging students from developing a Singlish-speaking habit.
In most workplaces, Singlish is avoided in formal settings, especially at job interviews, meetings with clients, presentations or meetings. Standard Singapore English is preferred. Nevertheless, select Singlish phrases are sometimes injected into discussions to build rapport or for a humorous effect, especially when the audience consists mainly of locals.
In other informal settings, such as during conversation with friends, or transactions in kopi tiam
s and shopping malls, Singlish is used without restriction.
Singapore humour writer Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
was the first to put a spelling and a punctuation to Singlish in her books Eh Goondu (1982) and Lagi Goondu (1986), which are essentially a glossary of Singlish, which she terms 'Pasar Patois'.
, while built on a base of British English
, is also heavily influenced by Malay, Hokkien and Cantonese.
There are variations within Singlish, both geographically and ethnically. Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and other ethnic groups in Singapore all have distinct accents.
All of these communities were formed by the earliest immigrants to Singapore and thus have been British subjects for three or more generations. Thus, they have received no other "native education" than solely British colonial education. Especially for those born before 1965, all the education received has been direct English rather than British influences. Many of the East Coast communities were descendants or in other ways, privileged to be granted British colonial education similar to those in Britain. As such the acrolectal standard of English does not diverge substantially from the acrolectal standard in Britain at this time, though (as in other colonial outposts) it always tended to be somewhat "out of date" compared with contemporary speech patterns in Britain.
The English-educated in Singapore received their English pedagogical instruction through missionary schools and convents such as the Anglo-Chinese School
(ACS), Methodist Girls' School
(MGS), Marymount Convent School, Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus
(CHIJ), Canossa's Convent (Located in Ajunied). However, as decolonization occurred, many expatriate English returned to Britain; Hence, in an unregulated socio-linguistic environment, the spontaneous varieties of a creolized English began to form after the 1960s.
In the East Coast, the teaching professions, especially teaching English, was a popular option in the European, Eurasian, Peranakan and Chinese communities who descended from privileged colonial Civil Service families for the Queen's Crown, from the beginning of the last century up till the 1970s. From the 1970s onwards, the permanent decolonization meant that the original Queen's English taught began to experience deformation and modification from other languages. As a result, whole generations of school-children in the Siglap/Katong districts were taught English with an "English-ed", modified Queen's English accent minimally influenced by Eurasian, Peranakan and Hokkien Chinese intonation. Their Siglap/Katong accent, though not a pure form of Queen's English, is considered to be the prestigious variant of English in Singapore. Because that area has also tended to supply the ruling and civil service classes, many uneducated immigrant Chinese, Malay (from Malaysia), and Indian (new Tamil immigrants) who are trapped in the lower rungs of the social scale, often mock and ridicule this "un-modern" and "foreign-sounding" English. With the rise of the consumerist and mass middle-class, second-generation immigrants of humble origins have begun to deliberately deform taught acrolectal English for street pidgin patois as a form of identity-creation, self-actualization and self-determination.
Prominent members of society still speak the acrolectal Queen's English in formal situations including Benjamin Sheares, David Marshall
, Harry Lee Kuan Yew
, Lee Siew Chow, Francis Seow
and other affluent descendants of the East Coast communities.
However, after 1965, with colonial attitudes being unpopular politically, a new "culture-free" English was promoted through the usages of television presenters in the former SBC (Singapore Broadcasting Corporation), through to its renaming as TCS (Television Corporation of Singapore) and to the current MediaCorp. This post-1965 accent, is sometimes known as the "Channel 5 accent", after the English channel owned by the State media group. This gave rise to a new standard of artificially-constructed but standardised acrolectal English for Singapore that did not equate to Received Pronunciation
in Britain but corresponded to the latter's social function and status within the new Singaporean national context due to state monopoly, censorship and control over media in this early stage of Singaporean national politics. Despite this, the more affluent English-educated classes continued to support the original Christian missionary and Convent schools financially to stem the degradation of English language instruction. Despite all attempts, the English language in Singapore began to naturally creolize. The post-1965 English-educated accent is hence different from that of the pre-1965 "English-ed accent". For example, PM Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Hsien Yang, sons of the political figure Lee Kuan Yew, do not speak their father's Queen's English. The pure English diphthongs in words like "home", the liaison in pronunciation of "r" at the end of words ending with "r" followed by a word beginning with a vowel (such as "ever emerging", pronounced in Queen's English as "eveR emerging" does not occur. Instead, diphthongs are converted into simplified vowels, and elements of Chinese, Malay and other accents and influences begin to exert itself on the evolving acrolect.
Parallel to this, British economic, political and linguistic influence began to decline starkly throughout the world as colonies gained independence, such as India, while the United States of America rose as a superpower and American English largely took over as the international economic and cultural prestige variant. This change became more pervasive with the rise of Hollywood and American popular culture. As such, even among the "English-educated classes", the type and use of English shifted again as more affluent families, scholarship boards and charities sent the youth to boarding schools, colleges and universities in the United States over the United Kingdom. Many more Singaporeans then began to be born abroad to a jetsetting English-ed class and descendants of the ex-Civil Service class for left for higher-paying education, legal and corporate positions in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom, and a huge middle-class segment to Australia and New Zealand. As such, the English-educated class born after 1965 do not speak the Queen's English any more, nor do they hold the "Channel 5 accent" as a standard, reverting between the prestige variant of the countries they received schooling in, and the bourgeois patois for familiarity. As such, the English accent in Singapore has become an international hybrid similar to that of affluent families in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo.
When unemployment rose during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, Singlish came under official attack as undermining an economic competitiveness factor – English language fluency.
(See International Phonetic Alphabet
for an in-depth guide to the symbols.)
In general:
s to British Received Pronunciation
vowel phonemes, with a few exceptions (as discussed below, with regard to egg and peg). The following describes a typical system. Some speakers may further merge /e/ and /ɛ/; other speakers (especially better educated ones) make a distinction between /i/ and /ɪ/, /ɛ/ and /ɛə/, or /ɑ/ and /ʌ/. There is generally no distinction between the non-close front monophthongs, so pet and pat are pronounced the same /pɛt/.
At the acrolectal level, the merged vowel phoneme
s are distinguished to some extent, and for some speakers elements from American English
are introduced, such as pre-consonantal [r] (pronouncing the "r" in bird, port, etc.). This is caused by the popularity of American TV programming. Current estimates are that about 20 per cent of university undergraduates sometimes use this American-style pre-consonantal [r] when reading a passage.
Monophthong
s
Diphthongs
Mapping between Singlish and British RP vowels:
remains /ɛ/ in Singlish, except when followed by a voiced plosive (/b/, /d/, or /g/), in which case it becomes /e/ among some speakers. However, this is not entirely predictable, as egg has a close vowel (so it rhymes with vague) while peg has an open vowel (and rhymes with tag); and similarly for most speakers bed has a close vowel (so it rhymes with made), while fed has a more open vowel (the same vowel as in bad). Which vowel occurs in each word therefore appears in these cases not to be predictable. remains /ai/ in Singlish, except when followed by /l/, in which case it is the monophthong /ɑ/.
, American
or Australian English
, etc. For example:
Overall, the differences between the different ethnic communities in Singapore are most evident in the patterns of intonation, so for example Malay Singaporeans often have the main pitch excursion later in an utterance than ethnically Chinese and Indian Singaporeans.
Generally, these pronunciation patterns are thought to have increased the clarity of Singlish communications between pidgin-level speakers in often noisy environments, and these features were retained in creolization.
, with some structures being identical to ones in Mandarin and other Chinese languages. As a result, Singlish has acquired some unique features, especially at the basilectal level. Note that all of the features described below disappear at the acrolectal level, as people in formal situations tend to adjust their speech towards accepted norms found in other varieties of English.
, like Chinese
and Japanese
. This means that Singlish sentences often begin with a topic (or a known reference of the conversation), followed by a comment (or new information) Compared to other varieties of English, the semantic relationship between topic and comment is not important; moreover, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and even entire subject-verb-object phrases can all serve as the topic:
The above constructions can be translated analogously into Chinese
, with a little change to the word order.
The topic can be omitted when the context is clear, or shared between clauses. This results in constructions that appear to be missing a subject to a speaker of most other varieties of English, and so called PRO-drop utterances may be regarded as a diagnostic feature of Singapore Colloquial English (or 'Singlish'). For example:
ity. Article
s are also optional. For example:
It is more common to mark the plural in the presence of a modifier
that implies plurality, such as "many" or "four".
Many nouns which seem logically to refer to a countable item are used in the plural, including furniture and clothing. Examples of this usage from corpus recordings are:
When occurring with an adjective or adjective phrase, the verb "to be" tends to be omitted:
Sometimes, an adverb such as "very" occurs, and this is reminiscent of Chinese
usage of the word 'hen' (很）or 'hao' (好):
It is also common for the verb "to be" to be omitted before passives:
and before the "-ing" form of the verb.:
Slightly less common is the dropping out of "to be" when used as an equative between two nouns, or as a locative:
In general, "to be" drops out more after nouns and pronouns (except "I", "he", and "she"), and much less after a clause
(what I think is...) or a demonstrative
(this is...).
s (or irregular verbs), as well as verbs where the past tense suffix is pronounced /ɪd/. For example:
Due to consonant cluster simplification, the past tense is most often unmarked when it is pronounced as /t/ or /d/ at the end of a consonant cluster
:
The past tense is more likely to be marked if the verb describes an isolated event (it is a punctual verb), and it tends to be unmarked if the verb in question represents an action that goes on for an extended period:
There seems also to be a tendency to avoid use of the past tense to refer to someone who is still alive:
Note in the final example that although the speaker is narrating a story, she probably uses the present tense in the belief that the tour guide is probably still alive.
了 (le). This is not the same as the past tense, but more of an aspect, as it does not cover past habitual or continuous occurrences, and it can refer to a real or hypothetical change of state in the past, present or future.
The frequent use of already in Singapore English is probably a direct influence of the Hokkien liao particle. For example:
Some examples of the direct use of the Hokkien particle are:
s, and don't before all other verbs. Contractions (can't, shouldn't) are used alongside their uncontracted forms.
However, due to final cluster simplification, the -t drops out from negative forms, and -n may also drop out after nasalising the previous vowel. This makes nasalisation the only mark of the negative.
Another effect of this is that in the verb "can", its positive and negative forms are distinguished only by vowel
:
Also, never is used as a negative past tense marker, and does not have to carry the English meaning. In this construction, the negated verb is never put into the past-tense form:
s, Singlish uses two more constructions:
In a construction similar (but not identical) to Chinese
A-not-A, or not is appended to the end of sentences to form yes/no questions. Or not cannot be used with sentences already in the negative:
The phrase is it is also appended to the end of sentences to form yes-no questions. It is generic like the French
n'est-ce pas? (isn't it so?), regardless of the actual verb in the sentence, and is strongly reminiscent of the Chinese 是吗 (Pinyin: shi ma) as well as its frequent use amongst South Indian speakers of English. Is it implies that the speaker is simply confirming something he/she has already inferred:
The phrase isn't it also occurs when the speaker thinks the hearer might disagree with the assertion.
There are also many discourse particles, such as hah, hor, meh, ar, that are used in questions. (See the "Discourse particles" section further down in this article.)
and Malay
, verbs are often repeated (e.g., TV personality Phua Chu Kang's "don't pray-pray!" pray = play). In general verbs are repeated twice to indicate the delimitative aspect (that the action goes on for a short period), and three times to indicate greater length and continuity:
The use of verb repetition also serves to provide a more vivid description of an activity:
In another usage reminiscent of Chinese, noun
s referring to people can be repeated for intimacy. Most commonly, monosyllabic nouns are repeated:
However, occasionally reduplication is also found with bisyllabic nouns:
Adjective
s of one or two syllables can also be repeated for intensification:
Due to the frequent use of these repetitions on short words, Singlish expressions often sound to speakers of American or British English as if they are spoken by children, which non-Singlish speakers find quite amusing, and contributes to the impression of Singlish as an informal and sometimes intimate language.
in Singlish are highly comparable to Chinese
. In general, discourse particle
s occur at the end of a sentence. Their presence changes the meaning or the tone of the sentence, but not its grammaticality.
Particles are noted for keeping their tones
regardless of the remainder of the sentence. Most of the particles are directly borrowed from southern Chinese varieties, with the tones intact.
Research on Singlish discourse particles have been many but varied, often focusing on analysing their functions in the sentences they appear in.
It is derived from a Malay word that means "to encounter or to come into physical contact", and is only used with objects that have a negative effect or connotation. Verbs after kena may appear in the infinitive form (i.e. without tense) or as a past participle. It is similar in meaning to passive markers in Chinese, such as Hokkien tio or Mandarin 被 bèi:
Kena is not used with positive things:
Use of kena as in the above examples will not be understood, and may even be greeted with a confused reply: But strike lottery good wat! (But it's a good thing to win the lottery!).
It may be used in vulgar, obscene and offensive contexts, such as:
However, when used in sarcasm, kena can be used in apparently positive circumstances, though this is considered grammatically incorrect by the true natives of Singapore. It is mostly incorrectly used by European expatriates or Hong Kong and Mainlanders trying to integrate and assimilate into Singapore society, though with an ironic modicum of success, for example:
When the context is given, Kena may be used without a verb, similar to the colloquial-English construction "I am/you're/he is going to get it."
Using another auxiliary verb with kena is perfectly acceptable as well:
Some examples of Singlish phrases with Kena:
The word is many a times phonetically mispronounced "kana" by most non-Malays, especially those of the Chinese tongue. Informal Malay will socio-linguistically dictate it be pronounced as kene (as in kernel without the r and l), while the word itself in reality has two different meanings; "to have (to) encounter(ed) something" as how it is explained above or "to have to (do something)":
"Kau kena angkat ni." – You have to carry this.
"Joe kena marah tadi." – Joe just got scolded.
Singlish, however, is only influenced by the latter application of the word.
of the sentence by implying that it is unique and characteristic. It is analogous to the use of particles like 嘅 ge or 架 ga in Cantonese, 啲 e in Hokkien, -wa in spoken Japanese, or 的 de in some varieties of Mandarin. One used in this way does not correspond to any use of the word "one" in British
, American English
, Australian English
, etc: It can be compared to the British usage of 'eh'. It might also be analysed as a relative pronoun, though it occurs at the end of the relative clause instead of the beginning (as in Standard English)
For speakers of Mandarin, 的de can also be used in place of one.
i) "Den" can be synonymous with "so" or "therefore". It is used to replace the Chinese grammatical particle, 才 (see ii).
When it is intended to carry the meaning of "therefore", it is often used to explain one's blunder/negative consequences. In such contexts, it is a translation from Chinese "所以". When used in this context, the "den" is prolonged twice the usual length in emphasis, as opposed to the short emphasis it is given when used to mean cai2.
– I did not do my homework, that's why (therefore) I got a scolding
– I did not do my homework; I got a scolding after that
– It is only due to the fact that I did not do my homework that I was scolded.
Be very careful because "den" cannot be freely interchanged with "so". It will sound grammatically erroneous when employed inappropriately. This is because the grammatical rules in English do not correspond to the grammatical rules in Chinese on a one-for-one basis.
The following examples are inappropriate use of "den", which will immediately sound grammatically illogical to a Singlish speaker:
The reason for this is that "den" often marks a negative, non-volitional outcome (either in the future or the past), while the above sentences express volition and are set in the present. Consider the following examples:
ii) "Den" is also used to describe an action that will be performed later. It is used to replace the Chinese particle, "才". When used in this context, the den is pronounced in one beat, instead of being lengthened to two beats as in (i).
If shortened, the meaning will be changed / incorrectly conveyed. For example, "I go home liao, "den" (2 beats) call you" will imbue the subtext with a questionable sense of irony, a lasciviousness for seduction (3 beats), or just general inappropriateness (random 2 beats indicating a Hong Kong comedy-influenced moleitou 無理頭 Singaporean sense of humour).
iii) "Den" can used at the beginning of a sentence as a link to the previous sentence. In this usage, "den" is used to replace the Mandarin grammatical particle which is approximately equivalent in meaning (but not in grammatical usage) only to "Then," or "ran2hou4", as in "ran2hou4 hor". In such cases, it often carries a connotation of an exclamation.
When used in this context, in formal Singlish, the particle is lengthened to 2 beats to indicate replacement of "ran2hou4" or 1 beat when used in conjunction with "hor" as in "den hor".
It can also be shortened to 1 beat if the other speaker is a fluent Singapore speaker of Singlish (who tends to speak fast and can deduce via contextual clues which form of meaning the use of den is taking on), but the Singlish variant used when spoken to a wider Southeast Asian audience, is lengthening of the word to 2 beats.
The subtle usage of these particles differentiates a Malaysian speaking Manglish trying to assimilate into society, and a true-blue native-born Singaporean (whether it's a Chinese, Indian, Eurasian, Malay or Caucasian speaker of Singlish). In many cases, a mixed child born and bred in Singapore will speak a more subtle form of Singlish (together with the influence of another language such as Dutch, Swedish, German) than a first-generation Malaysian of Chinese descent assimilating into Singapore.
iv) "Den" can be used to return an insult/negative comment back to the originator. When used in such a way, there must first be an insult/negative comment from another party. In such contexts, it is a translation from Chinese "才".
v) "Den?" can be used as a single-worded phrase. Even if "den" is used in a single-worded phrase, even with the same pronunciation, it can represent 4 different meanings. It can either be synonymous with "so what?", or it can be a sarcastic expression that the other party is making a statement that arose from his/her actions, or similarly an arrogant expression which indicating that the other party is stating the obvious, or it can be used as a short form for "what happened then?".
[Synonymous with "so what?"]
[Sarcastic expression] Speakers tend to emphasize the pronunciation of 'n'.
Context: A is supposed to meet B before meeting a larger group but A is late for the first meeting
[Arrogant expression] Speakers have the option of using "Den" in a phrase, as in "Ah Bu Den" or "Ah Den". In this case it serves approximately the same purpose as 'duh' in American English slang.
[Ah, but then? (What happened after that?)]
vi) "Den" can also indicate a conditional (an if-then condition), implying an omitted "if"/"when":
As "Oi" has connotations of disapproval, it is considered to be slightly offensive if it is used in situations where a more polite register is expected, e.g. while speaking to strangers in public, people in the workplace or one's elders.
: Lè/Là), though its usage in Singapore is also influenced by its occurrence in Malay. It simultaneously softens the force of an utterance and entices solidarity, though it can also have the opposite meaning so it is used to signal power. In addition, there are suggestions that there is more than one lah particle, so there may be a stressed and an unstressed variant and perhaps as many as nine tonal variants, all having a special pragmatic function
Note that 'lah' is occasionally after a comma for clarity, though true locals never bother with punctuation, because there is never a pause before 'lah'. This is because in Malay, 'lah' is appended to the end of the word and is not a separate word by itself. It must also be noted that although 'lah' is usually spelled in the Malay fashion, its use is more akin to the Hokkien use.
In Malay, 'lah' is used to change a verb into a command or to soften its tone, particularly when usage of the verb may seem impolite. To drink is minum, but 'Here, drink!' is "minumlah!". Similarly, 'lah' is frequently used with imperatives in Singlish:
'Lah' also occurs frequently with "Yah" and "No" (hence "Yah lah!" and "No lah!..."). This can, with the appropriate tone, result in a less-brusque declaration and facilitate the flow of conversation. "No more work to do, we go home lah!" However, if the preceding clause is already diminutive or jocular, suffixing it with -lah would be redundant and improper: one would not say "yep lah", "nope lah", or "ta lah" (as in the British "Ta" for "thank you").
Lah is often used with brusque, short, negative responses:
Lah is also used for reassurance:
Lah is sometimes use to curse people
Lah can also be used to emphasise items in a spoken list, appearing after each item in the list.
Although lah can appear nearly anywhere, it cannot appear with a yes-no question. Other particles should be used instead:
It can also be used to strengthen any assertion:
Especially when on a low tone, it can be used to show the speaker's disapproval:
Ar (/ɑ̌/) with a rising tone is used to reiterate a rhetorical question:
Ar (/ɑ̄/) with a mid-level tone, on the other hand, is used to mark a genuine question that does require a response: ('or not' can also be used in this context.)
"Kau ade problem ke ape, sial?" – Do you have a problem or what? (negative, enraged)
"Sial ah, Joe bawak iPod ni ari." – Whoa, Joe brought an iPod today. (positive, envy)
"Takde lah sial." – No way, man. or I don't have it, man. (positive, neutral)
"Joe kene marah sial." – Joe got scolded, man. (positive, emphasis)
Malays may also pronounce it without the l, not following the ia but rather a nasal aah. This particular form of usage is often seen in expressing emphasis. There is a further third application of it, in that a k is added at the end when it will then be pronounced saak with the same nasal quality only when ending the word. It is similarly used in emphasis.
However, Singlish itself takes influence only from the general expression of the term without any negative implication, and non-Malay speakers (or Malays speaking to non-Malays) pronounce it either as a nasal sia or simply siah:
Also from Chinese, it literally means excrement. This is also used in "kena sai", which means to be humiliated (see earlier part of this section for the definition of "kena").
Siao is a common word in Singlish. Literally, it means crazy.
"Then you know" is a phrase often used at the end of a sentence or after a warning of the possible negative consequences of an action. Can be directly translated as "and you will regret not heeding my advice". Also a direct translation of the Chinese '你才会知道'.
"There is"/"there are" and "has"/"have" are both expressed using got, so that sentences can be translated in either way back into British / American / Australasian English. This is equivalent to the Chinese 有 yǒu (to have):
Can is used extensively as both a question particle and an answer particle. The negative is cannot.
Can can be repeated for greater emphasis or to express enthusiasm:
The Malay word with the same meaning boleh can be used in place of can to add a greater sense of multiculturalism in the conversation. The person in a dominant position may prefer to use boleh instead:
The phrase like that is commonly appended to the end of the sentence to emphasize descriptions by adding vividness and continuousness. Due to its frequency of use, it is often pronounced lidat (lye-dat):
Like that can also be used as in other Englishes:
In British English, "also" is used before the predicate, while "too" is used after the predicative at the end of the sentence. In Singlish (also in American and Australian English), "also" can be used in either position.
"Also" is also used as a conjunction
. In this case, "A also B" corresponds to "B although A". This stems from Chinese, where the words 也 (yě), 还 (hái) or 都 (dōu) (meaning also, usage depends on dialect or context) would be used to express these sentences.
The order of the verb and the subject in an indirect question is the same as a direct question.
"Ownself" is often used in place of "yourself", or more accurately, "yourself" being an individual, in a state of being alone.
Not all expressions with the -self pronouns should be taken literally, but as the omission of "by":
Some people have begun to add extra "ed"s to the past tense of words or to pronounce "ed" separately. Most of the time, the user uses it intentionally to mock proper English.
(in terms of spelling
and abbreviation
s), although naming conventions are in a mix of American and British ones (with American ones on the rise). For instance, local media have "sports pages" (sport in British English) and "soccer coverage" (the use of the word "soccer" is not common in British media), though the word "football" is also taken to be synonymous with "soccer" in Singapore.
Singlish also uses many words borrowed from Hokkien
, and from Malay
. The most well-known instance of a borrowing from Hokkien is 'kiasu', which means "frightened of losing out", and is used to indicate behaviour such as queueing overnight to obtain something; and the most common borrowing from Malay is 'makan', meaning "to eat".
In many cases, English words take on the meaning of their Chinese counterparts, resulting in a shift in meaning. This is most obvious in such cases as "borrow"/"lend", which are functionally equivalent in Singlish and mapped to the same Mandarin word, "借" (jiè), which can mean to lend or to borrow. ("Oi (also used as oy, although Singaporeans spell it as oi), can borrow me your calculator?"); and 'send' can be used to mean "accompany someone", as in "Let me send you to the airport", possibly under the influence of the Mandarin word "送" (sòng). However, we might note that Malay '(meng)hantar' can also be used to mean both "send a letter" and "take children to school", so perhaps both Malay and Chinese have combined to influence the usage of 'send' in Singapore.
's:
These published works are generally in English, but they describe the prevalence of Singlish in Singapore, and use many Singlish terms such as in dialogue.
, a UK think tank
, recommended that the UK embrace 'modern' Englishes
, since far from being corruptions of English, new versions of the language, like Chinglish
and Singlish, have values "that the British need to learn to accommodate and relate to".
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
.
Singlish is commonly regarded with low prestige in Singapore. The Singaporean government and many Singaporeans alike heavily discourage the use of Singlish in favour of Standard English
Standard English
Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
. The government has created an annual Speak Good English Movement
Speak Good English Movement
The Speak Good English Movement is a Singapore Government campaign to "encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood".It was launched by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on 29 April 2000...
to emphasise the point. Singlish is also heavily discouraged in the mass media and in schools.
The vocabulary of Singlish consists of words originating from English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
, Teochew, Cantonese, Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
and to a lesser extent various other European, Indic and Sinitic languages
Sinitic languages
The Sinitic languages, often called the Chinese languages or the Chinese language, are a language family frequently postulated as one of two primary branches of Sino-Tibetan...
. Also, elements of American
American slang
American slang is slang that is common in, or particular to, the United States.The term can refer specifically to:-Language:*California slang, slang used in California English, or which originates in California*U.S...
and Australian slang have come through from imported television series and films.
Overview and history
Singapore English derives its roots from 146 years (1819–1965) of British colonial rule over Singapore. Prior to 1965, the standard form of English in Singapore had always been British EnglishBritish English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
and Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
. After Singapore declared independence in 1965, English in Singapore began to take a life of its own, leading to the development of modern day Standard Singapore English. Standard Singapore English began to take root and Singlish began to evolve among the working classes who learned English without formal schooling.
Singlish originated with the arrival of the British and the establishment of English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
schools in Singapore. Soon, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
filtered out of schools and onto the streets, to be picked up by non-English-speakers in a pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
-like form for communication purposes. After some time, this new form of English, now loaded with substantial influences from Indian English
Indian English
Indian English is an umbrella term used to describe dialects of the English language spoken primarily in the Republic of India.As a result of British colonial rule until Indian independence in 1947 English is an official language of India and is widely used in both spoken and literary contexts...
, Baba
Peranakan
Peranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago of Nusantara during the Colonial era....
, Malay, and the southern varieties of Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, became the language of the streets and began to be learned as a first language in its own right. Creolization
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
occurred, and Singlish is now a fully formed, stabilized, and independent English-based creole language.
Singlish shares substantial linguistic similarities with Malaysian English
Manglish
Manglish is an English based creole spoken in Malaysia.The vocabulary of Manglish consists of words originating from English, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, and to a lesser extent various other European languages, while Manglish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese...
(Manglish) in Malaysia, although distinctions can be made, particularly in vocabulary. Manglish generally now receives more Malay influence and Singlish more Chinese (Mandarin, Hokkien, etc.) influence. In addition, Singlish has a set grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
and particular phonological and grammatical rules, whereas Manglish
Manglish
Manglish is an English based creole spoken in Malaysia.The vocabulary of Manglish consists of words originating from English, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, and to a lesser extent various other European languages, while Manglish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese...
does not follow any grammatical rules, and is not mutually intelligible within different variants of Manglish, even disparate regions in Malaysia itself.
Initially, "Singlish" and "Manglish" were essentially the same dialect evolving from the British Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
economy, born in the trading ports of Singapore, Malacca and Penang when Singapore and peninsular Malaysia
Peninsular Malaysia
Peninsular Malaysia , also known as West Malaysia , is the part of Malaysia which lies on the Malay Peninsula. Its area is . It shares a land border with Thailand in the north. To the south is the island of Singapore. Across the Strait of Malacca to the west lies the island of Sumatra...
were for many purposes a de facto single entity.
In Singapore, English was the language of administration, which the British used, with the assistance of English-educated Straits-born Chinese, to control the administration in Malaya and governance of trading routes such as the British East Indies spice routes with China, Japan, Europe and America in those ports and colonies of Singapore, Malacca and Penang through the colonial governing seat in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
.
In British Malaya, English was the language of the British administration whilst Malay was spoken as the lingua franca of the street, as the British did not wish to antagonize the native Malays.
In British Singapore, however, as the seat of the colonial government and international commerce, English was both the language of administration and the lingua franca.
Thus, in Malaysia, even the Chinese would revert to Malay when speaking to Chinese who did not speak the same Chinese varieties. However, in British Singapore, the Chinese would use English when speaking to other Chinese of a different dialect.
In Malaya, the Chinese varieties themselves also contained many loan-words from Malay, and more Chinese loan-words from the Cantonese, rather than the Hokkien languages e.g. Cantonese: Cantonese-influenced "baa sat" instead of the Hokkien-influenced "baa saak" in Singapore (from Malay 'pasar' meaning 'market'), "loti" (from Malay 'roti' meaning 'bread'), Hokkien "gu li" and "jam bban" (from Malay 'guli' meaning 'marble', 'jamban' meaning 'latrine'/WC).
In Singlish, "eating bread" would be translated as "jiak roti", jiak being the Hokkien verb for "to eat", whereas in Malaysia, "eating bread" would be translated as "makan roti" (Malay verb for "eat" + Hokkien transliteration of the Malay word for "bread").
After Singapore's independence in 1965, and successive "Speak Mandarin" campaigns
Speak Mandarin Campaign
The Speak Mandarin Campaign is an initiative by the government of Singapore to encourage the Singaporean Chinese population to speak Mandarin, one of the four official languages of Singapore...
, a subtle language shift among the post-1965 generation became more and more evident as Malay idiomatic expressions were, and continued to be, displaced by idioms borrowed from Chinese spoken varieties, such as Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
.
Sociolect continuum
The English language in Singapore is a sociolectSociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect or social dialect is a variety of language associated with a social group such as a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, an age group, etc....
continuum. The continuum
Post-creole speech continuum
The Post-creole continuum or simply creole continuum refers to a situation wherein a creole language consists of a spectrum of varieties between those most and least similar to the superstrate language...
runs through the following varieties:
Acrolectal: Acrolectal Singaporean English exhibits an absence of or a much smaller degree of Singlish pronunciation features than do Mesolectal, Basilectal, and pidgin variants of Singlish.
Mesolectal: This is a mix between Standard English
Standard English
Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
and Singlish. At this level, a number of features not found in other forms of English begin to emerge.
Basilectal: This is the colloquial speech. educated or not, in informal settings, and is the speech usually referred to as "Singlish". Here, one can find all of the unique phonological
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, lexical, and grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
features of Singlish. Many of these features can be attributed to Asian languages such as the Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
languages, Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, or Indian languages such as Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, though some cannot.
Pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
: This is the "pidgin" level of Singlish, which is probably a good representative of an earlier stage of Singlish, before creolization
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
took place and solidified Singlish as a fully formed creole. As with all pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
s, speakers at the pidgin level speak another language as a first language, and Singlish as a second language. However, since a substantial number of people today learn Singlish natively, the number of speakers at the "pidgin" level of Singlish is dwindling. This is because by definition, a pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
is not learned natively.
The coexistence of basilectal Singlish and acrolectal Standard Singapore English can also be analysed as a diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
, which is a split between a "high" formal language and a "low" informal language.
The Sociolect Continuum of Singaporean English
Each of the following means the same thing, but the basilectal and mesolectal versions incorporate some colloquial additions for illustrative purposes.
| Basilect ("Singlish") "Dis guy Singrish si beh powerful sia." |
Mesolect "Dis guy Singlish damn good eh." |
Acrolect ("Standard") "This person's Singlish is very good." |
The phenomenon of code switching
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
, or the alternation between multiple languages within the same conversation, further complicates the linguistic situation in Singapore. Due to international commerce in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, many well-educated Singaporeans aged 40 and below can, in addition to British English, speak French, Japanese, German and Mandarin Chinese.
Since many Singaporeans can speak English at multiple points along the sociolect spectrum, code-switching can occur very frequently between the acrolectal (Standard Singapore English) and the basilectal (Singlish). In addition, as many Singaporeans are also speakers of the Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
languages, Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, or Indian languages such as Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, code-switching between English and other languages also occurs dynamically.
For example, a local Singaporean might speak in a Singlish consisting of English, Mandarin and Malay loan-words, when chatting with his friends.
Usage in society
Singlish is commonly regarded with low prestige in Singapore. For this reason, Singlish is not used in formal communication. Standard Singapore English is preferred by many educated Singaporeans.Due to its origins, Singlish shares many similarities with pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
varieties of English, and can easily give the impression of "broken English" or "bad English" to a speaker of some other, less divergent variety of English. In addition, the profusion of Singlish features, especially loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from Asian languages, mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
particles
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
, and topic-prominent
Topic-prominent language
A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N...
structure, can easily make Singlish incomprehensible to a speaker of Standard English. As a result, the use of Singlish is greatly frowned on by the government, and two former prime ministers, Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...
and Goh Chok Tong
Goh Chok Tong
Goh Chok Tong is the Senior Minister of Singapore and the chairman of the central bank of Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He also served as the second Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore from 28 November 1990 to 12 August 2004, succeeding Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime...
, have publicly declared that Singlish is a substandard English that handicaps Singaporeans, presents an obstacle to learning proper English, and renders the speaker incomprehensible to everyone except another Singlish speaker.
Current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong
Lee Hsien Loong
Lee Hsien Loong is the third and current Prime Minister of Singapore. He is married to Ho Ching, who is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Temasek Holdings. He is the eldest son of Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew....
has also said that Singlish should not be part of Singapore's identity. In the interests of promoting equality and better communication with the rest of the world, in 2000 the government launched the Speak Good English Movement
Speak Good English Movement
The Speak Good English Movement is a Singapore Government campaign to "encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood".It was launched by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on 29 April 2000...
to eradicate it, at least from formal usage. The Media Development Authority
Media Development Authority
The Media Development Authority is a statutory board of the Singapore Government, under the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts .-History:...
's free-to-air TV code states that the use of Singlish "should not be encouraged and can only be permitted in interviews, where the interviewee speaks only Singlish." In spite of this, in recent years the use of Singlish on television and radio has proliferated as localised Singlish continues to be popular among Singaporeans, especially in comedies.
Singlish is strongly discouraged in Singaporean schools
Education in Singapore
Education in Singapore is managed by the Ministry of Education , which controls the development and administration of state schools receiving government funding, but also has an advisory and supervisory role in respect of private schools...
at a governmental level as it is believed to hinder the proper learning of Standard English, and so faces a situation of diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
. The use of Singlish when speaking in classes or to teachers, however officially frowned upon, is rather inevitable given that many teachers themselves are comfortable with the variety. For many students, using Singlish is also inevitable when interacting with their peers, siblings, parents and elders. The government continues to wage an uphill battle in discouraging students from developing a Singlish-speaking habit.
In most workplaces, Singlish is avoided in formal settings, especially at job interviews, meetings with clients, presentations or meetings. Standard Singapore English is preferred. Nevertheless, select Singlish phrases are sometimes injected into discussions to build rapport or for a humorous effect, especially when the audience consists mainly of locals.
In other informal settings, such as during conversation with friends, or transactions in kopi tiam
Kopi tiam
咖啡店A kopitiam or kopi tiam is a traditional breakfast and coffee shop found in Southeast Asia. The word is a portmanteau of the Malay word for coffee and the Hokkien dialect word for shop...
s and shopping malls, Singlish is used without restriction.
Singapore humour writer Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
Sylvia Toh Paik Choo is a newspaper columnist and humour writer from Singapore. She is the author of Eh Goondu! and Lagi Goondu! , the first two books on Singlish. She was the first to put a spelling and punctuation to Singlish. Written with good humour, the books can be considered as social...
was the first to put a spelling and a punctuation to Singlish in her books Eh Goondu (1982) and Lagi Goondu (1986), which are essentially a glossary of Singlish, which she terms 'Pasar Patois'.
Background
Singlish pronunciationPronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
, while built on a base of British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
, is also heavily influenced by Malay, Hokkien and Cantonese.
There are variations within Singlish, both geographically and ethnically. Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and other ethnic groups in Singapore all have distinct accents.
All of these communities were formed by the earliest immigrants to Singapore and thus have been British subjects for three or more generations. Thus, they have received no other "native education" than solely British colonial education. Especially for those born before 1965, all the education received has been direct English rather than British influences. Many of the East Coast communities were descendants or in other ways, privileged to be granted British colonial education similar to those in Britain. As such the acrolectal standard of English does not diverge substantially from the acrolectal standard in Britain at this time, though (as in other colonial outposts) it always tended to be somewhat "out of date" compared with contemporary speech patterns in Britain.
The English-educated in Singapore received their English pedagogical instruction through missionary schools and convents such as the Anglo-Chinese School
Anglo-Chinese School
The Anglo-Chinese School ; is a family of Methodist schools in Singapore, and Indonesia.The name is usually abbreviated as "ACS", with the junior college as "ACJC", and its students and alumni referred to as "ACSians" , or "ACS boys" .ACS was the first school...
(ACS), Methodist Girls' School
Methodist Girls' School
Methodist Girls' School is a girls' independent school, consisting of two sections - the Primary School and Secondary School, located in Bukit Timah, Singapore. It is affiliated to the Anglo-Chinese School family and the Methodist Church in Singapore...
(MGS), Marymount Convent School, Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus
Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus
The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus schools are a group of eleven all-girls Catholic schools in Singapore. The first CHIJ school in Singapore was established at Victoria Street in 1854, by nuns of the Sisters of the Holy Infant Jesus. Today, the group includes six primary schools, four secondary...
(CHIJ), Canossa's Convent (Located in Ajunied). However, as decolonization occurred, many expatriate English returned to Britain; Hence, in an unregulated socio-linguistic environment, the spontaneous varieties of a creolized English began to form after the 1960s.
In the East Coast, the teaching professions, especially teaching English, was a popular option in the European, Eurasian, Peranakan and Chinese communities who descended from privileged colonial Civil Service families for the Queen's Crown, from the beginning of the last century up till the 1970s. From the 1970s onwards, the permanent decolonization meant that the original Queen's English taught began to experience deformation and modification from other languages. As a result, whole generations of school-children in the Siglap/Katong districts were taught English with an "English-ed", modified Queen's English accent minimally influenced by Eurasian, Peranakan and Hokkien Chinese intonation. Their Siglap/Katong accent, though not a pure form of Queen's English, is considered to be the prestigious variant of English in Singapore. Because that area has also tended to supply the ruling and civil service classes, many uneducated immigrant Chinese, Malay (from Malaysia), and Indian (new Tamil immigrants) who are trapped in the lower rungs of the social scale, often mock and ridicule this "un-modern" and "foreign-sounding" English. With the rise of the consumerist and mass middle-class, second-generation immigrants of humble origins have begun to deliberately deform taught acrolectal English for street pidgin patois as a form of identity-creation, self-actualization and self-determination.
Prominent members of society still speak the acrolectal Queen's English in formal situations including Benjamin Sheares, David Marshall
David Marshall
Dave Marshall or David Marshall may refer to:* Dave Marshall , former professional baseball player* Dave Marshall , guitarist with Vince Neil and Slaughter...
, Harry Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...
, Lee Siew Chow, Francis Seow
Francis Seow
Francis Seow is a Singapore-born political dissident who is in exile from Singapore after lawsuits by the former Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew. He was educated at Saint Joseph's Institution in Singapore and at the Middle Temple in London...
and other affluent descendants of the East Coast communities.
However, after 1965, with colonial attitudes being unpopular politically, a new "culture-free" English was promoted through the usages of television presenters in the former SBC (Singapore Broadcasting Corporation), through to its renaming as TCS (Television Corporation of Singapore) and to the current MediaCorp. This post-1965 accent, is sometimes known as the "Channel 5 accent", after the English channel owned by the State media group. This gave rise to a new standard of artificially-constructed but standardised acrolectal English for Singapore that did not equate to Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
in Britain but corresponded to the latter's social function and status within the new Singaporean national context due to state monopoly, censorship and control over media in this early stage of Singaporean national politics. Despite this, the more affluent English-educated classes continued to support the original Christian missionary and Convent schools financially to stem the degradation of English language instruction. Despite all attempts, the English language in Singapore began to naturally creolize. The post-1965 English-educated accent is hence different from that of the pre-1965 "English-ed accent". For example, PM Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Hsien Yang, sons of the political figure Lee Kuan Yew, do not speak their father's Queen's English. The pure English diphthongs in words like "home", the liaison in pronunciation of "r" at the end of words ending with "r" followed by a word beginning with a vowel (such as "ever emerging", pronounced in Queen's English as "eveR emerging" does not occur. Instead, diphthongs are converted into simplified vowels, and elements of Chinese, Malay and other accents and influences begin to exert itself on the evolving acrolect.
Parallel to this, British economic, political and linguistic influence began to decline starkly throughout the world as colonies gained independence, such as India, while the United States of America rose as a superpower and American English largely took over as the international economic and cultural prestige variant. This change became more pervasive with the rise of Hollywood and American popular culture. As such, even among the "English-educated classes", the type and use of English shifted again as more affluent families, scholarship boards and charities sent the youth to boarding schools, colleges and universities in the United States over the United Kingdom. Many more Singaporeans then began to be born abroad to a jetsetting English-ed class and descendants of the ex-Civil Service class for left for higher-paying education, legal and corporate positions in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom, and a huge middle-class segment to Australia and New Zealand. As such, the English-educated class born after 1965 do not speak the Queen's English any more, nor do they hold the "Channel 5 accent" as a standard, reverting between the prestige variant of the countries they received schooling in, and the bourgeois patois for familiarity. As such, the English accent in Singapore has become an international hybrid similar to that of affluent families in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo.
When unemployment rose during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, Singlish came under official attack as undermining an economic competitiveness factor – English language fluency.
Consonants
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Labiodental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Postalveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p b | t d | k ɡ | |||||
| Affricates Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
tʃ dʒ | |||||||
| Fricatives Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
f (v) | (θ ð) | s (z) | ʃ (ʒ) | h | |||
| Nasals Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ŋ | |||||
| Laterals Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | |||||||
| Approximants Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w | r | j |
(See International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
for an in-depth guide to the symbols.)
In general:
- The dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ merge with /t/ and /d/, so that three = tree and then = den. In syllable-final position, -th is pronounced as -f /f/, so with and birth are pronounced weeff /wif/ and bəff /bəf/ respectively. Under the influence of with, without is often pronounced with /v/ in place of /ð/: /wivaut/. The dental fricatives do occur in acrolectal speech, though even among educated speakers there is some variation.
- The voiceless stops /p/, /t/ and /k/ are sometimes unaspirated, especially among Malays. (AspirationAspiration (phonetics)In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
refers to the strong puff of air that may accompany the release of these stop consonants.) The acoustic effect of this is that the Singlish pronunciation of pat, tin and come sound more similar to bat, din, and gum than in other varieties of English. - The distinction between /l/ and /r/ is not stable at the basilectal level, as evinced by TV personality Phua Chu KangPhua Chu KangPhua Chu Kang Pte Ltd, also known as PCK Pte Ltd or Phua Chu Kang for short , was a Singaporean sitcom on MediaCorp TV Channel 5. The show debuted in Singapore in 1997. A sequel, Phua Chu Kang Sdn...
's oft-repeated refrain to "Use your blain!" (use your brain) and "'Don pray pray!'" (Don't play-play, i.e. Don't fool around). One might note, however, that both these examples involve initial consonant clusters (/bl/ and /pl/ respectively), and conflation of /l/ and /r/ is found less often when they are not part of a cluster. - /l/ at the end of a syllable, pronounced as a velarised "dark l" in British or American English, is often so velarised in Singlish that it approaches the Close-mid back unrounded vowelClose-mid back unrounded vowelThe close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is , called "ram's horns"...
[ɤ], e.g. sale [seɤ]. /l/ also tends to be lost after the back vowels /ɔ/, /o/, /u/, and for some basilectal speakers, the central vowel /ə/. Hence pall = paw /pɔ/, roll = row /ro/, tool = two /tu/, and for some, pearl = per /pə/ - Syllabic consonants never occur. Hence taken [tekən] and battle [bɛtəɤ], never [tekn̩] or [bɛtl̩]. When the final /l/ is vocalised, little and litter may be homophones., the glottal stopGlottal stopThe glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
, is inserted at the beginning of all words starting with a vowel, similar to German. As a result, final consonants do not experience liaisonLiaison (linguistics)Liaison is the pronunciation of a latent word-final consonant immediately before a following vowel sound. In French, most written word-final consonants are no longer pronounced and are known as latent or mute...
, i.e. run onto the next word. For example, "run out of eggs" would be "run-nout-to-veggs" in most dialects of English (e.g. [rʌ nau ɾə vɛɡz] in General American), but "run 'out 'of 'eggs" (e.g. [rʌn ʔau ʔɔf ʔeks] in Singlish. This contributes to what some have described as the 'staccato effect' of Singapore English. replaces final plosive consonants of syllableSyllableA syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s in regular- to fast-paced speed speech, especially stopsStop consonantIn phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
: Goodwood Park becomes Gu'-wu' Pa' /ɡuʔ wuʔ pɑʔ/, and there may be a glottal stop at the end of words such as back and out. Like in Cambodian, where a final 'g' becomes a 'k'; 'bad' becomes 'bat' with an unaspirated 't'. - In final position, the distinction between voiced and voiceless sounds i.e. /s/ & /z/, /t/ & /d/, etc. is usually not maintained, especially for fricatives. As a result, cease = seize /sis/ and race = raise /res/. This leads to some mergers of noun/verb pairs, such as belief with believe /bilif/.
- Final consonant clusters simplify, especially in fast speech. In general, stopStop consonantIn phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
s, especially /t/ and /d/, are lost if they come after another consonant: bent = Ben /bɛn/, tact = tack /tɛk/, nest = Ness /nɛs/. /s/ is also commonly lost at the end of a consonant cluster: relax = relac /rilɛk/. - T is usually pronounced with a sound which resembles T, but is not aspirated. P is not unlike T, in the sense that P is unaspirated as well. This pronunciation trait is usually found in native Chinese speakers and Malay speakers.
Vowels
Broadly speaking, there is a one-to-many mapping of Singlish vowel phonemePhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s to British Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
vowel phonemes, with a few exceptions (as discussed below, with regard to egg and peg). The following describes a typical system. Some speakers may further merge /e/ and /ɛ/; other speakers (especially better educated ones) make a distinction between /i/ and /ɪ/, /ɛ/ and /ɛə/, or /ɑ/ and /ʌ/. There is generally no distinction between the non-close front monophthongs, so pet and pat are pronounced the same /pɛt/.
At the acrolectal level, the merged vowel phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s are distinguished to some extent, and for some speakers elements from American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
are introduced, such as pre-consonantal [r] (pronouncing the "r" in bird, port, etc.). This is caused by the popularity of American TV programming. Current estimates are that about 20 per cent of university undergraduates sometimes use this American-style pre-consonantal [r] when reading a passage.
Monophthong
Monophthong
A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
s
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | u | |
| Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... |
e | ə | o |
| Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel... |
ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
ɑ | ||
Diphthongs
| ai | au | ɔi | iə | uə |
Mapping between Singlish and British RP vowels:
| Singlish phoneme Phoneme In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances.... |
RP Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms... phoneme Phoneme In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances.... (s) |
as in |
|---|---|---|
| /i/ | /iː/ | meet |
| /ɪ/ | pit | |
| /e/ | /eɪ/ | day |
| /ɛ/ (before a voiced plosive) | leg | |
| /ɛ/ | /ɛ/ | set |
| /æ/ | map | |
| /ɛə/ | hair | |
| /ɑ/ | /ɑː/ | car |
| pass | ||
| father | ||
| /ʌ/ | bus | |
| /aɪ/ (before /l/) | mile | |
| /ɔ/ | /ɒ/ | mock |
| /ɔː/ | thought | |
| court | ||
| /o/ | /oʊ/ | low |
| /u/ | /uː/ | food |
| /ʊ/ | put | |
| /ə/ – see below | /ɜː/ | bird |
| /ə/ | idea | |
| better | ||
| /ai/ | /aɪ/ | my |
| /au/ | /aʊ/ | mouth |
| /ɔi/ | /ɔɪ/ | boy |
| /jə/ | /ɪə/ | here |
| /wə/ | /ʊə/ | tour |
| /jɔ/ | /jʊə/ | cure |
| /ai jə/ | /aɪə/ | fire |
| /au wə/ | /aʊə/ | power |
remains /ɛ/ in Singlish, except when followed by a voiced plosive (/b/, /d/, or /g/), in which case it becomes /e/ among some speakers. However, this is not entirely predictable, as egg has a close vowel (so it rhymes with vague) while peg has an open vowel (and rhymes with tag); and similarly for most speakers bed has a close vowel (so it rhymes with made), while fed has a more open vowel (the same vowel as in bad). Which vowel occurs in each word therefore appears in these cases not to be predictable. remains /ai/ in Singlish, except when followed by /l/, in which case it is the monophthong /ɑ/.
- Examples of words have idiosyncratic pronunciations: flour /flɑ/ (expected: /flɑ wə/ = flower),; and their /djɑ/ (expected: /dɛ/ = there). Flour/flower and their/there are therefore not homophones in Singlish. This also applies to ManglishManglishManglish is an English based creole spoken in Malaysia.The vocabulary of Manglish consists of words originating from English, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, and to a lesser extent various other European languages, while Manglish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese...
. - In general, Singlish vowels are tenser there are no lax vowels (which RP has in pit, put, and so forth).
- The vowels in words such as day /de/ and low /lo/ are pronounced with less glide than the comparable diphthongDiphthongA diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s in RP, so they can be regarded as monophthongMonophthongA monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
s i.e. vowels with no glide. - Where other varieties of English have an unstressed /ə/, i.e. a reduced vowel, Singlish tends to use the full vowel based on orthography. This can be seen in words such as accept /ɛksɛp/, example /ɛ(k)sɑmpəl/, purchase /pətʃes/, maintenance /mentɛnəns/, presentation /prisɛnteʃən/, and so on. However, this does not mean that the reduced vowel /ə/ never occurs, as about and again have /ə/ in their first syllable. It seems that the letter 'a' is often pronounced /ə/, but the letter 'o' usually has a full vowel quality, especially in the con prefix (control, consider, etc.). There is a greater tendency to use a full vowel in a syllable which is closed off with a final consonant, so a full vowel is much more likely at the start of absorb /ɛbzɔb/ than afford /əfɔd/.
- In loanwords from HokkienMin NanThe Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
that contain nasal vowelNasal vowelA nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
s, the nasalisation is often kept one prominent example being the moodGrammatical moodIn linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
particleGrammatical particleIn grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
hor, pronounced hõ].
Tones
Singlish is semi-tonal as all words of Chinese origin retain their original tones in Singlish. On the other hand, original English words as well as words of Malay and Tamil origin are non-tonal.Prosody
One of the most prominent and noticeable features of Singlish is its unique intonation pattern, which is quite unlike BritishBritish English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
, American
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
or Australian English
Australian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
, etc. For example:
- Singlish is syllable-timedTiming (linguistics)Isochrony is the postulated rhythmic division of time into equal portions by a language. Isochrony is one of the three aspects of prosody, the others being intonation and stress.Three alternative ways in which a language can divide time are postulated:...
compared to most traditional varieties of English, which are usually stress-timed. This in turn gives Singlish rather a staccatoStaccatoStaccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
feel. - There is a tendency to use a rise-fall tone to indicate special emphasis. A rise-fall tone can occur quite often on the final word of an utterance, for example on the word cycle in "I will try to go to the park to cycle" without carrying any of the suggestive meaning associated with a rise-fall tone in British English. In fact, a rise-fall tone may be found on as many as 21 per cent of declaratives, and this use of the tone can convey a sense of strong approval or disapproval.
- There is a lack of the de-accenting that is found in most dialects of English (e.g. British and American), so information that is repeated or predictable is still given full prominence.
- There is often an 'early booster' at the start of an utterance, so an utterance like "I think they are quite nice and interesting magazines" may have a very high pitch occurring on the word think.
- There may be greater movement over individual syllables in Singlish than in other varieties of English. This makes Singlish sound as if it has the tonesTone (linguistics)Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
of Chinese, especially when speakers sometimes maintain the original tones of words that are borrowed into Singlish from Chinese languages.
Overall, the differences between the different ethnic communities in Singapore are most evident in the patterns of intonation, so for example Malay Singaporeans often have the main pitch excursion later in an utterance than ethnically Chinese and Indian Singaporeans.
Generally, these pronunciation patterns are thought to have increased the clarity of Singlish communications between pidgin-level speakers in often noisy environments, and these features were retained in creolization.
Grammar
The grammar of Singlish has been heavily influenced by other languages and dialects in the region, such as Malay and ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, with some structures being identical to ones in Mandarin and other Chinese languages. As a result, Singlish has acquired some unique features, especially at the basilectal level. Note that all of the features described below disappear at the acrolectal level, as people in formal situations tend to adjust their speech towards accepted norms found in other varieties of English.
Topic prominence
Singlish is topic-prominentTopic-prominent language
A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N...
, like Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. This means that Singlish sentences often begin with a topic (or a known reference of the conversation), followed by a comment (or new information) Compared to other varieties of English, the semantic relationship between topic and comment is not important; moreover, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and even entire subject-verb-object phrases can all serve as the topic:
- Dis country weather very hot one. In this country, the weather is very warm.
- Dat person there cannot trust. That person over there is not trustworthy.
- Tomorrow dun need bring camera. You don't need to bring a camera tomorrow.
- He play soccer also very good one leh. He's very good at playing soccer too.
- Walao, I want eat chicken rice I am craving for chicken rice.
- I go bus-stop wait for you I will be at the bus stop waiting for you
The above constructions can be translated analogously into Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, with a little change to the word order.
The topic can be omitted when the context is clear, or shared between clauses. This results in constructions that appear to be missing a subject to a speaker of most other varieties of English, and so called PRO-drop utterances may be regarded as a diagnostic feature of Singapore Colloquial English (or 'Singlish'). For example:
- No good lah. This isn't good.
- Cannot anihow go liddat one leh. You/it can't go just like that.
- How come never show up? Why didn't you/he/it show up? (See the use of never in place of didn't under the "Past tense" section.)
- I li' badminton, dat's why I every weekend go play. I like badminton, so I play it every weekend.
- He sick, so he stay home sleep lor. He's not feeling well, so he decided to stay home and sleep!
Nouns
Nouns are optionally marked for pluralPlural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
ity. Article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
s are also optional. For example:
- He can play piano.
- I like to read storybook.
- Your computer got virus anot? (Does your computer have a virus?)
- This one ten cent only one.
It is more common to mark the plural in the presence of a modifier
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
that implies plurality, such as "many" or "four".
Many nouns which seem logically to refer to a countable item are used in the plural, including furniture and clothing. Examples of this usage from corpus recordings are:
- so I bought a lot of furnitures from IKEA
- I had to borrow some winter clothings
To be
The copula, which is the verb "to be" in most varieties of English, is treated somewhat differently in Singlish:When occurring with an adjective or adjective phrase, the verb "to be" tends to be omitted:
- I damn naughty.
Sometimes, an adverb such as "very" occurs, and this is reminiscent of Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
usage of the word 'hen' (很）or 'hao' (好):
- Dis house very nice.
It is also common for the verb "to be" to be omitted before passives:
- She punished.
and before the "-ing" form of the verb.:
- I still finding.
- How come you so late still playing music, ah?
- You looking for trouble, izzit?
Slightly less common is the dropping out of "to be" when used as an equative between two nouns, or as a locative:
- Dat one his wife lah. ("That lady is his wife.")
- Dis boy the class monitor. (=class president)
- His house in Ang Mo Kio.
In general, "to be" drops out more after nouns and pronouns (except "I", "he", and "she"), and much less after a clause
Clause
In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...
(what I think is...) or a demonstrative
Demonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
(this is...).
Past tense
Past tense marking is optional in Singlish. Marking of the past tense occurs most often in strong verbStrong verb
*for the strong inflection in various languages, see strong inflection*for irregular verbs, see irregular verb*for the strong verbs in Germanic languages, see Germanic strong verb...
s (or irregular verbs), as well as verbs where the past tense suffix is pronounced /ɪd/. For example:
- I went to Orchard Road yesterday.
- He accepted in the end.
Due to consonant cluster simplification, the past tense is most often unmarked when it is pronounced as /t/ or /d/ at the end of a consonant cluster
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
:
- He talk so long, never stop, I ask him also never.
The past tense is more likely to be marked if the verb describes an isolated event (it is a punctual verb), and it tends to be unmarked if the verb in question represents an action that goes on for an extended period:
- When I was young, ah, I go to school every day.
- When he was in school, he always get good marks one.
- Last night I mug so much, so sian already. (to mug is to cram for an examination. sian is an adjective for "bored/tired".)
There seems also to be a tendency to avoid use of the past tense to refer to someone who is still alive:
- the tour guide speak Mandarin
Note in the final example that although the speaker is narrating a story, she probably uses the present tense in the belief that the tour guide is probably still alive.
Change of state
Instead of the past tense, a change of state can be expressed by adding already or liao (/liɑ̂u/) to the end of the sentence, analogous to ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
了 (le). This is not the same as the past tense, but more of an aspect, as it does not cover past habitual or continuous occurrences, and it can refer to a real or hypothetical change of state in the past, present or future.
The frequent use of already in Singapore English is probably a direct influence of the Hokkien liao particle. For example:
- Aiyah, cannot wait any more, must go oreddy. (Oh dear, I cannot wait any longer. I must leave immediately.)
- Yesterday, dey go there oreddy. (They already went there yesterday.)
- Ah Song kana sai oreddy, then how? (If Ah Song were to get in trouble, what would you do?)
- kana is a phonetical mispronunciation of "kena" by non-Malay speakers, which is itself a Malay word that may mean either "to (have) encounter(ed) something" or "to have to (do something)" (notes further below). Sai is a Hokkien word that means "faeces", and figuratively it means trouble. So kana Sai means touched by trouble, or get into trouble.
Some examples of the direct use of the Hokkien particle are:
- He throw liao. (He has already thrown it away.)
- I eat liao. (I ate or I have eaten.)
- This new game, you play liao or not? (As for this new game, have you played it yet?)
Negation
Negation works in general like English, with not added after "to be", "to have", or modalModal
Modal may refer to:* Modal , a textile made from spun Beechwood cellulose fiber* Modal analysis, the study of the dynamic properties of structures under vibrational excitation...
s, and don't before all other verbs. Contractions (can't, shouldn't) are used alongside their uncontracted forms.
However, due to final cluster simplification, the -t drops out from negative forms, and -n may also drop out after nasalising the previous vowel. This makes nasalisation the only mark of the negative.
- I do/dun ([dõ]) want. I don't want to.
Another effect of this is that in the verb "can", its positive and negative forms are distinguished only by vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
:
- This one can /kɛn/ do lah.
- This one can't /kɑn/ do lah.
Also, never is used as a negative past tense marker, and does not have to carry the English meaning. In this construction, the negated verb is never put into the past-tense form:
- How come today you never (=didn't) hand in homework?
- How come he never (=didn't) pay just now?
Interrogative
In addition to the usual way of forming yes-no questionYes-no question
In linguistics, a yes–no question, formally known as a polar question, is a question whose expected answer is either "yes" or "no". Formally, they present an exclusive disjunction, a pair of alternatives of which only one is acceptable. In English, such questions can be formed in both positive...
s, Singlish uses two more constructions:
In a construction similar (but not identical) to Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
A-not-A, or not is appended to the end of sentences to form yes/no questions. Or not cannot be used with sentences already in the negative:
- This book you want or not? Do you want this book?
- Can or not? Is this possible / permissible?
The phrase is it is also appended to the end of sentences to form yes-no questions. It is generic like the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
n'est-ce pas? (isn't it so?), regardless of the actual verb in the sentence, and is strongly reminiscent of the Chinese 是吗 (Pinyin: shi ma) as well as its frequent use amongst South Indian speakers of English. Is it implies that the speaker is simply confirming something he/she has already inferred:
- They never study, is it? (No wonder they fail!)
- You don't like that, is it? (No wonder you had that face!)
- Alamak, you guys never read newspaper is it? "What? Haven't you guys ever read a newspaper?" (No wonder you aren't up to date!)
The phrase isn't it also occurs when the speaker thinks the hearer might disagree with the assertion.
There are also many discourse particles, such as hah, hor, meh, ar, that are used in questions. (See the "Discourse particles" section further down in this article.)
Reduplication
Another feature strongly reminiscent of ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, verbs are often repeated (e.g., TV personality Phua Chu Kang's "don't pray-pray!" pray = play). In general verbs are repeated twice to indicate the delimitative aspect (that the action goes on for a short period), and three times to indicate greater length and continuity:
- You go ting ting a little bit, maybe den you get answer. (Go and think over it for a while, and then you might understand.)
- So what I do was, I sit down and I ting ting ting, until I get answer lor. (So I sat down, thought, thought and thought, until I understood.)
The use of verb repetition also serves to provide a more vivid description of an activity:
- Want to go Or-ched walk walk see see or not? (Let's go shopping/sightseeing at Orchard Road.)
- Dun anyhow touch here touch there leh. (Please don't mess with my things.)
In another usage reminiscent of Chinese, noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s referring to people can be repeated for intimacy. Most commonly, monosyllabic nouns are repeated:
- My boy-boy is going to Primary One oreddy. (My son is about to enter Year/Grade/Standard One.)
- We two fren-fren one. (We are close friends.)
However, occasionally reduplication is also found with bisyllabic nouns:
- We buddy-buddy. You don't play me out, OK?
- Im the kind who is buddy-buddy person.
Adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s of one or two syllables can also be repeated for intensification:
- You go take the small-small one ah. (Retrieve the smaller item, please.)
- You want a raise from this boss? Wait long long ah. (It will never happen.)
Due to the frequent use of these repetitions on short words, Singlish expressions often sound to speakers of American or British English as if they are spoken by children, which non-Singlish speakers find quite amusing, and contributes to the impression of Singlish as an informal and sometimes intimate language.
Discourse particles
ParticlesGrammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
in Singlish are highly comparable to Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. In general, discourse particle
Discourse particle
In linguistics, a discourse particle is a lexeme or particle which has no direct semantic meaning in the context of a sentence, having rather a pragmatic function: it serves to indicate the speaker's attitude, or to structure their relationship to other participants in a conversation...
s occur at the end of a sentence. Their presence changes the meaning or the tone of the sentence, but not its grammaticality.
Particles are noted for keeping their tones
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
regardless of the remainder of the sentence. Most of the particles are directly borrowed from southern Chinese varieties, with the tones intact.
Research on Singlish discourse particles have been many but varied, often focusing on analysing their functions in the sentences they appear in.
Kena
Kena can be used as an auxiliary to mark the passive voice in some varieties of Singlish.It is derived from a Malay word that means "to encounter or to come into physical contact", and is only used with objects that have a negative effect or connotation. Verbs after kena may appear in the infinitive form (i.e. without tense) or as a past participle. It is similar in meaning to passive markers in Chinese, such as Hokkien tio or Mandarin 被 bèi:
- He was scolded. = He got scolded. = He kena scold/scolded.
- If you don't listen to me, you will get punished, after which you will know that you were wrong = If u dun listen, later you get punished, and then you know = dun listen, later you kena punish/punished then you know.
Kena is not used with positive things:
- *He kena praised.
- *He kena lottery.
- *He kena jackpot. (huge winnings from playing the slot machine)
Use of kena as in the above examples will not be understood, and may even be greeted with a confused reply: But strike lottery good wat! (But it's a good thing to win the lottery!).
It may be used in vulgar, obscene and offensive contexts, such as:
- He kena fucked in the Singtel share buyout. (lost large amounts of money)
- He kena defamation imprisonment. (Imprisoned as a result of defamation proceedings)
However, when used in sarcasm, kena can be used in apparently positive circumstances, though this is considered grammatically incorrect by the true natives of Singapore. It is mostly incorrectly used by European expatriates or Hong Kong and Mainlanders trying to integrate and assimilate into Singapore society, though with an ironic modicum of success, for example:
- He kena jackpot, come back to school after so long den got so much homework! (He received a lot of homework upon returning to school after a long absence.)
When the context is given, Kena may be used without a verb, similar to the colloquial-English construction "I am/you're/he is going to get it."
- Better clean the room, otherwise you kena. (You will be punished if you don't tidy the room.)
- Dun listen to me, later you kena.
Using another auxiliary verb with kena is perfectly acceptable as well:
- Better clean the room, otherwise you will kena.
- Dun listen to me, later you will kena.
Some examples of Singlish phrases with Kena:
- kena arrow: be assigned an undesirable task. (derives from National Service/militaryNational Service in SingaporeConscription in Singapore, called National Service , requires all male Singaporean citizens and second-generation permanent residents who have reached the age of 18 to enrol in the military...
practice of placing arrows on a name list to denote those responsible for a task) - kena bully: get bullied
- kena fine: get 'fined', or charged by the police
- kena hantam: be hit by something, such as a ball, or to be beaten up (hantam is another Malay word)
- kena sabo: become a victim of sabotage or a practical joke
- kena sai: literally "hit by shit"; be harmed by an unpleasant event or object
- kena tekan: tekan means "press", as in "pressure", in Malay; the phrase means to be physically tortured or punished. Often used in the army, which all male citizens must serve in.
- kena whack: be beaten badly, in games or in physical fights
- kena ban/silence: one of the newer uses of kena, it means to be banned/silenced in a computer game. The "silence" is only used when silenced from talking in chat by GMs (Game Masters), not having the "silence" effect that stops you from doing spells.
- kena zero: getting a zero mark for that paper that he/she was cheatingCheatingCheating refers to the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation. The rules infringed may be explicit, or they may be from an unwritten code of conduct based on morality, ethics or custom, making the identification of cheating a subjective process. Cheating can refer...
The word is many a times phonetically mispronounced "kana" by most non-Malays, especially those of the Chinese tongue. Informal Malay will socio-linguistically dictate it be pronounced as kene (as in kernel without the r and l), while the word itself in reality has two different meanings; "to have (to) encounter(ed) something" as how it is explained above or "to have to (do something)":
"Kau kena angkat ni." – You have to carry this.
"Joe kena marah tadi." – Joe just got scolded.
Singlish, however, is only influenced by the latter application of the word.
One
The word one is used to emphasize the predicatePredicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
of the sentence by implying that it is unique and characteristic. It is analogous to the use of particles like 嘅 ge or 架 ga in Cantonese, 啲 e in Hokkien, -wa in spoken Japanese, or 的 de in some varieties of Mandarin. One used in this way does not correspond to any use of the word "one" in British
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
, American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, Australian English
Australian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
, etc: It can be compared to the British usage of 'eh'. It might also be analysed as a relative pronoun, though it occurs at the end of the relative clause instead of the beginning (as in Standard English)
- Wah lau! So stupid one! – Oh my gosh! He's so stupid!
- I do everything by habit one. – I always do everything by habit.
- He never go school one. – He doesn't go to school (unlike other people).
For speakers of Mandarin, 的de can also be used in place of one.
Then
The word then is often pronounced or written as den /dɛn/. When used, it represents different meanings in different contexts. In this section, the word is referred to as den.i) "Den" can be synonymous with "so" or "therefore". It is used to replace the Chinese grammatical particle, 才 (see ii).
When it is intended to carry the meaning of "therefore", it is often used to explain one's blunder/negative consequences. In such contexts, it is a translation from Chinese "所以". When used in this context, the "den" is prolonged twice the usual length in emphasis, as opposed to the short emphasis it is given when used to mean cai2.
- Never do homework den (2 beats with shifts in tone sandhi, tone 2) indicating replacement of "所以") kena get scolding lor.
– I did not do my homework, that's why (therefore) I got a scolding
- Never do homework (pause) den (2 beats with shifts in tone sandhi, tone 2) indicating replacement of "然后") kena scolding lor.
– I did not do my homework; I got a scolding after that
- Never do homework den (1 beat with no shift in tone sandhi, indicating "才") kena scolding lor.
– It is only due to the fact that I did not do my homework that I was scolded.
Be very careful because "den" cannot be freely interchanged with "so". It will sound grammatically erroneous when employed inappropriately. This is because the grammatical rules in English do not correspond to the grammatical rules in Chinese on a one-for-one basis.
The following examples are inappropriate use of "den", which will immediately sound grammatically illogical to a Singlish speaker:
- I'm tired, den I'm going to sleep.
- I'm late, den I'm going to take a taxi.
The reason for this is that "den" often marks a negative, non-volitional outcome (either in the future or the past), while the above sentences express volition and are set in the present. Consider the following examples:
- I damn tired den langgar the car lor. - I was really tired, which is why I knocked into [that] car.
- I late den take taxi, otherwise dun take. - When I'm late, [only] then do I take a taxi; otherwise I don't take taxis. = I only take a taxi when I'm late. (see usage vi)
ii) "Den" is also used to describe an action that will be performed later. It is used to replace the Chinese particle, "才". When used in this context, the den is pronounced in one beat, instead of being lengthened to two beats as in (i).
If shortened, the meaning will be changed / incorrectly conveyed. For example, "I go home liao, "den" (2 beats) call you" will imbue the subtext with a questionable sense of irony, a lasciviousness for seduction (3 beats), or just general inappropriateness (random 2 beats indicating a Hong Kong comedy-influenced moleitou 無理頭 Singaporean sense of humour).
- I go home liao den call you. – I will call you when I reach home
- Later den say. – We'll discuss this later
iii) "Den" can used at the beginning of a sentence as a link to the previous sentence. In this usage, "den" is used to replace the Mandarin grammatical particle which is approximately equivalent in meaning (but not in grammatical usage) only to "Then," or "ran2hou4", as in "ran2hou4 hor". In such cases, it often carries a connotation of an exclamation.
When used in this context, in formal Singlish, the particle is lengthened to 2 beats to indicate replacement of "ran2hou4" or 1 beat when used in conjunction with "hor" as in "den hor".
It can also be shortened to 1 beat if the other speaker is a fluent Singapore speaker of Singlish (who tends to speak fast and can deduce via contextual clues which form of meaning the use of den is taking on), but the Singlish variant used when spoken to a wider Southeast Asian audience, is lengthening of the word to 2 beats.
The subtle usage of these particles differentiates a Malaysian speaking Manglish trying to assimilate into society, and a true-blue native-born Singaporean (whether it's a Chinese, Indian, Eurasian, Malay or Caucasian speaker of Singlish). In many cases, a mixed child born and bred in Singapore will speak a more subtle form of Singlish (together with the influence of another language such as Dutch, Swedish, German) than a first-generation Malaysian of Chinese descent assimilating into Singapore.
- I was at a park. Den hor, I was attacked by dinosaur leh!
- I woke up at 10. Den boss saw me coming in late. So suay!
iv) "Den" can be used to return an insult/negative comment back to the originator. When used in such a way, there must first be an insult/negative comment from another party. In such contexts, it is a translation from Chinese "才".
- A: You're so stupid!
- B: You den stupid la – You're the stupid one
- A: You're late!
- B: You den late lor. – You're the late one
v) "Den?" can be used as a single-worded phrase. Even if "den" is used in a single-worded phrase, even with the same pronunciation, it can represent 4 different meanings. It can either be synonymous with "so what?", or it can be a sarcastic expression that the other party is making a statement that arose from his/her actions, or similarly an arrogant expression which indicating that the other party is stating the obvious, or it can be used as a short form for "what happened then?".
[Synonymous with "so what?"]
- A: I slept at 4 last night leh...
- B: Den?
[Sarcastic expression] Speakers tend to emphasize the pronunciation of 'n'.
Context: A is supposed to meet B before meeting a larger group but A is late for the first meeting
- A: Late liao leh...
- B: Dennn?
[Arrogant expression] Speakers have the option of using "Den" in a phrase, as in "Ah Bu Den" or "Ah Den". In this case it serves approximately the same purpose as 'duh' in American English slang.
- A: Wah seh! You actually make this computer all by yourself ah?
- B: Ah bu den!
[Ah, but then? (What happened after that?)]
- A: I found $100 today...
- B: Den what?
vi) "Den" can also indicate a conditional (an if-then condition), implying an omitted "if"/"when":
- I late den take taxi, otherwise dun take. - When I'm late, [only] then do I take a taxi; otherwise I don't take taxis. = I only take a taxi when I'm late.
- You want to see Katy Perry den go lah! - If you want to see Katy Perry, then go [to the concert]!
Oi
Oi is commonly used in Singlish, as in other English varieties, to draw attention or to express surprise or indignation. It is often spelled oei, reflecting the local pronunciation. Some examples of the usage of Oi include:- Oi, you forgot to give me my pencil!
- Oi! Hear me can!
- Oi! You know how long I wait for you?!
- Oi! Wake up lah!
As "Oi" has connotations of disapproval, it is considered to be slightly offensive if it is used in situations where a more polite register is expected, e.g. while speaking to strangers in public, people in the workplace or one's elders.
Lah
The ubiquitous word lah (/lɑ́/ or /lɑ̂/), rarely spelled as larh, luh or lurh, is used at the end of a sentence. It may originate from the Chinese character ' onMouseout='HidePop("79171")' href="/topics/Pinyin">PinyinPinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
: Lè/Là), though its usage in Singapore is also influenced by its occurrence in Malay. It simultaneously softens the force of an utterance and entices solidarity, though it can also have the opposite meaning so it is used to signal power. In addition, there are suggestions that there is more than one lah particle, so there may be a stressed and an unstressed variant and perhaps as many as nine tonal variants, all having a special pragmatic function
Note that 'lah' is occasionally after a comma for clarity, though true locals never bother with punctuation, because there is never a pause before 'lah'. This is because in Malay, 'lah' is appended to the end of the word and is not a separate word by itself. It must also be noted that although 'lah' is usually spelled in the Malay fashion, its use is more akin to the Hokkien use.
In Malay, 'lah' is used to change a verb into a command or to soften its tone, particularly when usage of the verb may seem impolite. To drink is minum, but 'Here, drink!' is "minumlah!". Similarly, 'lah' is frequently used with imperatives in Singlish:
- Drink lah! Just drink!
'Lah' also occurs frequently with "Yah" and "No" (hence "Yah lah!" and "No lah!..."). This can, with the appropriate tone, result in a less-brusque declaration and facilitate the flow of conversation. "No more work to do, we go home lah!" However, if the preceding clause is already diminutive or jocular, suffixing it with -lah would be redundant and improper: one would not say "yep lah", "nope lah", or "ta lah" (as in the British "Ta" for "thank you").
- 'Lah' with a low tone might indicate impatience. "Eh, hurry up lah."
Lah is often used with brusque, short, negative responses:
- I dun have lah! I just don't have any of that (which you were requesting)!
- Dun know oreddy lah! Argh, I don't know anymore than what I told you! or I give up trying to understand this!
Lah is also used for reassurance:
- Dun worry, he can one lah. Don't worry, he will be capable of doing it.
- Okay lah. It's all right. Don't worry about it.
Lah is sometimes use to curse people
- Go and Die lah!.
Lah can also be used to emphasise items in a spoken list, appearing after each item in the list.
Although lah can appear nearly anywhere, it cannot appear with a yes-no question. Other particles should be used instead:
- He do that ar?
- Later free or not?
- Don't tell me he punch her ar?
Wat
The particle wat (/wɑ̀t/), also spelled what, is used to remind or contradict the listener, especially when strengthening another assertion that follows from the current one:- But he very good at sports wat. But he is very good at sports. (Shouldn't you know this already, having known him for years?)
- You never give me wat! (It's not my fault, since) You didn't give it to me! (Or else I would have gotten it, right?)
It can also be used to strengthen any assertion:
- The food there not bad what. Can try lah.
Mah
Mah (/mɑ́/), originating from the Cantonese (嘛,ma), is used to assert that something is obvious and final, and is usually used only with statements that are already patently true. It is often used to correct or cajole, and in some contexts is similar to English's duh. This may seem condescending to the listener:- This one also can work one mah! Can't you see that this choice will also work?
- He also know about it mah! He knew about it as well, [so it's not my fault!]
Lor
Lor (/lɔ́/), also spelled lorh or loh, from Cantonese (囉, lor) , is a casual, sometimes jocular way to assert upon the listener either direct observations or obvious inferences. It also carries a sense of resignation, or alternatively, dismissiveness. that "it happens this way and can't be helped":- If you don't do the work, then you die lor! If you don't do the work, then you're dead!
- Kay lor, you go and do what you want. Fine, go ahead and do what you want.
- Dun have work to do, den go home lor. If you're done working, you should go home. (What are you waiting for?)
- Ya lor. ! Used when agreeing with someone
Leh
Leh (/lɛ́/), from Hokkien (leh 咧) , is used to soften a command, request, claim, or complaint that may be brusque otherwise:- Gimme leh. Please, just give it to me.
- How come you don't give me leh? Why aren't you giving it to me?
- The ticket seriously ex leh. Argh, The tickets are really expensive.
- But I believe safe better than sorry leh. The thing is, I believe it's better to be safe than sorry.
Especially when on a low tone, it can be used to show the speaker's disapproval:
- You call her walk there, very far leh.
Hor
Hor (/hɔ̨̌/), from Hokkien and Cantonese, also spelled horh, is used to ask for the listener's attention and consent/support/agreement: It is usually pronounced with a low tone.- Then horh, another person came out of the house. And then, another person came out of the house.
- This shopping center very nice horh. This shopping center is very nice isn't it?
- Oh yah horh! – Oh, yes! (realising something)
Ar
Ar (/ɑ̌/), also spelled arh or ah, is inserted between topic and comment. It often gives a negative tone:- This boy arh, always so naughty one! This boy is so naughty!
Ar (/ɑ̌/) with a rising tone is used to reiterate a rhetorical question:
- How come lidat one, arh? Why is it like that? / Why are you like that?
Ar (/ɑ̄/) with a mid-level tone, on the other hand, is used to mark a genuine question that does require a response: ('or not' can also be used in this context.)
- You going again ar? "Are you going again?"
Hah
Hah (/hɑ̌/), also spelled har, originating from the British English word huh or Hokkien (hannh 唅), is used to express disbelief, shock or used in a questioning manner.- Har? He really ponned class yesterday ar! – What? Is it true that he played truant (=ponteng, shortened to 'pon' and converted into past tense, hence 'ponned') yesterday?
- Har? How come like that one? End up kena caning! – What? How did he end up being caned?
Meh
Meh (/mɛ́/), from Cantonese (咩, meh), is used to form questions expressing surprise or scepticism:- They never study meh? Didn't they study? (I thought they did.)
- You don't like that one meh? You don't like that? (I thought you did.)
- Really meh? Is that really so? (I honestly thought otherwise/I don't believe you.)
Siah
/sjɑ̀/, also spelled sia or siah, is used to express envy or emphasis. It is a derivative of the Malay vulgor word "sial" or "siol" (derivative of the parent, used interchangeably but sometimes may imply a stronger emphasis). Originally, it is often used by Malay peers in informal speech between them, sometimes while enraged, and other times having different implications depending on the subject matter:"Kau ade problem ke ape, sial?" – Do you have a problem or what? (negative, enraged)
"Sial ah, Joe bawak iPod ni ari." – Whoa, Joe brought an iPod today. (positive, envy)
"Takde lah sial." – No way, man. or I don't have it, man. (positive, neutral)
"Joe kene marah sial." – Joe got scolded, man. (positive, emphasis)
Malays may also pronounce it without the l, not following the ia but rather a nasal aah. This particular form of usage is often seen in expressing emphasis. There is a further third application of it, in that a k is added at the end when it will then be pronounced saak with the same nasal quality only when ending the word. It is similarly used in emphasis.
However, Singlish itself takes influence only from the general expression of the term without any negative implication, and non-Malay speakers (or Malays speaking to non-Malays) pronounce it either as a nasal sia or simply siah:
- He damn zai sia. He's damn capable.
- Wah, heng siah. Goodness me (=Wahlau)! That was a close shave (=heng)!
Sai
/sâi/Also from Chinese, it literally means excrement. This is also used in "kena sai", which means to be humiliated (see earlier part of this section for the definition of "kena").
Siao
/siâo/Siao is a common word in Singlish. Literally, it means crazy.
- You siao ah? * Are you crazy? (With sarcasm)
Summary
Summary of discourse and other particles:| Function | Example | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| (Nothing) | Can. | "It can be done." | |
| Solidarity | Can lah. | "Rest assured, it can be done." | |
| Seeking attention / support (implicit) | Can hor / hah? | "It can be done, right?" | |
| Characteristic | Can one / de (的). | "(Despite your doubts) I know it can be done." | |
| (Vividness) | Liddat (like that) very nice. | "This looks very nice." | |
| Acceptance / Resignation |
Can lor. | "Well, seems that it can be done, since you say so." | |
| Assertion (implies that listener should already know) | Can wat/ Can lor (in some situations, when used firmly). | "It can be done... shouldn't you know this?" | |
| Assertion (strong) | Can mah. | "See?! It can be done!" | |
| Assertion (softened) | Can leh. | "Can't you see that it can be done?" | |
| Yes / No question | Can anot? | "Can it be done?" | |
| Yes / No question (confirmation) |
Can izzit (Is it?)? | "It can be done, right?" | |
| Yes / No question (skepticism) |
Can meh? | "Um... are you sure it can be done?" | |
| Confirmation | Can ar... (low tone). | "So... it can really be done?" | |
| Rhetorical | Can ar (rising). | "Alright then, don't come asking for help if problems arise." | |
| Change of state (finished) | Can already / liao. | "It's done!" | |
| Indifference/ Questioning in a calm manner | Can huh (low tone). | "Can it be done?" | |
| Anger | Alamak! Why you go and mess up!? | "Argh! Why did you go and mess it up!?" |
Miscellaneous
Nia is originated from Hokkien which means 'only', mostly used to play down something that has been overestimated.- Mary: "I not so old lah, I 18 nia."
"Then you know" is a phrase often used at the end of a sentence or after a warning of the possible negative consequences of an action. Can be directly translated as "and you will regret not heeding my advice". Also a direct translation of the Chinese '你才会知道'.
- Mother: "Ah boy, don't run here run there, wait you fall down then you know ar."
"There is"/"there are" and "has"/"have" are both expressed using got, so that sentences can be translated in either way back into British / American / Australasian English. This is equivalent to the Chinese 有 yǒu (to have):
- Got question? Any questions? / Is there a question? / Do you have a question?
- Yesterday ar, East Coast Park got so many people one! There were so many people at East Coast Park yesterday. / East Coast Park had so many people [there] yesterday.
- This bus got air-con or not? Is there air-conditioning on this bus? / Does this bus have air-conditioning?
- Where got!? Where is there [this]?, or less politely, There isn't/aren't any! also more loosely, What are you talking about?; generic response to any accusation. Translation of the Malay "mana ada?" which has the same usage.
Can is used extensively as both a question particle and an answer particle. The negative is cannot.
- Gimme can? Can you please give that to me?
- Can! Sure!
- Cannot. No way.
Can can be repeated for greater emphasis or to express enthusiasm:
- Boss: "Can you send me the report by this afternoon?" Employee: "Can, Can!" (No problem!)
The Malay word with the same meaning boleh can be used in place of can to add a greater sense of multiculturalism in the conversation. The person in a dominant position may prefer to use boleh instead:
- Employee:"Boss, tomorrow can get my pay check or not?" Boss:"Boleh lah ..." (sure/possibly)
The phrase like that is commonly appended to the end of the sentence to emphasize descriptions by adding vividness and continuousness. Due to its frequency of use, it is often pronounced lidat (lye-dat):
- He so stupid lidat. – He really seems pretty stupid, you know.
- He acting like a little kid lidat. – He's really acting like a little kid, you know.
Like that can also be used as in other Englishes:
- Why he acting lidat? – Why is he acting this way?
- If lidat, how am I going to answer to the gong shi ting? – If that's the case, how am I going to answer to the board of directors?
In British English, "also" is used before the predicate, while "too" is used after the predicative at the end of the sentence. In Singlish (also in American and Australian English), "also" can be used in either position.
- I oso like dis one. (I also like this one.)
- I like dis one oso. (I like this one too.)
"Also" is also used as a conjunction
Grammatical conjunction
In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
. In this case, "A also B" corresponds to "B although A". This stems from Chinese, where the words 也 (yě), 还 (hái) or 都 (dōu) (meaning also, usage depends on dialect or context) would be used to express these sentences.
- I try so hard oso cannot do. (I tried so hard, and still I can't do it. OR I can't do it even though I tried so hard.)
The order of the verb and the subject in an indirect question is the same as a direct question.
- "Eh, you know where is he anot?" "Excuse me, do you know where he is?"
"Ownself" is often used in place of "yourself", or more accurately, "yourself" being an individual, in a state of being alone.
- "Har? He ownself go party yesterday for what?" "Why did he go to the party alone yesterday?"
Not all expressions with the -self pronouns should be taken literally, but as the omission of "by":
- Wah, hungry liao! You eat yourself, we eat ourself, can? (Hey, I/you should be hungry by this time! Let's split up and eat. (Then meet up again)
Some people have begun to add extra "ed"s to the past tense of words or to pronounce "ed" separately. Most of the time, the user uses it intentionally to mock proper English.
- "Jus now go and play game, character dieded siah!" "When I played a game just now, my character died!"
Vocabulary
Singlish formally takes after British EnglishBritish English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
(in terms of spelling
Spelling
Spelling is the writing of one or more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of naming the letters...
and abbreviation
Abbreviation
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...
s), although naming conventions are in a mix of American and British ones (with American ones on the rise). For instance, local media have "sports pages" (sport in British English) and "soccer coverage" (the use of the word "soccer" is not common in British media), though the word "football" is also taken to be synonymous with "soccer" in Singapore.
Singlish also uses many words borrowed from Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
, and from Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
. The most well-known instance of a borrowing from Hokkien is 'kiasu', which means "frightened of losing out", and is used to indicate behaviour such as queueing overnight to obtain something; and the most common borrowing from Malay is 'makan', meaning "to eat".
In many cases, English words take on the meaning of their Chinese counterparts, resulting in a shift in meaning. This is most obvious in such cases as "borrow"/"lend", which are functionally equivalent in Singlish and mapped to the same Mandarin word, "借" (jiè), which can mean to lend or to borrow. ("Oi (also used as oy, although Singaporeans spell it as oi), can borrow me your calculator?"); and 'send' can be used to mean "accompany someone", as in "Let me send you to the airport", possibly under the influence of the Mandarin word "送" (sòng). However, we might note that Malay '(meng)hantar' can also be used to mean both "send a letter" and "take children to school", so perhaps both Malay and Chinese have combined to influence the usage of 'send' in Singapore.
Movies
- Army DazeArmy DazeArmy Daze is a 1996 Singaporean comedy movie based on the 1987 theater play of the same name by Singaporean writer Michael Chiang...
(1996) - 12 Storeys12 Storeys12 Storeys is a 1997 Singaporean comedy film directed by Eric Khoo. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.-Synopsis:...
(1997) - Mee Pok ManMee Pok ManMee Pok Man is a 1995 film by Eric Khoo. The film is Eric Khoo's debut feature, after making award-winning short films for years.The film is a black comedy starring Joe Ng as the male protagonist Johnny, a Chinese seller of noodles , and Michelle Goh as the prostitute Bunny...
(1995) - I Not StupidI Not StupidI Not Stupid is a Singaporean comedy film about the lives, struggles, and adventures of three Primary 6 pupils who are placed in the academically inferior EM3 stream. Written and directed by Jack Neo, and produced by MediaCorp Raintree Pictures, the movie stars Xiang Yun, Richard Low, Selena Tan,...
(2002) - I Not Stupid TooI Not Stupid TooI Not Stupid Too is a 2006 Singaporean film and the sequel to the 2002 film, I Not Stupid. A satirical comedy, I Not Stupid Too portrays the lives, struggles and adventures of three Singaporean youths—15-year-old Tom, his 8-year-old brother Jerry and their 15-year-old friend Chengcai—who have a...
(2006) - Money No EnoughMoney No EnoughMoney No Enough is a Singaporean comedy film about three friends with financial problems who start a car polishing business together. Written by Jack Neo, directed by Tay Teck Lock and produced by JSP Films, the movie stars Neo, Mark Lee and Henry Thia...
(1998) - One Leg KickingOne Leg KickingOne Leg Kicking is a 2001 Singaporean comedy-film movie that is about several soccer amateurs that compete in a soccer event for the 2002 World Cup Finals. The main actors of this movie are Gurmit Singh as Tai Po and Mark Lee as Handsome.-Plot:...
(2001) - Talking Cock the MovieTalking Cock the MovieTalking Cock the Movie is a Singapore film released in May 2002. It is the brainchild of Colin Goh, founder of Singaporean website, TalkingCock.com, which satirises local current affairs and politics, highlighting the importance of supporting free speech in Singapore.-About:The movie includes the...
(2002) - Homerun (film)Homerun (film)Homerun Chinese: 跑吧！孩子 pinyin: pǎo bà háizǐ) is a 2003 Singaporean Mandarin-language film. A remake of the award-winning Iranian film Children of Heaven, Homerun is a drama about two poor siblings and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes...
(2003) - Singapore DreamingSingapore DreamingSingapore Dreaming is a 2006 film set in Singapore. The film follows the Loh family, a typical Singaporean working-class family, through their aspirations for a better life and the harsh reality that makes it difficult for them to fulfill these aspirations...
(2006) - Just Follow LawJust Follow LawJust Follow Law is a 2007 Singaporean comedy film directed by Jack Neo, and starring Gurmit Singh of Phua Chu Kang fame, Fann Wong, Moses Lim, Samuel Chong, Lina Ng and Steven Woon. The title is a pun on the Singlish phrase "just follow lor", which means to comply with orders without questioning why...
(2007) - Be With MeBe with MeBe with Me is a 2005 Singaporean drama film directed by Eric Khoo. The film is inspired by the life of deaf-and-blind teacher Theresa Poh Lin Chan. It premiered as the Director's Fortnight selection in the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It was also the official entry from Singapore for the 78th Academy...
(2005) - Perth
- Where Got Ghost?Where Got Ghost?Where Got Ghost? is a Singaporean omnibus comedy horror film directed by Jack Neo and Boris Boo. This film is Jack Neo's first attempt with horror flicks.-Plot:...
(2009) - Phua Chu Kang The MoviePhua Chu Kang The MoviePhua Chu Kang The Movie is a Malaysian-Singaporean comedy film. The film was released in Singapore on 12 August 2010 and Malaysia on 26 August 2010.-Main cast:-External links:*...
(2010)
Television
- Comedy Night
- Phua Chu KangPhua Chu KangPhua Chu Kang Pte Ltd, also known as PCK Pte Ltd or Phua Chu Kang for short , was a Singaporean sitcom on MediaCorp TV Channel 5. The show debuted in Singapore in 1997. A sequel, Phua Chu Kang Sdn...
- Phua Chu Kang Sdn BhdPhua Chu Kang Sdn BhdPhua Chu Kang Sdn Bhd is a Malaysian sitcom spin-off to the original Singaporean Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd, first debuted on MediaCorp TV Channel 5. The series reprises Gurmit Singh and Irene Ang, and produced in collaboration with MediaCorp. It made its first debut on ntv7 on March 25, 2009...
- ABC DJABC DJABC DJ is a Singaporean sitcom on MediaCorp TV Channel 5. This show is most notable for its culture shock and racial discrimination media.-DJ and Master Zhang:...
- Under One Roof
- Maggi & MeMaggi & MeMaggi & Me is a Singaporean fantasy situation comedy that airs on MediaCorp TV's Channel 5. The English-language series debuted 25 July 2006 and stars Fiona Xie and Adrian Pang in the title roles. The series wrapped up its season 1 finale on 17 October 2006 and the season 2 finale on 12 February...
- Cosmo and George
- My Classmate Dad
- Before I was Awesome
- I am Christopher Khoo...
Literature
For punctuation and spelling of Singlish see also Sylvia Toh Paik ChooSylvia Toh Paik Choo
Sylvia Toh Paik Choo is a newspaper columnist and humour writer from Singapore. She is the author of Eh Goondu! and Lagi Goondu! , the first two books on Singlish. She was the first to put a spelling and punctuation to Singlish. Written with good humour, the books can be considered as social...
's:
- Eh, Goondu! (1982) Singapore: Eastern Universities Press. ISBN 9971-71-168-0.
- Lagi Goondu! (1986) Singapore: Times Books International. ISBN 9971-65-224-2.
These published works are generally in English, but they describe the prevalence of Singlish in Singapore, and use many Singlish terms such as in dialogue.
- Chiang, Michael, Army Daze (Singapore: Times Books International, 1987) ISBN 981-3002-12-3
- Chong C. S., NS: An Air-Level Story (Singapore: Times Books International, 1994) ISBN 981-204-312-8
- Gwee Li Sui, Who Wants to Buy a Book of Poems? (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1998) ISBN 981-3065-19-2
Acceptance
On March 15, 2007, DemosDemos (UK think tank)
- History :Demos was founded in 1993 by former Marxism Today editor Martin Jacques, and Geoff Mulgan, who became its first director. It was formed in response to what Mulgan, Jacques and others saw as a crisis in politics in Britain, with voter engagement in decline and political institutions...
, a UK think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
, recommended that the UK embrace 'modern' Englishes
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, since far from being corruptions of English, new versions of the language, like Chinglish
Chinglish
Chinglish refers to spoken or written English language that is influenced by the Chinese language. The term "Chinglish" is commonly applied to ungrammatical or nonsensical English in Chinese contexts, and may have pejorative or deprecating connotations, reflecting the attitudes of those who apply...
and Singlish, have values "that the British need to learn to accommodate and relate to".
See also
- Singlish vocabularySinglish vocabularySinglish is the English-based creole spoken and written colloquially in Singapore. Although English is the lexifier language, Singlish has its unique slang and syntax, which are more pronounced in informal speech.-Word origins:...
- List of Singapore abbreviations
- Singapore EnglishSingapore EnglishSingapore English refers to varieties of English spoken in Singapore.There are two main forms of English spoken in Singapore - Standard Singapore English and Singapore Colloquial English, or Singlish....
- Standard Singapore English
- IPA chart for English dialects
- English LanguageEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
- Mandarin Chinese
- Papia Kristang
- PeranakanPeranakanPeranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago of Nusantara during the Colonial era....
s - Singaporean MandarinSingaporean MandarinSingaporean Mandarin is a variety of Mandarin Chinese widely spoken in Singapore. It is one of the four official languages of Singapore along with English, Malay and Tamil....
- SingdarinSingdarinColloquial Singaporean Mandarin, also known as Singdarin is an interlanguage native to Singapore. In Taiwan, this language variety is known as Singnese . It is based on Mandarin but has a large amount of English in its vocabulary. For this reason, Singdarin is sometimes known as "Anglo-Chinese"...
- Singaporean HokkienSingaporean HokkienSingaporean Hokkien is a local variant of the Hokkien dialect spoken in Singapore. It is closely related to the Southern Malaysian Hokkien spoken in Southern Malaysia as well as Riau Hokkien spoken in the Indonesian province of Riau...
- Speak Good English MovementSpeak Good English MovementThe Speak Good English Movement is a Singapore Government campaign to "encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood".It was launched by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on 29 April 2000...
- Tamil LanguageTamil languageTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
- Indian languages in SingaporeIndian languages in SingaporeIndian languages in Singapore are mainly used by the country's 332,300 ethnic South Asian residents, who form about 9% of Singaporean citizens and permanent residents. As a result of historical migration and settlement patterns, Singapore Indians came to the island from various parts of South Asia...
- ManglishManglishManglish is an English based creole spoken in Malaysia.The vocabulary of Manglish consists of words originating from English, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, and to a lesser extent various other European languages, while Manglish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese...
Further reading
- Brown, Adam (1999). Singapore English in a Nutshell: An Alphabetical Description of its Features. Singapore: Federal Publications. ISBN 981012435X.
- Crewe, William (ed. 1977) The English Language in Singapore. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
- Deterding, David (2007). Singapore English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748625451.
- Deterding, David, Brown, Adam and Low Ee Ling (eds. 2005) English in Singapore: Phonetic Research on a Corpus. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia). ISBN 0071247270.
- Deterding, David, Low Ee Ling and Brown, Adam (eds. 2003) English in Singapore: Research on Grammar. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia). ISBN 007123103X.
- Deterding, David and Hvitfeldt, Robert (1994) 'The Features of Singapore English Pronunciation: Implications for Teachers', Teaching and Learning, 15 (1), 98-107. (on-line version)
- Deterding, David and Poedjosoedarmo, Gloria (2001) The Grammar of English: Morphology and Syntax for English Teachers in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Prentice Hall. (Chapter 19: Singapore English). ISBN 0130930091.
- Foley, Joseph (ed. 1988) New Englishes: the Case of Singapore, Singapore: Singapore University Press.
- Foley, J. A., T. Kandiah, Bao Zhiming, A.F. Gupta, L. Alsagoff, Ho Chee Lick, L. Wee, I. S. Talib and W. Bokhorst-Heng (eds. 1998) English in New Cultural Contexts: Reflections from Singapore. Singapore: Singapore Institute of Management/Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195884159.
- Gopinathan, S., Pakir, Anne, Ho Wah Kam and Saravanan, Vanithamani (eds. 1998) Language, Society and Education in Singapore (2nd edition), Singapore: Times Academic Press.
- Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1992) 'Contact features of Singapore Colloquial English'. In Kingsley Bolton and Helen Kwok (eds.) Sociolinguistics Today: International Perspectives, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 323–45.
- Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1994). The Step-Tongue: Children’s English in Singapore. Clevedon, UK: Multimedia Matters. ISBN 1853592293.
- Ho, Mian Lian and Platt, John Talbot (1993). Dynamics of a contact continuum: Singapore English. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198248288.
- Lim, Lisa (ed. 2004). Singapore English: a grammatical description. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ISBN 1588115763.
- Low, Ee Ling and Brown, Adam (2005) English in Singapore: An Introduction. Singapore: McGraw-Hill.
- Melcher, A. (2003). Unlearning Singlish: 400 Singlish-isms to avoid. Singapore: Andrew Melcher Pte. Ltd. ISBN 9810489528
- Newbrook, Mark (1987). Aspects of the syntax of educated Singaporean English: attitudes, beliefs, and usage. Frankfurt am Main; New York: P. Lang. ISBN 3820498869.
- Ooi, Vincent B. Y. (ed. 2001) Evolving Identities: the English Language in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Times Academic. ISBN 981210156X.
- Pakir, Anne (1991) ‘The range and depth of English-knowing bilinguals in Singapore’, World Englishes, 10(2), 167–79.
- Platt, John Talbot and Weber, Heidi (1980). English in Singapore and Malaysia: status, features, functions. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195804384.
- Shelley, R., Beng, K.-S., & Takut bin Salah. (2000). Sounds and sins of Singlish, and other nonsense. Kuala Lumpur: Times Books International. ISBN 9812043926
- Tongue, R. K. (1979) The English of Singapore and Malaysia (2nd edition). Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
- VJ Times Editorial Team. (2000). Singlish to English: basic grammar guide. Singapore: VJ Times. ISBN 9812211616
- Wee, Lionel (2004) 'Singapore English: Phonology'. In Edgar W. Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie and Clive Upton (eds.) A Handbook of Varieties of English. Volume 1: Phonology, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1017–33.
- Wee, Lionel (2004) 'Singapore English: morphology and syntax'. In Bernd Kortmann, Kate Burridge, Rajend Mesthrie, Edgar W. Schneider and Clive Upton (eds.) A Handbook of Varieties of English. Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1058–72.
- Wong, J. O. (2001). The natural semantic metalanguage approach to the universal syntax of the Singlish existential primitive. CAS research paper series, no. 30. Singapore: Centre for Advanced Studies, National University of Singapore. ISBN 9810438176
External links
- Singapore Speak Good English Movement
- Singapore Speak Good Singlish Movement
- Ah Beng's Guide to Singlish
- The Coxford Singlish Dictionary @ Talkingcock.com
- A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English
- 'Hover & Hear' pronunciations in a Standard Singapore English accent, and compare side by side with other English accents from around the World.
- Singapore Colloquial English (Singlish)
- An Annotated Bibliography of Works on Singapore English
- The NIE Corpus of Spoken Singapore English
- The Lim Siew Lwee Corpus of Informal Singapore Speech
- Taiwanese Celebrities Criticize Singaporean English
- A 'knol' on Singapore English
- PROSE