Talk:Singlish/Archive 1

Definition of dialect, pidgin, creole

The Wikipedia definition of dialect is imho not so clear. As I "feel" this word, "dialect" is appropriate for regional variants of languages, spoken natively by the people. Most Singaporeans do not have English as their native language, but use it as the common language in the city, outside their families and neighbourhoods. Maybe it is more a Pidgin language. Or are these dialects, too? That all depends on how you define it. I chose "version", because it was more neutral. I think I'll ask some linguist on this topic... -- zeno

Singlish has gone past the stage of "pidgin" -- it is now more like a creole. But more about that further down the page (under the heading "Singlish is not a pidgin"). -- ran

Does "ice water - water with ice" really qualify as a Singlish idiom? It's quite common in U.S. English. -- jdb 03:50, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

If I said "ice water," I would mean ice that was allowed to melt. —Casey J. Morris 01:56, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Which one is more appreciate title, Signlish or Singapore English? -- Taku 21:24 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

Wouldnt Singapore English refer to the standard variety of English used in "educated circles" as opposed to the vernacular?82.41.4.66 01:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not really know: It is mostly referred to as "Singlish", and explained as "Singapore English"

--Zenogantner 01:10 Jan 6, 2003 (UTC)

"Singapore English" also seems to refer to standard English with a Singaporean accent. "Singapore Colloquial English" is a more precise term. -- bicoherent

How come don't have sotong one meh!? Haven't signed up yet 4:41 Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

Now sotong also can lah. --Jpatokal Nov 15, 2003

What the heck does that even mean? You need to learn some Singlish. -- creamyhorror June 2006

On a related note, is "bedek kacang" still in use? I thought the common term is now "kan chiong". -- bicoherent 2002-04-22

I'd say remove the "bedek kacang" entry. I've never heard it used in my 30 years of existence in sg. -- colemanyee dec2004

Singlish is not a pidgin

(Excerpt from: http://babel.uoregon.edu/romance/rl407/creole/creole.html )

Pidgins and creoles can be considered the linguistic product of two or more languages that have combined to form a language .... Pidgins are reduced languages, characterized by having a limited vocabulary and a simple grammar which serve to satisfy basic communication needs. Historically these languages have primarily arisen in trade centers and plantations .... By definition, a pidgin has no native speakers; it is always a person's second (or more) language.

In contrast, a creole language is a pidgin that has developed and become the mother tongue for a community of people. This process is called creolization and results in an expanded vocabulary and grammar structure that allow for communication as rich and complex as that of non-creole languages. While pidgins are regarded as reduced languages, creoles are considered expanded languages. That is, while pidgins develop to enable communication in relatively isolated domains, creoles allow for a full range of expressive possibilities on a par with more "recognized" languages.

In short:

A pidgin is a reduced language that results from attempts by speakers of different languages to communicate with each other.

A creole is what results when a pidgin develops and matures. A pidgin that "fully creolizes" is as complex as any other language.

Signs that a pidgin has evolved into a creole:

• It is learned natively by children, on its own right. (A pidgin is learned and improvised by adults who already speak another language.)
• It has a full range of grammatical and structural features comparable to any other language. (Pidgins have reduced grammars.)

Now let's look at Singlish:

• Singlish is learned today natively by children, not by non-English speaking adults trying to learn English. There are plenty of people who can speak Singlish better than any Chinese, Malay, or Indian language / dialect.
• The complexity, maturity, and expressivity of Singlish is comparable to any other language or dialect.

Taking the above definition into account, it is clear that Singlish has already developed from a pidgin into something like a "creole", i.e., Singlish has creolized. A creole is, by definition, a tongue that is as expressive and rich as any full language or dialect on its own right. This is what Singlish is -- not a poor form of English, but a rich, expressive, complex dialect of English on its own right.

- ran April 5, 2004

Ran, as a non-Singlish speaker (but learning), agreed with you. (I'm also a non-native English speaker). Singlish is not a substandard form of English but a language/dialect on its own. It took English, richly enhanced it in vocabulary and had some Chinese grammatical forms thrown in. It's pretty neat!

To me the Chinese grammatical forms are quite interesting as while Chinese will likely remain quite unaccessible to me as a language without detailed study, Singlish is not due to its English heritage. I see in an earlier edit you listed some very interesting examples of such Chinese forms in Singlish. In the recent edit you took them out. I hope you will be able to integrate your exposition of these forms (lah, lor, already, and so on) into the main article in more detail as I'd love to find out more about these forms. They are the aspects of Singlish hardest for me to get a feeling for, which is also why they're the most fascinating. Some idea about their grammatical place would help satisfying my curiosity about them.

To me, Singlish is also an amusing language, often quite funny, but happily I share this amusement with my native Singlish speaking friends, who seem to enjoy their language very much. My Singlish speaking friends haven't taken my amusement negatively, are amused themselves, and have enjoyed teaching me. And in turn they've of course been amused with my blundering forays into speaking Singlish.

Of course the people worrying that people who may not learn 'international standard' English well enough due to exposure to Singlish do have a point. Singlish usages inevitably slip into speaking and writing patterns when Singlish speakers communicate in English. To someone unaware of Singlish (as I was a decade ago) this looks like sub-par English, which it is of course, from that perspective. It's a difficult situation.

I believe however that being explicitly being clear about the difference between Singlish and other forms of English in public education may actually be more productive in helping Singlish speakers to learn how to speak "proper" English than trying to bend Singlish back into English forcefully. A positive awareness of what makes Singlish unique and different could also help people learn to better communicate in other forms of English. Martijn faassen 23:06, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wa lao, why this page so long one? Even longer than main page leh! -- bicoherent

---

Ran you my hero lah! Wah, awesome. Martijn faassen 19:55, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Is Singlish a Creole?, Redux

Also, to Node ue: I don't think Singlish is really a "creole" per se, since it is still understandable to speakers of English -- comparable to Jamaican English, perhaps? So I'd say that Singlish is a dialect of English. ran 23:41, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)

Ran, that's not what makes a "creole" a "creole". According to the Ethnologue, Jamaican English is a creole. A creole language is generally formed when a pidgin is learned natively by children. A pidgin language does not nessecarily have to be mutually unintelligible with the parent language; what matters is the way it developed. Singlish is a speech variety formed as the result of contact between two or more languages (English, Hokkien, Malay, Tamil, Cantonese, Hainanese, Hakka, etc.), which is basically what a pidgin is. And I would argue that, although perhaps in its acrolectal and mesolectal forms (which as a non-Singaporean are what you are most likely to hear, since Singaporeans generally at least try to speak acrolect or mesolect [to them, it's "proper English"] to ang moh lang) Singlish and English are easily mutually intelligible, the Basilect and pre-modern Singlish are more difficult for native speakers of English to understand. A "dialect", on the other hand, is formed by the geographic separation of different groups of native speakers whose speech then develops separately (similar to teh process of speciation). Singlish is phonetically, grammatically, and lexically very different from any other English dialect - go to most places in the US and say "blahdi gahmen", and people will think you are saying "blotty garment" or "bloody garment". Such phrases as "blur like sotong", "si peh kaypo one", "ang mor lang", or "chewren" would be thought of as a foreign language in any English-speaking country. (when transcribed phonetically, Singlish looks much more different from English than it does when transcribed in an English-based orthography) Cheers.

--Node

First thing: If you want to move the page back to Singlish, please don't just copy/paste...

Second thing: I remember that the description that I read didn't exactly describe Singlish as a "creole", rather a "creoloid". I'll look it up and get back to you. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 05:00, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

It's not my fault Singlish was edited since the page was moved. BTW, why exactly was that? If I were to move it *properly*, I'd have to ask a sysop which takes a lot of effort on everybody's part.

Secondly: The description you are talking about simply describes the different views regarding the status of Singlish. There are three groups. Most Singaporean linguists believe it is a creole, and most Australian linguists agree. There are those who believe it is a dialect of English, which does not fit with the definition of "dialect", as Singlish is a creolised pidgin (ie, it used to be a pidgin, but then people learnt it as a native language ["creolisation"] at which point it became a creole). The term "creoloid" is not widely used, but generally it means a dialect with creole-like grammatical features, though definitions differ. Singlish is by all definitions a creole. It was borne out of a need for mutual understanding between multiple populations, a language was learnt partially and then simplified and changed for ease of use and learning, and then later when children learnt it as a native language, they subconciously made it into a full-fledged language again. The process people have often observed in Singapore where Singlish is "gradually growing closer to Standard English" has happened for other creoles. However, it is debatable whether this is happening for Singlish: Instead, it seems Singlish has been separated into multiple sociolects: the pidgin, spoken by most people older than about 30 and by Ah Beng and co. (whose only home language was most likely Hokkien), the basilect, which is what native speakers speak in familiar situations, the mesolect, which is what uneducated Singaporeans speak when trying to speak proper English but don't know how, or what most Singaporeans speak in semiformal situations, and the acrolect, which is for all intents and purposes, English with an accent with a few subtle syntactical differences.

If it were really a "creoloid", the *only* forms would be something between the mesolect and the acrolect, and the acrolect (and perhaps the pidgin, but only among nonnative speakers). --Node 03:22, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Clearly you've researched this more than I have so I'll go with what you say :).

As for moving a page onto a redirect, here's how you do it:

1. Put a Speedy delete template onto the redirect.
2. Wait 24 hours. (or less)
3. Move the thing over.

Yes, someone has to do it manually, but Wikipedia has a policy of keeping all the edit histories intact, so it's worth it. Either that, or go apply to be a sysop yourself. :P -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 03:39, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Help?

Please see discussion here. It's gotten kind of ugly, and I would like assistance from somebody who is formally trained in linguistics, or at least has a better grasp of the subject than I do. I'm more of a hobbyist, and I know the terminology. However, I think in this case, it's a grey area. I would also ask that before making a quick judgement based on the nature of the article, that you think about some of the comments. I am fairly certain we're not talking about a slang here, as it's a constructed grammar, which is dynamic. I also don't think we have a pidgin. A dialect may be the right word, but because it is so drastically different, I have doubts about that. Really, I'd just like a chance to discuss the matter. I've also asked for help at Hawaiian Pidgin, as I think there may be people there who could help. Thanks. Avriette 15:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Creole language

Are you sure Singlish is creole? From Creole language article, "A creole language, or just creole, is a well-defined and stable language that originated from a non-trivial combination of two or more languages, typically with many distinctive features that are not inherited from either parent." I doubt Singlish is stable or well-defined, and maybe we should consider changing that to something more representative of the situation. - SpLoT / ^(talk) 10:26, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am sure. First of all, the introduction to the creole language article isn't very good and oversimplifies the creolisation process to the point of actually being incorrect (it sounds like more of a definition of a mixed language). A creole language typically does develop from two or more languages, but not by a simple combination. It's rather more complex -- one language, typically the one with more "prestige" or a colonial status (English, in the case of Singlish), is the "lexifier language". It gives the majority of vocabulary and a large part of the foundation of the language. The "substrate language" (or languages, as is the case with Singlish) supply more structure than they do vocabulary. The syntax, grammar, phonology, etc. are often (though not always) based on the substrate language. Substrate languages also act as a secondary source of vocabulary. The primary substrate languages for Singlish are South Chinese languages (mostly Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew), the secondary substrate languages are Malay, Tamil, other Indic languages, other Chinese languages, and whatever other colonial and immigrant languages were mixed in to the situation (Japanese, for example, had its own relatively minor impact).

Your assertion that Singlish is not stable isn't really correct. Singlish is relatively stable. Whatever instability it has is due to the following:

1. A majority of Singlish speakers still do not speak it as a native language. However, the majority of younger Singaporeans do, and this trend seems to be increasing. Once the transition is more completed (when Baby Boomer generation has completed transition to "elder" generation), Singlish will likely be the native language of all influential Singaporeans, and it is possible, even probable that by 2050 it will be the native language of almost all Singaporeans. Native speakers are what makes Singlish a creole instead of a pidgin, they are the ones who have set the absolute grammatical rules. Language acquisition is a complex process, but it is such that future native speakers are likely to learn the same standard of Singlish that was unconsciously created by its very first native speakers, due to the influence of peers and older siblings who are also native speakers (the same process that serves to ensure that children of immigrants born in the new country learn the new language without an accent, despite their parents' accents).
2. Singlish will never be as stable as most languages are able to be because of the nature of the community in which it is spoken. Singapore is a very fertile environment for language change. It has a large population living in a small area, constantly intercommunicating due to high proliferation rates of "handphones" (as they are called in Singapore), Internet, and other communications technologies. If a popular girl at one secondary school or a successful businesswoman in her early 20s created her own new Singlish word, it would be very possible for it to catch on throughout Singapore in a month or less. This is not due to the status of Singlish as a language, but rather to the unique society of Singapore (City-State), paralelled nowhere else (to a certain degree in Hong Kong, but Hong Kong has much larger population, and to a degree in Macau, but Macau is very heavily influenced by Hong Kong).

I myself was born in 1989, and I shall start university next fall. I would very much like to major in linguistics and conduct a broad study of Singlish. It is in a very interesting and unique sociolinguistic position, as I noted above. It would be amazing to track its progress in creolisation, and to document the rapid language change which is encouraged by the unique nature of Singaporean society. --Node 05:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I concur with SpLoT, we need to improve this article. Oh BTW, who can find some updated statistics. --Terence Ong _{(C | R)} 05:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The article does need to be improved no doubt, but as Ran and I discussed above, it should be in the direction of moving it away from "How is it different from English?" and towards describing it as a discreet entity. The historical proofs and the linguistic proofs that Singlish is a creole (actually currently undergoing the transformation from pidgin to creole, but since it has native speakers already it is considered a "creole" even though it has not yet completely stabilised) are abundant, if you want them you need only to ask. The popular misconceptions that Singlish is a dialect or "just broken English" are just that -- misconceptions. Same with myths like "Singlish has no grammar" or "Singlish is just a hodge-podge of English and Hokkien with no rules". Singlish does have grammar and it does have rules. Example: Does it make any sense to say "Can also tea one lah lor or not izzit"? No, it doesn't, because Singlish, like every other natural language, has rules for constructing clauses. The rules are perhaps not as solid or well-defined as those of English, but that is because Singlish is, as I mentione earlier, in a state of flux. --Node 05:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

And, regarding statistics, they do not exist. Current statistics are of Singaporeans who claimed "English" as mother tongue. This is the best statistic available for now. There is no survey of who speaks Singlish, and if such a survey did exist it would likely not produce very accurate results as the identity of Singlish is not yet as well-defined as that of "Patwa" in Jamaica or "Kreyol" in Haiti. (People speaking Singlish often insist they are speaking English, and this was formerly the case with Patwa in Jamaica and with Kreyol and French in Haiti, but their distinct identities emerged clearly and now there is a more clear-cut distinction). Currently Singlish is not possible to study as a language the way you study another language because it is in a state of flux. Most serious study of Singlish at the moment uses a diachronic perspective and respects the fact that Singlish is still in the process of creolisation and that research will likely not be current for very long. Wait about a decade, and then we will have all the answers. --Node 05:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Status of Singlish

Well, this has been discussed in the past but I feel perhaps it needs to be re-discussed. While many (maybe even most?) Singaporeans agree with the view of the PAP government that Singlish is nothing more than "broken English" with a little bit of local flavour, the opinion of linguists is drastically different.

It's not difficult to demonstrate the status of Singlish as an independent language.

From a young Singaporean girl's blog: "Today mum actually off but she accompany my dad go NUH pluck teeth."

It seems from the girl's profile that due to her background Singlish is her native language. Now let us translate this into Colloquial English (Western American to be more specfic, I don't know what biases I'm inserting here from my own native dialect):

"Today my mom's actually off, but she went to NUH with my dad to get some of his teeth pulled."

And a broad transcription in IPA, even if I were to pronounce that sentence as if it were English (to the best of my knowledge/ability):

Singlish: /tude mɑm ʔɑtʃəli ʔɔf bɑʔ ʃi ʔɑkɔmpɑni mai dɑʔ go NUH plɑʔ tif/ English: /tʌdeɪ mʌm æktʃəliː ɔf bʌʔ ʃiː əkəmpəniː maɪ dæd goʊ NUH plʌk tiːθ/

...which is totally ignoring the fact that 1) That phrase breaks many of the syntactical rules of my dialect and thus is not a plausible utterance and 2) unmarked for stress and timing.

There's really a spectrum when it comes to written Singlish. Some of it is understandable to the average American with a little though, like the example I gave previously. Then there are sentences like "wake up around 10 plus wait for tuition teacher come my house he go take so long" which is mildly confusing to the uninitiated. Then there are sentences like "Say wad later go out lose face" or "At CPA blogging sibei sian all ppl doing homework nothing to do haiz sian". Those are just a total mystery. I can only decipher them because I have worked with Singlish for a while and explored it, and I am familiar with its syntactical rules and I know, for example, that "sian" means "bored".

Now, some people claim Singlish is a dialect of English. This would be where the use of the term "diglossia" comes from --although it can be used to refer to any situation in which one individual switches between two speech systems, it is generally used for dialects (ie, home dialect and standard dialect).

Singlish is not, however, a dialect. The reason it is not lies primarily in its origins. It is a creole because it was first a pidgin -- the lingua franca of a society where nobody spoke it natively, which was severely simplified and with syntax varying depending on the native language of the individual speaker, and with infusions of non-English vocabulary to fill lexical gaps created by incomplete language learning -- of course, you *could* say "bored" instead of "sian", but the reason "sian" is used far far more often is because the people who were at the root of the development of Singlish did not know the English word or were not comfortable with its usage and so used a Hokkien word instead. Children of very mixed dialect heritage (each grandparent has a diff dialect) and to a lesser extent interethnic heritage, began to learn this a their native language because it was used between their parents for communication. This was reinforced at school, and later In Real Life by their agemates with similar experiences. These children, learning a limited language as their native language, unconciously but very obviously expanded Singlish to be a full language, by regularising the grammar and syntax. Frequent interaction among the native-speaking children means that there are not thousands of differing creolised versions.

Singlish however is still primarily a second language, in a period of fluidity of vocabulary and especially syntax because the creolisation process is not yet complete. For this reason, its vocabulary and syntax do not have the same stability and solidity of most creole languages. However, in a couple of generations, it is probable that Singlish will be the primary native language in Singapore, and the vocabulary and syntax will have solidified.

Dialects, unlike creoles, have developed alongside each other and the standard language. They do not go through the same drastic processes.

Here are some examples of some of the more divergent English dialects: Geordie: "I telt you to give us a one, but you've forgetten. If you divvent give us it now, I'm gannin yearm." Newfoundland: "I don't get ome much but whoever said nuttin grows on rocks ne'er been to Newfoundland! Me roots are firmly planted in the rock and I longs for the good ole days!" Cumbrian: "I thought I was good at trainen animals and things till I tries me hand with a conger eel, an that gave me summat to do an neah mistake." --Node 03:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I had no idea that Singlish is not regarded as a dialect. As a layman, I view dialects as spoken languages localized to a particular area, so it would make sense to perceive Singlish as a dialect, when it is regarded as being very much part of Singapore's culture, is largely defined by Singaporeans who use it and is mainly used in Singapore and not anywhere else. Arkansaw (talk) 11:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Splitting the page

The following page is rather long. Can someone who has some technical knowledge/expertise on splitting pages on Wikipedia do the relevant stuffs...(split this discussion into page one and two//and pls, to the person editing: please dont delete other people's contribution inappropriately. Thank You for your kind attention:)

Putting an end to the Singlish debate

First, one has to look at history. Most of the time, language campaigns all over the world are politically motivated. Singlish was discouraged as the government feels that the English locals speak should be understood globally. However, we have to understand that Singlish can be a part of our culture. Let me give you an example:

A long time ago, Latin was used all throughout Europe. It was the "global" language at that time in the Old World. As there was no globalisation back then, all inter-state development was slow. But life went on. Language is the means of communication. With the exposure of the Latin language, Europeans assimilated it into their culture and various Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, etc.) were formed. It is unfortunate/fortunate that Singlish is "developing" at a time were we now communicate globally. And Standard English is the norm.

Please do not get frustrated over the Singlish debate. The many various stands and viewpoints that exists among Singaporeans. Definitely. Period.

Singlish as a backward language and corrupted form of English

In the beginning, the immigrants (especially the Chinese) to Singapore and Malaysia had difficulties with English pronunciation due to lack of proper education. Nowdays, youngsters in Singapore and Malaysia are given proper education but yet, many had not changed. They continue to adopt the corrupted form of English by their ancestors. What made them even worse - they are proud of it too!!

Singlish is barrier to learn proper English. Those who learn standard English had problem understand Singlish. Although, there are difference between Australian and American English, but Singlish does not differ to standard English in such way. One wonders why one choose to speak Singlish at all, if it cannot be understood by English speakers around the world.

Utter crap. I am sure you have done an intensive research on the effects of Singlish on Singaporeans learning English.

One should consider that Singlish is a backward language because it adopted the mistakes of spoken English by early Chinese, who never had the time, the chance nor the ability to learn standard English. Today, children in Singapore and Malaysia were given such opportunities.

Besides, Singlish, for many foreigners, Singlish is an annoying and digusting language. Not only speaking it gives the impression to foreigners that Singaporeans or Malaysian did not learn to speak standard English, but it gives foreigners the chance to laugh at the stupidity of Singapore and Malaysia. Speaking Singlish does not enjoy the same prestige of English as the following pointed out:

Singlish is a layman's (usually negatively charged) term that could mean any of the following:

1. Colloquial Singapore English that is used in informal contexts by someone who is highly competent in educated Singaporean English or Standard Singapore English.

2. Lower (mesolectal and basilectal) varieties of Singapore English used by the less competent speakers, producing utterances such as "He my teacher", "Why you say me until like that?", and "I got no enough money". Interlanguage or developmental varieties of English produced by some language learners at the beginning stages.

3. Standard English is taken to mean English that is internationally acceptable in formal contexts. In other words, someone speaking Standard English should be understood easily by educated English speakers all over the world.

Wah hao, did you get that from the Speak Good English site? But I added a Politics section to record the Garmen's disapproval of Singlish.

--Jpatokal 18 Nov 2003

Singlish - a way of celebrating European colonisation?

Uhh, no, I did not get it from the Speak Good English site. I am not even a Singaporean. But this is just common sense.

No it isn't just "common sense". Are you a certified historian of Singlish? Because you really are talking cock. A lot of it. And as an immature non-Singaporean, it is no wonder you do not know of Singlish's purpose and usage in culture, and you even go on to assume a lot of incorrect "common sense".

The Singaporean government used English as a medium in the early years, mainly due to the composition of multi-ethnical society. It was also a way to curb the Chinese Chauvinism, so that Singapore will not be a part of China. However, the majority of the ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia soon took this into the wrong context. Speaking English means to enjoying the "upper class prestige". Those who didn't learn standard English merely use English words to make up a sentence in Chinese grammar, so that they are not lacking behind or being look down at.

There are many countries in this world which do not use English as their language, but they are still doing really well. Germany, France and closer to the Asiatic mainland - Japan. What do the Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia speaks? Some ethnic Chinese even go as far as not to learn to speak their mother tongue - Chinese, but rather they chose to speak Singlish?

For some, speaking English can be seen as a way of celebrating British colonisation. Many Chinese do not think that the British had done bad deeds to their countries because the British had serve their interest well during the colonisation period - money and work. But one could look further how the British actually systematically exploited the resources of Malaysia and Singapore. The Chinese and Indian were mere slaves of their economy power house, while the Malays were completely useless to them, who only served as puppets. Colonisation is such a brutal process.

Let's admit this fact. We are ethnic Chinese / Indian / Malays, no matter how much good standard English we have learnt. We have to protect our own culture, instead of promoting other's culture. We need to understand our own culture more than we understand someone else's in order to learn who we really are. Promoting someone else's culture will see Singapore lost their own native culture. One may look at how the Asian in the USA lost their culture. But they are still not an integrated bunch within the white majority society. Racism is always there.

To those Singaporeans or Malaysians who cherish Singlish or whatever one wishes to call it. These people are mere a confused bunch.

(You should not insult people who wish to use a different form of English. It is a personal choice. Please remove your comment about Singaporeans or Malaysians being a confused bunch.)

Mmm, but other countries also have their own form of local "broken english" used for informal occasions. It is really inevitable that the meeting and clashing of languages would lead to such mishmash of spoken dialects. I think it is also how new languages are formed(some of these mixed languages have even been officially regconised! An example is 'Bislama', a creole language with words from English, French and various other languages; and a similar but different syntax from its parent languages. It is a national language of Vanuatu). It is like evolution of languages, when something that means this currently, can mean that in a hundred years. For example, the word 'gay'. The original meaning a hundred years ago is 'happy', 'joyous'. Now, it has also taken on an additional meaning of 'homosexual'.

I do not understand why you rant at Singlish in this way. If speaking Singapore English instead of Standard English was such a bad thing, Singapore wouldn't thrive the way it does. Besides, before complaining about Singaporeans' English, you should mind your own grammar on this page. I am no Singaporean. But I come from another small (albeit European) country that has also achieved a higher per capita GDP than all its neighbours. And guess what? We use our own, unique dialect of German, that no German understands. It helps us keep up our culture and identity as a nation instead of giving it up to become a nameless sub-entity of a greater German-speaking area. IMHO, Singaporeans should treasure their Singlish, which lets them express their culture in their own English. Teaching of Standard English should of course go on and be further improved, so the ideal state of having a truly diglossic community will come closer.

Singlish for foreigners?

Oh by the way, I did not see any foreigners wanting to learn Singlish. Nor is the Singaporean government attempting to protect it.

I'm Dutch and I like Singlish. I've picked up a smattering of it when I was over there. It an interesting example of language evolution in action, and quite accessible if you know English. Not to mention frequently amusing. I'm not alone in that -- my Singaporean friends seem to enjoy speaking Singlish in part because it's amusing to them.

Other parts of the dialect come naturally. I haven't noticed it significantly hindering my understanding when people speak Singlish to me, unless they deliberately set out to confuse me by throwing in 5 new words every sentence. Then again I may have an ear for it where others don't.

To claim that those who cherish Singlish are a confused bunch is pretty odd. People have been raised speaking Singlish. You may complain about the choice of their parents, and I realize the use of language is often politically loaded, but it is still a language/dialect, and what's wrong with cherishing the language you grew up with?

Apart from that of course I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from learning a more standard form of English, or any other language that they are interested in.

-- Martijn Faassen

What is wrong, is that Singlish is being used as an inappropriate substitute for English.

Incorrect. In formal contexts, most Singaporeans are smart enough to switch to proper English. You can't possibly expect our oral examinations to be conducted in Singlish do you?

The big problem arises when Singlish is used to reply to an English sentence or query.

Would you answer in French questions that are posed in English? It would be rude in most cases.

WHAT cases? It is not uncommon for a Singaporean to answer a Chinese question in proper English. And also, "rude" would be dependent on the context.

Singlish has both a different vocabulary and a different grammar from English. We have to keep this in mind. Singlish and English are effectively two different languages. For some reason, many Singlish users do not realise this.

WHAT reason? And also, even if they are two different languages as you claim, there is nothing wrong with that, unless YOU are like one of those monolingual ang mohs. I can ask my Malay friend a question in Malay and he can reply in English, and I can speak to my classmate in Japanese which he replies in Chinese.

"Speak English, not Singlish!"

Speaking Good English

Excerpt: Speech by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew at the Tanjong Pagar 34th National Day Celebration, 14 Aug 1999

Standard English vs Singlish On this subject of education, let me state clearly the disadvantages of Singlish. There are as many varieties of English as there are communities that speak English. In spite of differences in accent and pronunciation, people in Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand understand each other easily because they are speaking the same language, using the same words with the same grammar and sentence structures. Singaporeans add Chinese and Malay words into Singlish, and give different meanings to English words like "blur" to mean "blank". Worse, Singlish uses Chinese sentence structure. In fact we are creating a different new language. Each family can create its own coded language; nothing wrong with that except that no one outside the family can understand you. We are learning English so that we can understand the world and the world can understand us.

It is therefore important to speak and write standard English. The more the media makes Singlish socially acceptable, by popularising it in TV shows, the more we make people believe that they can get by with Singlish. This will be a disadvantage to the less educated half of the population. The better educated can learn two or three varieties of English and can speak English English to native Englishmen or Americans, standard English to foreigners who speak standard English, and Singlish to less-educated Singaporeans. Unfortunately, if the less educated half of our people end up learning to speak only Singlish, they will suffer economically and socially. They want to speak better English, not Singlish. Those Singaporeans who can speak good English should help to create a good environment for speaking English, rather than advocate, as some do, the use of Singlish.

Let me tell you what we did about Mandarin. Twenty-five years ago, we decided that we would not speak a special Singapore Mandarin, pronounced with Hokkien, Teochew or Cantonese accents, and with Malay words thrown in. To set the standard, I had our announcers on radio and television and school teachers retrained by teachers from Taiwan who spoke standard Mandarin. We also hired a few announcers for TV and radio from Taiwan to set the pace. Because we used standard Mandarin on TV, radio, and with teachers in schools, we now have a generation of young Singaporeans able to speak more of a standard Mandarin. The Chinese-speaking world outside Singapore can understand us.

We must take the same approach with English. Get our teachers retrained. Do not popularise Singlish. Do not use Singlish in our television sitcoms, except for humorous bits, and in a way that makes people want to speak standard English. We will see a difference in another one generation. The people who will benefit most are those who can only master one kind of English. Singlish is a handicap we must not wish on Singaporeans.

I want to comment. I just started reading about Singlish. I have a few linguistics notions. I see a powerful newborn that has the potential to largely replace the English of the "Anglo World Empire". I find it ironic that Officialdom is not seizing this tool and promoting it and turning out outward. It could be the vehicle for Asian economic expansion. The world needs more nice vowels sounds. And a grammar with the grace to mention the topic up-front. -- mlh

Your PM Goh said: Communicating with the World

Speaking Good English

Excerpt: National Day Rally Speech 1999 by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, 22 Aug 1999

Communicating with the World

Most of our pupils still come from non-English speaking homes. For them, English is really a second language, to be learnt almost like a foreign language, and not their mother tongue. For them to master just one version of English is already quite a challenge. If they get into the habit of speaking Singlish, then later they will either have to unlearn these habits, or learn proper English on top of Singlish. Many pupils will find this too difficult. They may end up unable to speak any language properly, which would be a tragedy.

Gurmit Singh can speak many languages. But Phua Chu Kang speaks only Singlish. If our children learn Singlish from Phua Chu Kang, they will not become as talented as Gurmit Singh.

We learn English in order to communicate with the world. The fact that we use English gives us a big advantage over our competitors. Parents send children to English language schools rather than Chinese, Malay, or Tamil schools, because they hope the children will get jobs and opportunities when they grow up. But to become an engineer, a techni­cian, an accountant or a nurse, you must have standard English, not Singlish.

We don’t have to speak English with British, American, or Australian accents. Most of us speak with a Singaporean accent. We are so used to hearing it that we probably don’t notice it. But we should speak a form of English that is understood by the British, Americans, Australians, and people around the world.

Nicholas Lee, who plays Ronnie Tan in Under One Roof, wrote a letter in The Straits Times (1 Jun 99) which hit the nail on the head. He had been criticised because Ronnie Tan did not speak Singlish. His reply was that the programme Under One Roof was shown overseas as well as in Singa­pore. Programme series are very expensive to make. If they are only shown in Singa­pore, they will surely lose money. If the characters spoke Singlish, viewers overseas would not understand it.

Nicholas Lee cited one local production, Forever Fever, which could not be released in the United States market because American audiences would not understand the Singa­pore English. So now they are considering removing the Singlish, and dubbing Forever Fever in English that Americans can understand. His conclusion was: “We should all be aware that the only way forward is to look outward, and if the future of Singa­pore entertainment lies in ‘Beng culture’, then I am afraid it is a very bleak culture.”

What Nicholas Lee said about sitcoms applies to many other activities. Whether we are publishing a newspaper, writing a company report, or composing a song, does it make more sense to do so for a 3 million audience, or for the hundreds of millions who speak English around the world? We cannot be a first-world economy or go global with Singlish.

Pidgin English

Singapore is not unique in having a local flavour to the English it uses. Local types of English often sprout up in places where non-English speakers come into contact with English speakers, or where people speaking different tongues use simple English as a common language to communicate with each other. These languages are called pidgin English, or Creole. Eventually pidgin develops into a new language, which uses many English words, but mixed with non-English words, and using different grammar.

Different kinds of pidgin English or Creole is spoken in Africa, in the Caribbean, and in the South Pacific. For example, in Jamaica they say: “Him go a school every day last year; now sometime him go, sometime him no go” [Jamaican Creole]. In Samoa when a person is very ill, he says “Mi siksik” [Samoan Plantation Pidgin English].

These examples are not to make fun of anyone. This is simply the way people speak in these countries. The examples have a serious lesson for us: if we carry on using Singlish, the logical final outcome is that we too will develop our own type of pidgin English, spoken only by 3 million Singapo­reans, which the rest of the world will find quaint but incompre­hensible. We are already half-way there. Do we want to go all the way? We would be better off sticking to Chinese, Malay or Tamil; then at least some other people in the world can understand us.

I know that many of us do not speak English perfectly. We studied in Chinese, Malay or Tamil schools, or came from non-English speaking homes even though we went to English schools. We cannot help it, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. But we should nurture the next generation to have higher standards of English than ourselves. We can help them by discouraging the use of Singlish, or at least not encouraging it.

Upgrading English in Schools

Schools already organise many programmes and activities to encourage the use of proper English. They have Speak English Campaigns, they fine pupils caught speaking Singlish, and they run speech and drama programmes to promote good English.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has been working hard to upgrade standards of English in schools. First, it is revising the English Language syllabuses, to make them more rigorous and to strengthen the teaching of grammar.

Second, MOE will conduct a 60-hour course for 8,000 teachers who teach English Language in primary and secondary schools, to strengthen and update their skills. The course will lead to the award of the Singapore-Cambridge Certificate in the Teaching of English Grammar.

Third, MOE is working with the Regional Language Centre to produce a handbook on common errors in English usage in Singapore.

MOE gave me some examples of improper written English found in schools:

“He is very sporting” to mean “He is very active in sports”.

“I became boring” when the writer meant “I became bored”.

“He turned into a new leaf” instead of “He turned over a new leaf”.

As for spoken English, how about this: “Quick, quick. Late already. You eat yourself, we eat ourself”.

Phua Chu Kang

One of the problems MOE has getting students to speak standard English is that the students often hear Singlish being spoken around them, including on television. So they learn wrong ways of speaking.

Teachers complain that their students are picking up catchphrases like: “Don’t pray, pray” and using them even in the classroom. The students may think that it is acceptable and even fashionable to speak like Phua Chu Kang. He is on national television and a likeable, ordinary person. The only character who tries to speak proper English is Phua Chu Kang’s sister-in-law Margaret, and she is a snob. Nobody wants to be a snob. So in trying to imitate life, Phua Chu Kang has made the teaching of proper English more difficult.

I asked TCS why Phua Chu Kang’s English is so poor. They told me that Phua Chu Kang started off speaking quite good English, but as time passed he forgot what he learnt in school, and his English went from bad to worse.

I therefore asked TCS to try persuading Phua Chu Kang to attend NTUC’s BEST classes, to improve his English. TCS replied that they have spoken to Phua Chu Kang, and he has agreed to enrol himself for the next BEST programme, starting in a month’s time. If Phua Chu Kang can improve himself, surely so can the rest of us.

Particles

Thanks everyone! :D

Now that the article is kinda done, there are a few things that I'm not sure about. The examples need to be checked for nativeness, and I'm not that sure about the particles.

So far I'm pretty unsure about what I wrote for the following particles:

• lah
• hoh
• leh
• ah

And there are a few that I haven't felt confident enough to describe:

• leh (with falling tone)
• hah / huh (rising and nasalized)
• ah (sentence final)
• liao
• laidat (like-that)

So if anyone has any ideas about any of the above, please post something here, or just go ahead and edit the main article. And if you find an example that is obviously NOT something a Singaporean would say, just change it. (Yep, thanks bicoherent for that edit.)

ran 20:44, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)

I hope others can contribute to the particles section. To me this is one of the most intriguing aspects of Singaporean. I'm tempted to use the word 'unique', which Singaporeans seem to use when they encounter something unusual. By the way, just curious, Ran, are you Singaporean yourself or a (very) keen observer? I'm obviously not Singaporean, myself. :) Martijn faassen 21:11, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A keen observer. :P I've lived in Singapore for some years, and learned to speak Singlish reasonably convincingly. ran 21:37, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)

Very impressive. Martijn faassen 21:33, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Re: "X or not", you describe this as "in-your-face" which is indeed how a native English speaker reacts to it... but in Chinese it's more polite to ask eg. "yao bu yao" (want or not want) than "ni yao ma?" (you want?), and this is reflected into the English. Brusque Singlish uses "you want ah?" for a less polite question. Jpatokal 06:01, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Jpatokal, I've made the correction.

How about Dun? It's used several times in the particles section, but the definition is not very clear. Is it a particle in its own right, or a contraction, maybe? The examples 'Dun have, lah!' and 'Dun know oreddy, lah!' might be improved by giving their meaning as well as the context in which they would be used.

It's "don't", spelt to reflect local pronunciation. I wouldn't consider it to be something unique to Singlish... -- ran (talk) 12:38, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Actually more of MSN lingo lor.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.21.154.89 (talk) 10:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Soccer?

Just a very pedantic point that may not be hugely relevant. The esteemed author gives the use of "soccer" as an example of Singaporean English's mixing of English and American usages. Singaporeans old enough to remember the '50s and '60s may correct me, but I suspect that soccer is actually an preservation of colonial English usage rather than an American borrowing.

Let me quote the author of the Football (soccer) entry, which I just looked up to check my understanding of the topic:

In the late 19th century the word soccer tended to be used only at public schools; most people knew the game simply as football. Today the term association football is rarely used, although some clubs still include Association Football Club (AFC) in their name. The game is sometimes known colloquially as footie; the term footer was also once used but is now obsolete.

Backing this account up, the British editions of the satiric Molesworth books, which are set in a lousy postwar English public school, use the term "soccer" exclusively. Hence, I suspect Soccer may be either derive from those public schoolboy imperialists or from English-stream schooling during the colonial period.

Apologies for the weird formatting. Don't know what's up with this browser.

Anyway, the point is, perhaps there's a more certain US derivation to use as an example?

I've fixed your formatting, hopefully without affecting what you meant. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:52, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Idioms

I question "ice water" as a Singlish idiom... it is not idiomatic. It means the exact same thing in AE. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 22:11, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Merging Manglish and Singlish

Yes, I know this sounds a bit controversial. But I think it's a good idea, considering how similar the two really are.

You can see my original suggestion here: Talk:British and Malaysian English differences#Merge. All comments are welcome! -- ran (talk) 04:56, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

While similarities are abound, there are also significant differences. The current Singlish article is far from being comprehensive. For example, there is alot of influence on Singlish from the National service experience among Singaporean males, which does not normally apply to Manglish. (Refer to the book Army Daze to see a glossary of NS-related singlish). On the other side, singlish lacks the context related to Malaysian politics. I'm not very familiar with Manglish, so maybe Malaysians studying in Singapore's universities would like to comment about these.  ;-) -- Vsion 20:53, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Singlish as diglossia

There are a few language models that are used to explain the Singlish phenomenon. In this article, the sociolect model was used and Singlish is described as a basilect and used by people of a lower social class. However, a diglossia model could also be used. This model explains the social functions of Singlish ie Singlish for informal occasions (the L variety) and Singapore StdE as formal version. This should be included too as it gives another insight into the Singlish phenomenon and apparently is the preferred model for studying the social functions of Singlish nowadays. (Would love to split the page but I don't know how yet...:(--zoek 18:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

A section on Usage?

I have this feeling that something is missing in the article, it seems too technical. Should we add a section on "Usage" or something to describe when people choose to use Singlish and when not to. In most situations, using Singlish is not advisable (eg. during job interview) but other times it is actually preferred (eg. during NS)? In some situations, using Singlish is a deliberate choice to achieve social goals. ex-PM Goh himself interjected some Singlish during his election campaign rallies to better connect with the voters, notwithstanding his 1999 rally speech on proper English. Even some foreign residents like to learn a few Singlish to engage in more delightful conversation with the locals. Do you guys think it is worth adding these information? --Vsion 21:25, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. -- ran (talk) 05:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Since you are so inviting, I went ahead orredy lah. Please help to clean up my mess, can? --Vsion 10:15, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

COE and co. -- Singlish vocabulary?

COE, PAP, NS, MRT and so on are simply widely known acronyms. Do they deserve a place among the "vocabulary"? 202.156.6.54 09:25, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Not only that, they're abbreviations of grammatically correct English names. I'm removing them.

202.156.6.54 11:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey, i created this page List of Singapore abbreviations, a better place for them? :D --Vsion (talk) 13:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Good job. I've added some acronyms myself. Descender 23:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

From TFA: "Singlish is generally intelligible to a speaker of another dialect of English," are you sure?

I'm a native speaker of standard British English (RP with a bit of Cockney). When I was in Singapore, I could understand everything spoken directly to me. However if two locals spoke to each other (and myself not directly involved in the conversation) then I could not understand a word, it was not until my fourth week that I realised that they were not speaking Chinese but Singlish!

Hmm... I suppose I was suffering from Singlishocentrism when I wrote that. I'm going to correct it. -- ran (talk) 21:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I think Singlish would be generally intelligible to a bilingual person who spoke both (American/British) English and Chinese.

I find that Singlish is intelligible to me. Born and raised in America, but I speak enough Chinese to get by. Avriette 15:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd doubt that. The inflection and pronunciation (of English words) of Singlish alone would render many words hard to make out. Knowledge of Mandarin wouldn't help an American/British speaker much. -- creamyhorror June 2006

I'm a native speaker of American English and I have no trouble understanding Singlish when I visit Singapore. It seems basically just normal English with a few Hokkien or Malay words thrown in here and there. I interrupt occasionally to ask "what's that mean?" and in no time I understood it, even when listening to Singaporeans talk to each other. 209.225.224.155 21:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

That's because Singaporeans consciously speak "good English" when talking to foreigners and in front of foreigners. Jpatokal 06:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

When you get two Singaporeans of the same race together, you'll almost certainly find them tossing in lots of their own language into the conversation, so what you're hearing isn't really Singlish but a mix of it and something else. The Singlish itself is mostly just really bad English, but it certainly isn't unintelligible. 203.116.91.80 04:29, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Miscategorization? Singlish or Singapore English?

I'm not sure if I can accept the following as Singlish:

a. send - to take somebody to somewhere - "I'll send you to the airport." b. stay - to live (in a place) - from Malay "tinggal". "She stay in Ang Mo Kio."

Both examples sound perfectly fine (non Singlish) to me, although the example given in (b) needs a minor correction i.e. "She stays in AMK". I don't know if the expressions are only used in Singapore. Even if they are, it seems more appropriate to label them as 'Singapore English'.

I believe that by "sound perfectly fine", you meant they are grammatically correct. With what I gather from this article, Singlish has a broad spectrum and it includes grammatically correct Singapore English as well but with some unique features or usage practices such as the examples you gave. For these examples, the translation to non-Singlish would be

I'll give you a ride to the airport.

She lives (or resides) in Ang Mo Kio. (Stay usually indicates temporariness: She stays in her friend's apartment over the weekend. )

The language that SM Goh discouraged was the extreme type of Singlish at one end of the spectrum, but this article is not restricted to just that... for practical reasons also, otherwise we need two separate articles. Just my amateur opinion, I will let the experts comment further. ;) --Vsion (talk) 23:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Singlish as the most compact form of English vs English

I speak it because I can compress the amount of words in a sentence to such an extent that I can save a lot of my energy and is still understandable to the people it matters most.

Singlish (Above statement): Can say (what i want to say) faster mah.

Note the "mah". Using suffixes such as these allow a speaker to refrain from varying one's pitch and tone. This allows us to save time and energy so that we can focus our attention on other matters. Like for example, procreation, which our Government so readily promotes.

I can however, switch between the two variants of the language. For "backward(/forward)-compatibility" reasons.

--BlueStream 16:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

This is an often-expressed and ill-conceived impression. There are many ways in which you could translate your (almost) English sentence into Singlish, and English certainly has a translation of your Singlish sentence, for example: "It's faster". Singlish is not more concise than English, and neither is it more expressive than English. Fact is that this is how Singlish speakers perceive things, which is only normal, given that it is their native language. A native speaker will always see their language as more effective, and that is the reason why you speak it rather than English. JREL 16:49, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

As a native Singaporean I suppose my opinion would be coloured, but I really do think that Singlish is more concise than more standard/prestige forms of English, objectively speaking. A basic example is the removal of articles and prepositions (probably from Chinese and/or Malay grammar): "I go to the market everyday" becomes "I go market everyday". -- creamyhorror June 2006

Fair enough, there's no way you can beat a variety of English that deletes the copula. Standard English will always have a longer sentence in that case. On the other hand, and to follow your line of argument, consider: "Yeah lah" vs "Yes" -- all the final particles make it slower. Also, I seem to notice that in higher mesolectal varieties, Singaporeans tend to repeat themselves more than English speakers would: repetition of the subject where English would have an elision, repetition of whole noun phrases, and of course the omnipresent and redundant "please kindly". I have no actual data on this, but I am very sceptical about any variety being more concise or efficient than another... JREL (talk) 01:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Today's article: Beng is cool, singlish a signal

Today, Today has an article, "Beng is cool, singlish a signal", the link is here. It has some interesting analysis that could be included in the Singlish article. --Vsion 08:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for explanations

Why the following description was considered as an inaccurate oversimplification?

"Basically and briefly, Singlish may be considered as: English vocabulary + mixed grammars + Chinese based prominent and intonation."

I don't think the stress and intonation is solely from Chinese. Most other chinese groups don't speak english in the same way, except in malaysia. For example, Hong kong's english sounds very different. Singlish's accent may be strongly influenced by Indian or tamil intonation; or a fusion of tamil-malay-chinese. In the early days (when policemen wore shorts), most local english teachers in Singapore were Indians, I think their influence on Singlish's intonation is most significant. In addition, the vocabulary is not strictly english, there are many borrowed words from other languauges. --Vsion 07:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Singlish's vocabulary is certainly not that of British and American English. There are many loanwords from Chinese and Malay. -- ran (talk) 18:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Katong accent

It is unfortunate that this entry has been removed.

One needs to be acutely aware that Singlish is spoken with varying accents - i.e. Malay, Chinese, Indian, Eurasian, Peranakan - depending on the speaker and his/her upbringing.

And not everyone goes along with the "lahs", "lehs", and "lors".

This is true. Speakers of different ethnicities (and indeed social groups) speak Singlish differently, and not merely with different accents, but different expressions and structures as well. I'm hard-pressed to find an example off the cuff though. I think that sub-dialects and slang of Singlish would be an interesting future section. -- creamyhorror June 2006

Singlish and Singapore English

I just found books in the library on Singapore English, ie, the Singapore version of Standard English considered acceptable for "formal" and academic usages in Singapore (ie, the "Mesolectal" version described in this article). There seems to be enough content to write its own article distinct from Singlish. Any views on this proposal?--Huaiwei 12:32, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

lolz i agree. move lah.

Singapore English is proper English used in Singaporean style, whereas Singlish is broken English and includes all the lahs, lehs, lors, Hokkien and Malay words and so on. So I strongly agree on the split. --Terence Ong _{(T | C)} 13:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I believe this demarcation is very important and should be reflected in the opening of the article. As far as I'm concerned there are two main kinds of English been used in Singapore:

(1)Standard English - what you get on news programmes on TV, sounds pretty 'standard' as it is based on British English, but there are certainly some differences between the two

(2)Singlish - a form of proliferate local dialect that evolves and develops its own standards (with little intervention from government, which is only concerned with discouraging it but has no business in telling people *how* they should speak it)

Singapore/Singaporean English is to be avoided as some people may use this term as a reference to Standard English, while some others would interpret it as Singlish (presumably as a more intuitive interpretation for those people who make more frequent use of Singlish in their daily lives, as compared Standard/Normal English). I think it would be very bad if other articles on Wikipedia have a tendency to point to this article whenever the use of English in Singapore is concerned. Would they even think that Singlish is used for news reporting on the national TV?!

Anyway, I have taken the liberty to set up a disambiguation page for Singapore English with a very brief description, now at least people who get to that page in future have a chance to consider what exactly are they looking for. I understand that there is a page for Standard English, but I created a page for Singapore English (Standard English) anyway. Now people can either continue to build that new page, or add a Singapore section for Standard English.

As an afterthought, now that we have such an elaborate page for Singlish on its own, but comparatively little coverage for Standard English in the local context, doesn't this reflect the significance of Singlish in Singapore? ;) Arkansaw (talk) 09:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

What are the differences between "Standard Singapore English" and "Standard English"? I'm not sure if there is enough difference or reference material to justify a separate article. It's just a difference in accent. --Vsion (talk) 00:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Article issues

Okay, I think that this article needs some major reworking. Right now, although it does explicitly say at the beginning that Singlish is a language in its own right, it is not treated throught the article as a separate linguistic system from Standard English -- which it definitely is, although SLSH (SingLiSH) is influenced by StdE.

Pretty much the whole article is focussed on documenting SLSH by its differences from StdE, rather than defining it as an independent subject. If a topic isn't mentioned in the article, are we to assume it is identical to English in that regard?

Some might make the argument that given the history and current status of SLSH, the article should be written that way.

However, Limburgish and Afrikaans, in their articles, are not described by how they differ from Dutch, but rather as independent systems in their own right. Thus, if some aspect of grammar or syntax is not mentioned at Limburgish language, then it is an unknown. It's not expected that we assume it must treat that aspect the same as does Dutch. This page, on the other hand, implies that the only differences are the ones that are mentioned and that in every other way, SLSH is identical to StdE. This is most certainly not true. (I don't use the common abbreviation SgEn or SgCE or SCE because, although it is often used by creolists who recognise Singlish as a language, it uses qualifiers to describe "English", when there is a widely-used, although admittedly "folkish" name for it)

I have seen this used before, whether consciously or unconsciously, to attempt to diminish the fact that a language system is separate, it is independent, it has its own rules (even when they might coincide with the rules of another, closely-related language system). It seems to be used on most articles about English-based creole languages (ECLs), as well as creole-like dialects and sociolects (I would classify AAVE and Latino English as creole-like sociolects, but linguists don't agree yet about the classification of those varieties). In fact, it is often stated on our pages about ECLs that they are "English-based creoles" without mentioning that they are languages, a fact accepted nearly universally by modern linguists -- this is actually mentioned on Creole language as a diminishing tactic. Such a tactic is similar to attempts to undermine the valor of extra-Eurasian languages by referring to them as "dialects", a practice now largely associated in the Anglosphere with a colonial past, eg. "They speak a number of Bantu dialects there", "He spoke some Indian dialect or another", "The people in that town mostly speak in the local aboriginal dialect", and the name of a book in my own collection, "A dictionary of some Tuamotuan dialects of the Polynesian language". In each of these cases, the "dialect" which is the referrent can often be a very unique language -- Gikuyu or Maasai can be called "Bantu dialects", but they are without a question independent languages. Same for, say, Tamil and Hindi, which could both be termed "Indian dialects" although they are not even genetically related, or Gamilraay and Murrin Patha as "aboriginal dialects" (I don't believe they're related, but Australian linguistics is not my primary area of interest, unless it involves corpus building). And Tuamotuan is certainly not a dialect of any "Polynesian language" (it has itself been divided into several languages by linguists but again, not my primary area of interest).

Most of the content of the article is useful and good, it just needs to be reorganised. Currently, it's organised as "How is SLSH different from StdE?" when it should be "What is a good linguistic description of SLSH?". Yes, to a certain extent we probably should do the "documenting differences" thing, but I think its role in the article should be very, very limited -- for example, in the discussion of prosody, and in the discussion of modal particles, and of phonemic tone, it is definitely good to contrast with StdE, given that it is the lexifier language and these features are relatively unique among ECLs (with the exception of Manglish, I can't think of one that makes such extensive use of modal particles for example; I don't know about prosody; but I know that there are a few ECLs out there which make much more extensive use of phonemic tone). --Node 18:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree 100%. I wrote much of the phonology and grammar sections and I admit that when I wrote it, I was indeed more focused on giving a laundry list of StdE/SgE differences than a description of SgE in its own right. I agree that this would be changed.

Another problem would of course be a lack of sources. This article generally doesn't cite sources, and examples are given "on the fly". This should probably be remedied as well. -- ran (talk) 18:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The typical Singaporean's view of Singlish

Whalau eh. This page of Wikipedia ah, sure got a lot of cock inside leh. As a Singaporean ah, I think, hor, that this is our unique culture, you know. Sure, the gah'men has tried a lot of ways for Singaporeans like us to speak proper Engrish ah, but oso got no cock effect on our younger generations, what. So I say ah, Singlish also can pass like other languages like Latin and the like. At least a Greek can understand a Greek, but the Greek cannot possibly understand the "Proper Singlish" we Singaporeans speak one what... Like German, you cannot expect an American to hear German and understand what cock he's saying without learning the language first what, right?

Let me translate into proper English, lah, if you really "catch no ball" (do not understand a single bit).

Humph. This page of Wikipedia has a lot of irrelevant things in it. As a Singaporean, I think that this(speaking Singlish) is our unique culture, you know. Sure, the government has tried a lot of ways for Singaporeans like us to speak proper English, but it still hasn't died down on our younger generations yet. So I believe Singlish is almost equivalent to Latin and the like in a way that a Greek can understand Greek, but the Greek cannot understand Singlish. Like German, you cannot expect an American to hear German and understand what he's saying without first learning the language, right?

Don't you think someone should mention origins of "wahlao", which derives from the obscene "wah lan"? - hws

lah/ar inconsitent example

"Although lah can appear nearly anywhere, it cannot appear with a yes-no question." However, the example given is not a "yes-no question": Where are you ar

another meaning of singlish

Sinhalese-English transliteration is also called Siglish. (Sinhala+English->Singlish) Consider adding a notice of this in the article. Dasiths 12:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC) "Singlish" has another meaning: Simplify English used as a universal web language (refer to a web site at http://www.scribd.com/doc/1001/Singlish by Johnson Gao.

Use of "kena"

>>"Be careful that kena is not used with positive things" - Is this really accurate? My Peranakan relations always use phrases like "kena 4D" and "kena third prize". I suppose this could be attributed to their being more adept in Malay than the average (Chinese) Singaporean who uses it with negative connotations, but I figured that I ought to point it out anyway. 203.116.91.80 04:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Japan

Removed the segement about Japan from the Phonology section for the following reasons. 1) Off topic 2) uncited 3) Untrue Japanese has been absorbing words from other languages almost from the begining of recorded history. It imported its original writing system whole hog in 5th century BC. It hasn't been "deformed" by recent adoption of English words to identify certain modern concepts any more that it was "deformed" by the original absorption of Chinese characters when they were adopted to deal with various religious/political concepts that came from China. Even if it did it there is little weak correlative relationship between Singish's relationship to English and Japanese's. The Phonology section in general needs a massive edit, but I'll leave it to someone with a stronger background. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.125.111.50 (talk) 07:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Coxford Singlish Dictionary.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)