The four official languages of Singapore are Malay, Tamil, Mandarin and English. Malay is the national language, adopted when Singapore was part of Malaysia, but its use is mostly restricted to the Malay com-munity. Tamil is the main Indian language; others include Malayalam and Hindi.
Chinese dialects are still widely spoken, especially among older Chinese, with the most common being Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese and Hakka. The government’s long-standing campaign to promote Mandarin, the main nondialectal Chinese language, has been very successful and increasing numbers of Singaporean Chinese now speak it at home.
English is becoming even more widespread. After independence, the government introduced a bilingual education policy aimed at developing the vernacular languages and lessening the use of English. However, Chinese graduates found that this lessened their opportunities for higher education and presented them with greater difficulties in finding a job. English was the language of business and united the various ethnic groups, and the government eventually had to give it more priority. It officially became the first language of instruction in schools in 1987. In 2000 the government launched a ‘speak good English’ campaign to improve the standard of English.
All children are also taught their mother tongue at school. This helps keep the various ethnic groups in touch with their traditions, and also means that the population is efectively bilingual.
SINGLISH
You’re unlikely to spend much time in Singapore without finding yourself at some point staring dumbly at someone, trying to work out what on earth they are on about. A typical sentence might – confusingly – go some-thing like this, ‘Eh, this Sunday you going cheong (party) anot? No ah? Why like that? Don’t be so boring leh!’ Prepositions and pronouns are dropped, word order is flipped, phrases are clipped short and stress and cadence are unconventional, to say the least. Nominally English, the Singaporeans’ unique patois contains borrowed words from Hokkien, Tamil and Malay.
There isn’t a Singlish grammar as such, but there are definite characteristics, such as the long stress on the last syllable of phrases, so that the standard English ‘government’ becomes ‘guvva-men’. Words ending in consonants are often syncopated and vowels are often distorted. A
Chinese-speaking taxi driver might not immediately understand that y want to go to Perak Rd, since they know it as ‘Pera Roh’.
Verb tenses tend to be nonexistent. Past, present and future are indicated instead by time indicators, so in Singlish it’s ‘I go tomorrow’ or ‘I go yesterday’.
The particle ‘lah’ is often tagged on to the end of sentences for emphasis, as in ‘No good lah’. Requests or questions may be marked with a tag ending, since direct questioning can be rude. As a result, questions that are formed to be more polite often come across to Westerners as rude. ‘Would you like a beer?’ becomes ‘You wan beer or not?’ You’ll also hear Singaporeans addressing older people as ‘uncle’ and ‘auntie’. They are not relatives and neither is this rude, but more a sign of respect. For more, check out the Coxford Singlish Dictionary on the satirical website Talking Cock (www.talkingcock.com).
Slanging Like a Local
| a bit the : very; as in Wah! Your car a bit the slow one |
| ah beng : every country has them: boys with spiky gelled hair, loud clothes, the latest mobile phones and a choice line in gutter phrases |
| ah lian : the female version of the ah beng: large, moussed hair, garish outfits, armed with a vicious tongue; also known as ah huay |
| aiyah!: ‘oh, dear!’ |
| alamak! : exclamation of disbelief or frustration, like ‘oh my God!’ |
| ang moh : common term for Westerner (Caucasian), with derogatory undertone; literally ‘red-haired monkey’ in Hokkien |
| ayam : Malay word for chicken; adjective for something inferior or weak blur slow or uninformed; popular phrase is blur like sotong |
| buaya : womaniser, from the Malay for crocodile |
| can? : ‘is that OK?’ |
| can! : ‘yes! That’s fine.’ |
| char bor: babe, woman |
| cheena : derogatory term for old-fashioned Chinese in dress or thinking confirm used to convey emphasis when describing something/someone, as in He confirm blur one (He’s not very smart) go stun to reverse, as in Go stun the car (from the naval expression ‘go astern’) |
| heng : luck, good fortune (Hokkien) |
| hiao: vain |
| inggrish: English |
| kambing : foolish person, literally ‘goat’ (Malay) |
| kaypoh: busybody |
| kena: Malay word close to meaning of English word ‘got’, describing something that happened, as in He kena arrested for drunk driving |
| kena ketok : ripped off |
| kiasee : scared, literally ‘afraid to die’; a coward |
| kiasu : literally ‘afraid to lose’; selfish, pushy, always on the lookout for a bargain |
| kopitiam: coffeeshop |
| lah : generally an ending for any phrase or sentence; can translate as ‘OK’, but has no real meaning, added for emphasis to just about everything |
| lai dat : ‘like that’; used for emphasis, as in I so boring lai dat (I’m very bored) |
| looksee: take a look |
| makan: a meal; to eat |
| malu: embarrassed |
| minah: girlfriend |
| or not? : general suffi x for questions, as in Can or not? (Can you or can’t you?) see first wait and see what happens |
| shack: tired; often expressed as I damn shack sial |
| shiok : good, great, delicious |
| sotong: Malay for ‘squid’, used as an adjective meaning clumsy, or generally not very switched on |
| steady lah: well done, excellent; an expression of praise |
| wah! : general exclamation of surprise or distress |
| ya ya : boastful, as in He always ya ya; also expressed He damn ya ya papaya |
Languages of Singapore
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