Languages of Singapore

A multitude of languages are used in Singapore. It consists of several varieties of languages under the families of the Austronesian languages, Dravidian languages, Indo-European languages and Sino-Tibetan languages. According to the Constitution of Singapore, the national language of Singapore is Malay, which plays a symbolic role, as Malays are constitutionally recognised as the indigenous peoples of Singapore, and it is the government's duty to protect their language and heritage. The constitution also states that the four commonly used languages of Singapore are English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, with the lingua franca between Singaporeans of different races being English, the de facto main language. Singaporeans often speak Singlish among themselves. Singlish is an informal, colloquial form of English that is used in Singapore. Linguists define it as Singapore Colloquial English.

The three languages other than English were chosen to correspond with the major ethnic groups present in Singapore at the time: Mandarin had gained status since the introduction of Chinese-medium schools; Malay was deemed the "most obvious choice" for the Malay community; and Tamil for the largest Indian ethnic group in Singapore, in addition to being "the language with the longest history of education in Malaysia and Singapore". In 2009, more than 20 languages were identified as being spoken in Singapore, reflecting a rich linguistic diversity in the city. Singapore's historical roots as a trading settlement gave rise to an influx of foreign traders, and their languages were slowly embedded in Singapore's modern day linguistic repertoire.

In the early years, the '' lingua franca'' of the island was Bazaar Malay (''Melayu Pasar''), a creole of Malay and Chinese, the language of trade in the Malay Archipelago. While it continues to be used among many on the island, especially Singaporean Malays, Malay has now been displaced by English. English became the '' lingua franca'' due to British rule of Singapore, and was made the main language upon Singaporean independence. Thus, English is the medium of instruction in schools, and is also the main language used in formal settings such as in government departments and the courts. As Singaporean President Halimah Yacob said during her 2018 speech, "Through the education system, we adopted a common working language in English."

Hokkien (Min Nan) briefly emerged as a '' lingua franca'' among the Chinese, but by the late 20th century they had been eclipsed by Mandarin. The Government promotes Mandarin among Singaporean Chinese people, since it views the language as a bridge between Singapore's diverse non-Mandarin speaking groups, and as a tool for forging a common Chinese cultural identity. China's economic rise in the 21st century has also encouraged a greater use of Mandarin. Other Chinese varieties such as Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese and Cantonese have been classified by the Government as "dialects", and language policies and language attitudes based on this classification and discouragement of usage in Non-Mandarin Chinese or "Chinese dialects" in official settings and television media have led to a decrease in the number of speakers of these varieties. In particular, Singapore has its own lect of Mandarin; Singaporean Mandarin, itself with two varieties, ''Standard'' and '' Colloquial'' or ''spoken''. While Tamil is one of Singapore's official and the most spoken Indian language, other Indian languages are also frequently used by minorities.Census of Population 2010
" (table 4), Singapore Department of Statistics. Retrieved 17 October 2014.

Almost all Singaporeans are bilingual since Singapore's bilingual language education policy promotes a dual-language learning system. Learning a second language has been compulsory in primary schools since 1960 and secondary schools since 1966. English is used as the main medium of instruction. On top of this, most children learn one of the three official languages (or, occasionally, another approved language) as a second language, according to their official registered ethnic group. Since 1 January 2011, if a person is of more than one ethnicity and their race is registered in the hyphenated format, the race chosen will be the one that precedes the hyphen in their registered race.

English as the main language of Singapore

Although ''de jure'' Malay is the national language, Singapore English is regarded ''de facto'' as the main language in Singapore, and is officially the main language of instruction in all school subjects except for Mother Tongue lessons in Singapore's education system.Dixon, L. Quentin. (2005). The Bilingual Education Policy in Singapore: Implications for Second Language Acquisition. In James Cohen, J., McAlister, K. T., Rolstad, K., and MacSwan, J (Eds.), ''ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism''. p. 625-635, Cascadilla Press, Somerville, MA. It is also the common language of the administration and is promoted as an important language for international business. Spelling in Singapore largely follows British conventions, owing to the country's status as a former Crown Colony. English is the country's default ''lingua franca'' despite the fact that four languages have official status.Tan, Sherman, p. 340-341. "The four recognised official languages are English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay, but in practice, English is Singapore's default lingua franca."

Under the British colonial government, English gained prestige as the language of administration, law and business in Singapore. As government administration increased, infrastructure and commerce developed, and access to education further catalysed the spread of English among Singaporeans.

When Singapore gained self-government in 1959 and independence in 1965, the local government decided to keep English as the main language to maximise economic benefits. Since English was rising as the global language for commerce, technology and science, promotion of its use in Singapore would expedite Singapore's development and integration into the global economy. ()

Furthermore, the switch to English as the only medium of instruction in schools aided in bridging the social distance between the various groups of ethnic language speakers in the country. Between the early 1960s to the late 1970s, the number of students registering for primarily English-medium schools leapt from 50% to 90% as more parents elected to send their children to English-medium schools. Attendance in Mandarin, Malay and Tamil-medium schools consequently dropped and schools began to close down. The Chinese-medium Nanyang University also made the switch to English as the medium of instruction despite meeting resistance, especially from the Chinese community.

There has been a steep increase in the use of the English language over the years. Singapore is currently one of the most proficient English-speaking countries in Asia. Then Education Minister, Ng Eng Hen, noted a rising number of Singaporeans using English as their home language in December 2009. Of children enrolled in primary school in 2009, 60% of the Chinese and Indian pupils and 35% of the Malay pupils spoke predominantly English at home.

Singlish is the native language of 32% of Singaporeans, but has the largest number of speakers if statistics were to account for speakers of English as a second language.Literacy and language
Singapore Census of Population, 2000. Singapore Department of Statistics (December 2000).()

Singlish

Singlish is an English-based creole language with its own consistent rules and phonology widely used in Singapore. However, usage of this language is discouraged by the local government, which favours Standard English. The Media Development Authority does not support using Singlish in television and radio advertising.

Despite this, Singlish is still widely spoken across the island and viewed by most Singaporeans as a trait that identifies them as uniquely Singaporean.

Chinese language

According to the 2000 population census, Mandarin and other varieties of Chinese are the most common languages spoken at home. They are used by 51% of the population. The table below shows the change in distribution of Mandarin and other Chinese varieties, as well as English, as home languages of the resident Chinese population of Singapore in 1990, 2000 and 2010. It can be observed that the percentage of the population which speaks English and Mandarin has increased, while the percentage of those who speak other Chinese varieties has collapsed and is now limited mainly to the elderly. More recently, English is starting to displace Mandarin among the new generation of Singapore Chinese due to long term effects of the dominant usage of English in most official settings over Mandarin, the dominant usage of English as the medium of instruction in Singapore schools, colleges and universities, and the limited and lower standards of local mother education system over the years in Singapore.

Standard Mandarin

Standard Mandarin is generally spoken as the ''lingua franca'' among the Chinese community in Singapore. Simply known as Chinese, it is the designated mother tongue or 'ethnic language' of Chinese Singaporeans, at the expense of the other Chinese varieties.

In 1979, the government heavily promoted Mandarin through its "''Speak Mandarin''" campaign. The Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew stated that Mandarin was chosen to unify the Chinese community with a single language. With the rising prominence of Mandarin in Singapore at that time, politicians such as Lee theorized that it might overtake English, despite strong evidence to the contrary. From the 1990s, with the perceived increase in commerce and trade possibilities with Mainland China, the Singaporean government promoted Mandarin as a language with high economic advantage and value.Tan, Sherman, p. 341. Today, Mandarin is generally seen as a way to maintain a link to Chinese culture. However, due to the fact that English is the main medium of language instruction in Singaporean schools, colleges and universities; as well as the limited and lower standards of local Mandarin Chinese education in Singapore and the dominant usage of English in most official settings, the standards of Mandarin Chinese among many young Singaporean Chinese has been dropping as more and more young Singaporean Chinese are speaking and using English more frequently than Mandarin Chinese.

Other Chinese varieties

Other Chinese varieties also have a presence in Singapore. Amongst them, Hokkien used to be an unofficial language of business until the 1980s. Hokkien was also used as a ''lingua franca'' among Chinese Singaporeans, and also among Malays and Indians to communicate with the Chinese majority. As of 2012, according to demographic figures, the five main Chinese linguistic groups in Singapore are Hokkien (41.1%), Teochew (21.0%), Cantonese (15.4%), Hakka (7.9%) and Hainanese (6.7%), while Hokchew/Hokchia (Fuzhou dialect), Henghua ( Puxian Min), and Shanghainese have smaller speaker bases. Other than Mandarin, the two most commonly spoken varieties of Chinese are Hokkien which is the dominant dialect and Cantonese, both of which are mainly spoken among the older generation. Teochew, is being replaced by Hokkien, while other Chinese varieties are increasingly less commonly heard nowadays.

Written Chinese

Traditional Chinese characters were used in Singapore until 1969, when the Ministry of Education promulgated the ''Table of Simplified Characters'' (), which while similar to the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme of the People's Republic of China had 40 differences. In 1974 a new Table was published, and this second table was revised in 1976 to remove all differences between simplified Chinese characters in Singapore and China. Although simplified characters are currently used in official documents, the government does not officially discourage or prohibit the use of traditional characters. Hence, traditional characters are still used in signs, advertisements and Chinese calligraphy, while books in both character sets are available in Singapore.

Malay language

Malay language is the national language of Singapore and one of its official languages. It is written in a Roman script known as Rumi.Constitution, Article 153A. It is the home language of 13% of the Singaporean population. Malay is also the ceremonial national language and used in the national anthem of Singapore, in citations for Singapore orders and decorations and military foot drill commands, mottos of several organisations, and is the variety taught in Singapore's language education system.

Historically Malay was written in the Jawi script, based on Arabic. Under the British and Dutch Malay began to be written in Rumi. Efforts to create a standardised spelling for Malaya and Singapore emerged in 1904 by colonial officer Richard Wilkinson. In 1910, the Malay of the Riau Islands was chosen by the Dutchman van Ophuijsen as the dialect for his book "Malay Grammar", intended for Dutch officials, standardising Rumi usage in Dutch territories. In 1933, grammarian Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad made further changes to Rumi as used in Malaya and Singapore. Many Chinese immigrants who spoke Malay were supporters of British rule, and purposely used Rumi when writing newspapers or translating Chinese literature. Printing presses used by colonial officials and Christian missionaries further spread Rumi, while Jawi was mostly written by hand. The transition to Rumi changed the Malay language due to the influence of English grammar. In 1972, Malaysia and Indonesia reached an agreement to standardise Rumi Malay spelling. Singaporean Malays still learn some Jawi as children alongside Rumi, and Jawi is considered an ethnic script for use on Singaporean Identity Cards.

Prior to independence, Singapore was a centre for Malay literature and Malay culture. However, after independence, this cultural role declined. Singapore is an observer to the Language Council for Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia which works to standardise Malay spelling, however it has not applied to be a member. It nonetheless applies standardisations agreed to in this forum, and follows the Malaysian standard when there are disagreements. Standards within the country are set by the Malay Language Council of Singapore. There are some differences between the official standard and colloquial usage. While the historical standard was the Johor-Riau dialect, a new standard known as ''sebutan baku'' (or ''bahasa melayu baku'') was adopted in 1956 by the Third Malay language and Literary Congress. This variation was chosen to create consistency between the written word and the spoken pronunciation. However, implementation was slow, with Malaysia only fully adopting it in the educational system in 1988, with Singapore introducing it at the primary school level in 1993. Despite expanding use in formal education, it has not replaced the Johor-Riau pronunciation for most speakers. The artificial creation of the accent means there are no truly native speakers, and the pronunciation is closer to Indonesian than it is to Johor-Riau. There has also been cultural resistance, with accent differences between older and younger generations leading to questions surrounding Malay cultural identity. This question was further sharpened by Malaysia dropping ''sebutan baku'' in 2000, returning to the traditional use of Johor-Riau.

While the official Mandarin and Tamil mother tongues often do not reflect the actual language spoken at home for many, Malay is often the language spoken at home in Singaporean Malay households. Due to this, and strong links between the language and cultural identity, the Singaporean Malay community has retained stronger usage of their mother tongue than others in the country. Nonetheless, there has been some shift towards English, with use of Malay as the primary language at home dropping from 92% to 83% between 2000 and 2010. This reflects a broader shift in Singapore, with English replacing Malay as the ''lingua franca'' throughout the late 20th century.

Other varieties that are still spoken in Singapore include Bazaar Malay (''Melayu Pasar''), a Malay-lexified pidgin, which was once an interethnic ''lingua franca'' when Singapore was under British rule. Another is Baba Malay, a variety of Malay Creole influenced by Hokkien and Bazaar Malay and the mother tongue of the Peranakans, which is still spoken today by approximately 10,000 Peranakans in Singapore. Other Austronesian languages, such as Javanese, Buginese, Minangkabau, Batak, Sundanese, Boyanese (which is a dialect of Madurese) and Banjarese, are also spoken in Singapore, but their use has declined. Orang Seletar, the language of the Orang Seletar, the first people of Singapore and closely related to Malay is also spoken near the Johor Strait, between Singapore and the state of Johor, Malaysia.

Tamil language

Tamil is one of the official languages of Singapore and written Tamil uses the Tamil script. According to the population census of 2010, 9.2% of the Singaporean population were of Indian origins, with approximately 36.7% who spoke Tamil most frequently as their home language. It is a drop from 2000, where Tamil-speaking homes comprised 42.9%. On the other hand, the percentage of Indian Singaporeans speaking languages categorised under "others" have increased from 9.7% in 2005 to 13.8% in 2010. Meanwhile, the percentage of the total population speaking Tamil at home has remained steady, or has even slightly risen over the years, to just above 4%, due to immigration from India and Sri Lanka.

There are a few reasons that contribute to Tamil's declining usage. Historically, Tamil immigrants came from different communities, such as Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Tamils which spoke very different dialects, dividing the potential community of Tamil speakers. The housing policy of Singapore, with ethnic quotas that reflect national demographics, has prevented the formation of large Tamil communities. The Tamil taught in education is a deliberately pure form, that does not reflect and therefore does not reinforce Tamil as it is used in everyday life. Tamil is usually replaced by English, which is seen as providing children with greater opportunities in Singapore and abroad. The top-down Tamil language purism as dictated by the Ministry of Education Curriculum Planning and Development Division restricts language development, disallowing loanwords. However, the language policy is supported by Tamils, likely due to contrast with that of neighbouring Malaysia where Tamil has no status.

Apart from Tamil, some of the other Indian languages spoken by minorities in Singapore include Malayalam, Telugu, Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi, and Gujarati.

Eurasian languages

Kristang is a creole spoken by Portuguese Eurasians in Singapore and Malaysia. It developed when Portuguese colonizers incorporated borrowings from Malay, Chinese, Indian and Arab languages. When the British took over Singapore, Kristang declined as the Portuguese Eurasians learned English instead. Today, it is largely spoken by the elderly.

Singapore Sign Language

While Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) has not been recognised as a national sign language, the local deaf community recognises it as Singapore's native sign language, developed over six decades since the setting up of the first school for local deaf in 1954. Singapore Sign Language is closely related to American Sign Language and is influenced by Shanghainese Sign Language (SSL), Signing Exact English (SEE-II), Pidgin Signed English (PSE).

Other Malayo-Polynesian languages

In the 1824 census of Singapore, 18% of the population were identified as ethnic Bugis, speaking the Buginese language, counted separately from the Malays. Over the centuries, the Bugis community dwindled and became assimilated into the Malay demographic. In 1990, only 0.4% of Singaporeans were identified as Bugis. Today the term Malay is used in Singapore as an umbrella term for all peoples of the Malay Archipelago.

Bilingualism and multilingualism

The majority of Singaporeans are bilingual in English and one of the other three official languages. For instance, most Chinese Singaporeans can speak English and Mandarin. Some, especially the older generations, can speak Malay and additional Chinese varieties such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, and Hainanese.

Bilingual education policy

Singapore has a bilingual education policy, where all students in government schools are taught English as their first language. Students in Primary and Secondary schools also learn a second language called their " Mother Tongue" by the Ministry of Education, where they are either taught Mandarin, Malay, or Tamil. English is the main language of instruction for most subjects, while Mother Tongue is used in Mother Tongue lessons and moral education classes. This is because Singapore's "bilingualism" policy of teaching and learning English and Mother Tongue in primary and secondary schools is viewed as a "cultural ballast" to safeguard Asian cultural identities and values against Western influence.

While "Mother Tongue" generally refers to the first language (L1) elsewhere, it is used to denote the "ethnic language" or the second language (L2) in Singapore. Prior to 1 January 2011, the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore defined "Mother Tongue" not as the home language or the first language acquired by the student but by their father's ethnicity. For example, a child born to a Tamil-speaking Indian father and Hokkien-speaking Chinese mother would automatically be assigned to take Tamil as the Mother Tongue language.Romaine, Suzanne. (2004). The bilingual and multilingual community. In Bhatia, Tej K. and Ritchie, William C. (eds). ''The Handbook of Bilingualism''. pp. 385–406. Oxford: Blackwell.

Since 1 January 2011, Mother Tongue is defined solely by a person's official registered race. If a person is of more than one ethnicity and their race is registered in the hyphenated format, the race chosen will be the one that precedes the hyphen in their registered race.

The Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism was set up on 28 November 2011. The Fund aims to promote bilingualism amongst young children in Singapore, is set up to supplement existing English and Mother Tongue language programmes in teaching and language learning. It is managed by a Board chaired by the Singapore's Minister of Education, Mr Heng Swee Keat and advised by an International Advisory Panel of Experts.

Impacts of bilingual education policy

The impact of the bilingual policy differs amongst students from the various ethnic groups. For the Chinese, when the policy was first implemented, many students found themselves struggling with two foreign languages: English and Mandarin. Even though several different Chinese varieties were widely spoken at home, they were excluded from the classroom as it was felt that they would be an "impediment to learning Chinese". Today, although Mandarin is widely spoken, proficiency in second languages has declined. In response to these falling standards, several revisions have been made to the education system. These include the introduction of the Mother Tongue "B" syllabus and the now-defunct EM3 stream, in both of which Mother Tongue is taught at a level lower than the mainstream standard. In the case of Mandarin, Chinese students would study Chinese "B".

The Malay-speaking community also faced similar problems after the implementation of the policy. In Singapore, Malay, not its non-standard dialects, is valued as a mean for transmitting familial and religious values. For instance, ‘Madrasahs', or religious schools, mosques and religious classes all employ the Malay language. However, Malay in turn is facing competition from the increased popularity of English.

In contrast to the language policy for Mandarin and Malay, Indian students are given a wider variety of Indian languages to choose from. For example, Indian students speaking Dravidian languages study Tamil as a Mother Tongue. However, schools with low numbers of Tamil students might not provide Tamil language classes. As a result, students from such schools will attend Tamil language classes at the Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre (UPTLC). On the other hand, Indian students who speak non-Dravidian languages can choose from Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and Urdu

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases