Speak Mandarin Campaign
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The Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC; ) is an initiative by the
government of Singapore The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of Singapore to mean the executive branch of the state, which is made up of the president and the Cabinet. Although the president acts in their personal discretion in the exercise ...
to encourage the Singaporean Chinese population to speak Standard Mandarin Chinese, one of the four
official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
s of
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
. Launched on 7 September 1979 by then Prime Minister
Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...
and organised by the Promote Mandarin Council, the SMC has been an annual event promoting the use of Mandarin.


Background

In 1966, the Singaporean government implemented a policy of
bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
education, where Singaporean students learn both English and their designated mother tongue, which was Mandarin for all Chinese Singaporeans by default. The ''Goh Report'', an evaluation of Singapore's education system by
Goh Keng Swee Goh Keng Swee (; 6 October 1918 – 14 May 2010), born Robert Goh Keng Swee, was a Singaporean politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1973 and 1985. Goh is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of Singa ...
, showed that less than 40% of the student population managed to attain minimum levels of competency in two languages. It was later determined that the learning of Mandarin among Singaporean Chinese was hindered by home use of native
Chinese varieties Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...
, such as
Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...
, Teochew,
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
and
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
. Hence, the government decided to rectify problems facing implementation of the bilingual education policy, by launching a campaign to promote Mandarin as a common language among the Chinese population, and to discourage use of other Chinese varieties. Launched in 1979 by then
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...
, the campaign aimed to simplify the language environment for
Chinese Singaporeans Chinese Singaporeans () are Singaporeans of Chinese descent. Chinese Singaporeans constitute 75.9% of the Singaporean citizen population according to the official census, making them the largest ethnic group among them. As early as the 10th ...
, improve communication between them, and create a Mandarin-speaking environment conducive to the successful implementation of the bilingual education programme. The initial goal of the campaign was for all young Chinese to stop speaking topolects in five years, and to establish Mandarin as the language of choice in public places within 10 years. According to the government, for the bilingual policy to be effective, Mandarin should be spoken at home and should serve as the ''
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' among Chinese Singaporeans. They also argued that Mandarin was more economically valuable, and speaking Mandarin would help Chinese Singaporeans retain their heritage, as Mandarin supposedly contains a cultural repository of values and traditions that are identifiable to all Chinese, regardless of topolect group.


Evolution

The focus of SMC began with encouraging more people, especially the young, to speak Mandarin in place of dialects; allowing people from different dialectal groups to communicate better with a common language and, at the same time, reducing language barriers between the different groups. This is important in the unification of all Chinese in Singapore, especially after
independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
. To meet the demands of globalisation and other economic challenges as a young nation, the government began to place greater emphasis on English. As a result, many English-educated Chinese Singaporeans began to lose their Mandarin or Chinese language skills. During the
1991 Singaporean general election General elections were held in Singapore on 31 August 1991. President Wee Kim Wee dissolved parliament on 14 August 1991 on the advice of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won 77 of th ...
, the
People's Action Party The People's Action Party (abbreviation: PAP) is a major conservative centre-right political party in Singapore and is one of the three contemporary political parties represented in Parliament, alongside the opposition Workers' Party (WP) and ...
(PAP) won a lower majority than usual, in part because of opposition parties' exploitation of the linguistic anxieties of working-class, dialect-speaking Chinese Singaporeans. Those Singaporeans clung onto their dialect as part of an
identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
, refusing to register their children in schools with Mandarin names. As a result, the PAP government switched its focus away from dialects, towards encouraging English-speaking and educated Chinese to speak more Mandarin. In 1994, the SMC specifically targeted English-educated business professionals and working adults. It promoted the use of Mandarin, to keep their "links" to cultural roots, so as to better appreciate the "heritage and value" and, most importantly, complement the economical aspects as China began to rise in the business sector. However, recently, through The Chinese Challenge,华文?谁怕谁! 2010 总决赛
the SMC has moved towards a cultural aspect, whereby its main focus is to promote Singaporeans to hold on to their "roots", knowing their own culture well.


Campaigns

For each SMC, a slogan was created and different and different segment of the Chinese community was targetted.


1983

华人讲华语,合情又合理 (Mandarin's In. Dialects are Out)
In 1983, the promotion of Mandarin moved to markets and food centres, closer to the heartlands. Between 1983 and 1987, Telecoms also offered 'Dial for Mandarin Lessons' services on a 24-hour basis every day. Peak-hour calls averaged about 40,000. "A need for common language between different ethnic Singaporeans or effective communication of thoughts" and to "preserve cultural roots by learning written Chinese and speaking Mandarin, since culture is transmitted through written words", were some highlights of the campaign launching speeches in 1983.


2000

讲华语? 没问题! Speak Mandarin? No problem! * The Campaign was officially launched at the premiere of a Chinese movie "A Tale of the Sacred Mountain". * The Mandarin Film Festival was the first film festival organised by the Promote Mandarin Council. It was held from 17 to 22 September at the Golden Village Grand, Great World City. The Festival screened 12 critically acclaimed films produced by some of China's best producers and directors. * Singapore's first Mandarin a cappella CD album entitled "A Cappella Fanatix, Mandarin A Cappella" was jointly produced by Young Musicians' Society and the Promote Mandarin Council. * The forum entitled "Mandarin for the Family" was held on 18 November. The speakers comprised educationists who discussed teaching methods for the learning of Chinese, as well as well-known personalities who shared their experiences in learning Mandarin and using it both at home and in the office. * The Chinese Heritage Series, which comprises arts and cultural performances ranging from 新谣 ''
xinyao ''Xinyao'' () is a genre of songs that is unique to Singapore. It is a contemporary Mandarin vocal genre that emerged and rose to fame in Singapore between the late 1970s to 1980s. ''Xinyao'' songs are composed and sung by Singaporeans and it is a ...
'', hand puppet to Chinese Orchestra was held at various shopping malls. * SMC celebrities' web chats a series of web chats with well-known artistes and personalities was held. * A Speak Mandarin Campaign commemorative book entitled "Mandarin: The Chinese Connection" (华人,华语,华文) was produced. * The first CD-ROM on learning Mandarin was produced. Entitled "Speak Mandarin? No problem!" (讲华语? 没问题!), it is an interactive learning CD-ROM which caters to adults who know basic Mandarin and have a desire to improve it. Th
official speech
during the launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign 2000 was given by Mr.
Mah Bow Tan Mah Bow Tan ( zh, s=马宝山, p=Mǎ Bǎoshān; born 12 September 1948) is a Singaporean former politician who served as Leader of the House between 2007 and 2011, Minister for National Development between 1999 and 2011, Minister for the Envir ...
, Minister for National Development. In the speech, he gave credits to the SMC, for successfully establishing Mandarin as a principal language of communication amongst Singaporean Chinese, but says that a higher standard of spoken Mandarin needs to be achieved. Having a good command of Mandarin exposes people to culture and heritage, as well as facilitating dealings with
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
's potential economy powerhouse,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. The community and schools have new roles to play to increase and improve the use and standards of Mandarin in Singapore.


2006/07

华语 COOL! (Mandarin sCOOL!)
The official speech during the launch of the campaign was given by Mr.
Wong Kan Seng Wong Kan Seng ( zh, s=黄根成, j=Wong4 Gan1 Sing4, poj=N̂g Kun-sêng, p=Huáng Gēnchéng; born 8 September 1946) is a Singaporean former politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 2005 and 2011. He has been serving ...
, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs at the official launch. The message for that year was for Chinese Singaporeans to use Mandarin "not in place of, but in addition to English as Mandarin adds so much to our cultural and personal enrichment and business effectiveness. Together with its partners, the Promote Mandarin Council is now encouraging Chinese Singaporeans to go beyond just seeing Mandarin as "hip" or "cool", but also to deepen their knowledge of the rich heritage."
2006's theme of the campaign is "华语 COOL", with the goals of making people deepen their appreciation of the Chinese heritage and to be able to communicate in "cool" Mandarin in addition to English. The Campaign uses a lifestyle-oriented approach, revolving around movies, music and metaphors, extending the theme of "华语 COOL". Some examples of resources of the movies, music and metaphors include: * Mandarin Rocks @ K Box * MusicNet Song Book with Hanyu PinYin * 成语 365 (一天一句) "Idioms 365 (An Idiom a Day)" by PanPac Education * CoolSpeak! Column in Sunday Times * Huayu Cool on 938LIVE * Straits Times' new "成语 Cool" (Idioms reCool) The theme song for the campaign for that year is 《我想听你说》 (wǒ xiǎng tīng nǐ shuō) by Singaporean singer,
Joi Chua Joi Chua (, born 3 August 1978) is a Singaporean female pop singer. Her most famous songs are "Waiting for a Sunny Day" (《等一个晴天》), "Watching the Sunrise With Me" (《陪我看日出》), the Chinese version of "Nada Soso" and "Win ...
.
Some of the other partners include
ComfortDelGro ComfortDelGro Corporation is a multi-national land transport company listed on the Singapore Exchange, operating about 35,000 vehicles in seven countries. It was formed on 29 March 2003 through a merger of Singapore-based land transport compa ...
, Lianhe Zaobao,
Mediacorp TV Mediacorp Pte. Ltd., doing business as Mediacorp and stylised as mediacorp, is a media conglomerate in Singapore. Owned by Temasek Holdings—the holding company of the Government of Singapore—it owns television, radio, and digital media prope ...
, STOMP, Tong Shui Café and the SAF Music & Drama Company.


2007/08

To promote Mandarin as an enjoyable, fun and living language via popular lifestyle activities, to show how Chinese Singaporeans can embrace Mandarin in their daily lives, was the aim of SMC in 2007/ 08. The tagline is '讲华语, 你肯吗?'
Speak Mandarin – Are You Game?
. SMC also retains its "华语 COOL!" branding which is now familiar and popular among Chinese Singaporeans. For a period of 12 months, starting from 5 November 2007, the campaign featured a series of fun and engaging programmes and activities by its partners. Key strands of SMC 07/08 are Sports, Culture and The Arts, Design and Lifestyle.


Sports

During the official launch of the campaign on 5 November 2007, Mr. Lee Swee Say, Minister in Prime Minister's office, announced the partnership between the SMC and various sports organizations. The sports partners for 2007's campaign include the
Singapore Sports Council Sport Singapore (SportSG) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth of the Government of Singapore. It is the lead agency tasked with developing a holistic sports culture for the nation. History Sport Singapore was ...
(SSC), the
Football Association of Singapore The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) is the governing body responsible for the administration of football in Singapore. Established in 1892 as the Singapore Football Association (SFA), it is the oldest football association in all of As ...
, the
S-League The Singapore Premier League, commonly abbreviated as SPL, officially known as the AIA Singapore Premier League for sponsorship reasons, is a men's professional football league sanctioned by the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), which ...
, and The Cage. ''
The Straits Times ''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was established ...
'' and STOMP! also launched a new initiative, 'On Your Marc, Get Set, Go!' following ''The Straits Times'' correspondent Marc Lim on his Mandarin-learning journey as he picks up pointers from national athletes.


Culture

Going for a fresher look, the SMC's promotional materials, from outdoor advertisements to posters and collateral, are designed with an edgy, vibrant and contemporary feel. Activists are also featured in the posters, to encourage more Chinese Singaporeans to explore Mandarin together with them. The campaign's theme song "挑战 (Challenge)" was created by two of the most sought-after talents in Asia's Mandarin Pop scene – Eric Ng (composer) and Xiaohan (lyrics). The song was performed by Ngak, a good example of a predominantly English-speaking Chinese Singaporean. Partners, including Theatre Practice and Funkie Monkies Productions will be tapping on theatre and music, to encourage Chinese Singaporeans to enjoy speaking Mandarin.


The arts, design and lifestyle

Partners such as Night and Day Bar+Gallery+Friends and 77th Street came together for the first time with some of Singapore's 'edgy' designers, to create an exciting initiative to promote SMC 07/08. Theatre Practice also continued to make Chinese Theatre accessible to Singaporeans who are interested in Chinese Theatre and culture, thus, opening the doors to SMC's target audience.


2009/10

华文? 谁怕谁 (Be heard in Chinese)
The 2009 SMC started with a series of videos on foreign children speaking correctly pronounced and fluent Chinese, showed that anyone can learn Chinese, that it is not something only the Chinese people can acquire. The video shows foreign children talking about either Chinese myths or other Chinese related culture. The Promote Mandarin Council is trying to alert Singaporeans to embrace Singaporean heritage and pass it on to the next generation. The purpose of these "Be heard in Chinese" videos was not to mock Singaporeans, who are born Chinese but cannot speak Chinese. Instead, it reminded parents to create a learning environment for their children, to get to know Chinese via culture and knowledge, instead of seeing it as a tool to venture into the China market. In the following year, the SMC started a series of promotions on "The Chinese Challenge", where it moved to a wider audience and became more general. The main purpose of "The Chinese Challenge", which is an online contest, is to provide an interactive platform, to encourage Singaporeans and even Permanent Residents to enjoy and improve their Mandarin and deepen their knowledge of Chinese culture, through experiencing the finest in Chinese culture and language. Therefore, it is not to just asking people to learn Chinese, but also to create an environment that allows them to learn Chinese effectively. In addition, in order to attract more youths towards speaking and knowing Chinese, in 2010 "The Chinese Challenge" added a student category, to reach out to more youths.


2011/12

华文华语,多用就可以 (Mandarin. It Gets Better With Use)
For 2011's campaign, the Government plan was to boost Mandarin lessons, by making them more fun and engaging through the use of digital media. New initiatives, such as the Theme Song Contest and Short Video Clip Competition, were introduced and targeted at youths and students. Newly appointed Chairman of the Promote Mandarin Council, Mr Seow Choke Meng, extended his invitation for all to support the Promote Mandarin Council in its efforts to promote Mandarin, and urged all Chinese Singaporeans to leverage on their foundation, and use Mandarin frequently to keep the language alive in our community.
In 2012, to celebrate the 33rd year of promoting Mandarin in Singapore, the Promote Mandarin Council introduced a brand new initiative- the iHuayu iPhone app (released on 24 July 2012). iHuayu offers 50,000 bilingual business and Singapore-related terms frequently used in the media, accompanied with sample sentences and scenarios. The app can be purchased for free from the
iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
. Android mobile phone users can also download the iHuayu (i华语) application on
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...
. Also introduced is a new song Shuo () as part of the initiatives for 2012. The song encourages listeners to speak more and to use the language, as it gets easier with use. Shuo is composed, arranged and produced by Iskandar Ismail and performed by Singaporean artiste, Tay Kewei.


Implementation

The Speak Mandarin Campaign is a year-round campaign, which uses publicity and activities in the community to create awareness and to facilitate the learning of Mandarin. Every year, the Speak Mandarin Campaign will collaborate with different partners to reach out to a wider scope of audience. For instance, in 2005, the partners of Speak Mandarin Campaign, which are the Singapore Zoological Gardens and Singapore Night Safari, started to add Chinese interpretation for signs and directions and even the pamphlet were written in Chinese. By doing so, not only does it help tourists from China, it also helps create a learning environment for local children to learn Chinese. Initially in 1979, where the campaign first started, use of Mandarin was promoted from all public domains; in the early years, there was some selective dialect suppression as well. Government officers including those in hospitals were not allowed to use dialects except to those over 60 years old. People under 40 in the service line were also made to communicate in Mandarin instead of dialects. Attempts to limit the domain of dialects began in the 1980s, with the last Cantonese TV programmes being phased out in 1981, and the only
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
TV series shown being dubbed in Mandarin. However, these were hindered by the aggressive expansion of Hong Kong's
Cantopop Cantopop (a contraction of "Cantonese pop music") or HK-pop (short for "Hong Kong pop music") is a genre of pop music written in standard Chinese and sung in Cantonese. Cantopop is also used to refer to the cultural context of its production ...
industry into Singapore, although state-owned television tried to simultaneously promote Mandarin by requiring
subtitles Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informati ...
in the standard language on dialect programming. The government proved more successful in limiting access TV3 from Malaysia, which carried Cantonese programming, by preventing people in government-built housing blocks from installing the special antennas required to receive the channel. It also prevented local newspapers and magazines from carrying listings for it. In addition, in collaboration with Speak Mandarin Campaign, Golden Village started to show more Chinese movies especially of local production to increase the awareness of speaking Mandarin. The Singaporean state did not prioritize the suppression of the dialects. However, suppression of dialects was never a major part of the campaign, since the government was tolerant of old peoples' use of dialect, and assumed that young people would have no use for dialects. In fact, the government promoted
Cantonese opera Cantonese opera is one of the major categories in Chinese opera, originating in southern China's Guangdong Province. It is popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau and among Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Like all versions of Ch ...
as a traditional ethnic performance and sponsored night classes in Cantonese music in government-run community centers. One of the most influential implementations that the Speak Mandarin Campaign has used is ''The Straits Times''. For instance, as part of the campaign to promote greater use for Chinese, the English newspaper would publish daily Mandarin vocabulary lessons in order to help Singaporeans improve their standard for Mandarin. Other ways of encouraging people to learn Chinese is to sign up for speak Mandarin courses, listen to Chinese music, explore online resources and download audio lessons, which can be found in the official website of Speak Mandarin Campaign. Besides, in 2005, there were publications of CD-ROMs and tapes on Mandarin lessons, handbooks of English-Chinese terms as well as telephone Mandarin lessons to help people to learn Mandarin. Notably, in 2006,
my Paper ''My Paper'' () was a free, bilingual (English and Chinese) newspaper in Singapore published by the Singapore Press Holdings. It is published from Mondays to Fridays, excluding public holidays; and an electronic copy of the print edition is publ ...
which was published by the Singapore Press Holdings became the first free Chinese newspaper to be given out in Singapore. In 2008, my Paper went from being a Chinese newspaper into a bilingual newspaper and the circulation rate hit 300,000. Education is one of the most effective ways to promote use of Mandarin. In 2004, Singapore government specially set up a committee to review methods for teaching Chinese courses, whereby creative Chinese writing courses were set up in schools in 2005, as a way to intrigue and engage students in learning Chinese. Also, other education organizations such as
Nanyang Technological University The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a national research university in Singapore. It is the second oldest autonomous university in the country and is considered as one of the most prestigious universities in the world by various inte ...
has set up a Chinese faculty and even collaborates with Confucius Institute to help train teachers with regards to Chinese language, to improve the standard of Chinese education in Singapore and in order to influence people with regards to the use of Chinese. Former Prime Minister
Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...
, a native English speaker who had learned Mandarin later in life, expressed his concern about the declining proficiency of Mandarin among younger Singaporeans. In a parliamentary speech, he said:
"Singaporeans must learn to juggle English and Mandarin". Therefore, he launched a television program, 华语!, in January 2005, in an attempt to attract young viewers to learn Mandarin.
Following this, in June 2005, Lee published a book, ''Keeping My Mandarin Alive'', documenting his decades of effort to master Mandarin—a language which he had to re-learn due to disuse:
"...because I don't use it so much, therefore it gets disused and there's language loss. Then I have to revive it. It's a terrible problem because learning it in adult life, it hasn't got the same roots in your memory."
In the same year 2005, the campaign started to rebrand Chinese by using local artists and cool leisure activities, hence the birth of the slogan "Mandarin sCool!".


Outcome

The success of the campaign was evident 20 years from the launch of the campaign. The campaign has significantly reduced the number of non-Mandarin speakers in Singapore. The use of other varieties at home dropped from 81.4% in 1980 to 19.2% in 2010. Meanwhile, households that claimed to use Mandarin as the dominant language at home increased from 10.2% in 1980 to 47% in 2010.


Criticism

The Speak Mandarin Campaign has come under criticism from several fronts. Dialect speakers have complained that their children have to study two foreign languages English and Mandarin. This is contrasted to a possible alternative policy of English and their native language. Lee Kuan Yew himself recognized this and acknowledged that for many Chinese Singaporeans, Mandarin is a "stepmother tongue" and "dialect is the real mother tongue". Furthermore, in 2009, in spite of the ongoing 华文? 谁怕谁 (Be heard in Chinese) movement, Lee admitted that the teaching of Mandarin Chinese in schools went the "wrong way" and that due to his insistence on bilingualism, "successive generations of students paid a heavy price". In June 2010, Lee also said that "Mandarin is important but it remains a second language in Singapore". Some critics include that the Mandarin education system's goal of promoting cultural identity has left many younger generations of Mandarin speakers unable to communicate with their dialect-speaking grandparents. They have also compared the policy to that of
Russification Russification (russian: русификация, rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian cultur ...
and intentional language elimination. The reduction in the number of Chinese dialect speakers in Singapore has raised concerns on the issues of preservation of these dialects. In March 2009, when ''
The Straits Times ''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was established ...
'' ran an article by Dr Ng Bee Chin, who was quoted as saying that "40 years ago, we were even more multilingual.... All it takes is one generation for a language to die." The article soon caught the attention of Mr
Chee Hong Tat Chee Hong Tat ( zh, s=徐芳达, p=Xú Fāngdá; born 1973) is a Singaporean politician who has been serving as Senior Minister of State for Finance since 2022 and Senior Minister of State for Transport since 2020. A member of the governing Pe ...
, the Principal Private Secretary of
Minister Mentor Minister Mentor was a position in the Cabinet of Singapore created in 2004 as part of a transition in political leadership. The only person to hold the post, between 2004 and 2011, was Lee Kuan Yew. Background On 12 August 2004, when Lee Hsien L ...
Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...
. In the letter from Mr Chee to the editor in The Straits Times Forum, he highlighted the importance of English and Mandarin over dialects and spoke of how speaking dialects ultimately "interferes with the learning of Mandarin and English". He also added that "it would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin." Non-Chinese language communities (principally the
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
s and
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...
s), on the other hand, have argued that the effort placed into promoting Mandarin weakens the role of English as Singapore's ''
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' and threatens to marginalize Singapore's minorities. In fact, dialects such as Hokkien, along with Malay have served as a language for the Straits Chinese, or ''
Peranakan The Peranakans () are an ethnic group defined by their genealogical descent from the first waves of Southern Chinese settlers to maritime Southeast Asia, known as Nanyang (), namely the British Colonial ruled ports in the Malay Peninsula, th ...
''. In the Singaporean and Malaysian version of Hokkien, one cannot deny the plethora of Malay loan words, and vice versa. During the 1960s, Bazaar Lingua was a confluence of Malay, Hokkien, Tamil, English and other dialects.Barbara Leitch Lepoer, ed. (1989),
Singapore: A Country Study
, U.S. Library of Congress.
Some have expressed concern that requirements of Mandarin fluency or literacy could be used to discriminate against non-Chinese minorities. Current employment laws prohibit racial discrimination but employers often circumvent this by requiring applicants to be bilingual in English and Mandarin.


Other Language Campaigns in Singapore

The Speak Mandarin Campaign is one of the four official language campaigns in Singapore, the other three being the Speak Good English Movement, Bulan Bahasa (Malay Language Month) and Tamil Language Festival. Each of the language campaigns are overseen by the respective language councils, with secretariat support from the National Heritage Board of Singapore.


See also

*
Language death In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers. Other similar terms include linguicide, the deat ...
*
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 Constitut ...
*
Promotion of Putonghua Promotion of Putonghua (, also 推普) is a movement led by the government of China since Communist Party of China, the Communist Party came to the power. Currently, the Promotion of Standard Chinese, Putonghua is led by State Language Work Com ...
*
Singaporean Hokkien Singaporean Hokkien is a local variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively in Singapore. Within Chinese linguistic academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu. It bears similarities with the Amoy spoken in Amoy, now bet ...
*
Singaporean Mandarin Singaporean Mandarin () is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken natively in Singapore. It is one of the four official languages of Singapore along with English, Malay and Tamil. Singaporean Mandarin can be classified into two distinct Manda ...
* Speak Good English Movement


References


External links


Official site

Official Facebook page

Learn Mandarin Online
{{Authority control 1979 establishments in Singapore Language policy in Singapore Chinese languages in Singapore Singapore government policies