Singapore is an immigrant country with four official languages: English, Malay, Tamil, and Mandarin. Officially, English is the most commonly spoken language in Singaporean homes, having recently and just barely edged out Mandarin. Unofficially? That’s completely wrong. Because what’s likely the actual most common language spoken does not appear on the census. That language is called Singlish.
Singlish is spoken across all ethnic groups in Singapore, even across economic strata. But the government hates it. Since the year 2000, the Singaporean government has been conducting a campaign called the “Speak Good English Movement,” which is specifically designed to discourage the use of Singlish and encourage the use of standard English.
Interestingly, the Singaporean government does not have a firm definition of what “standard English” means; they aren’t strictly teaching British Received Pronunciation or New England Prep School English or Australian English or anything else. By “standard,” they seem to simply mean “English that can be readily understood by English speakers outside Singapore.”
Here’s one of a series of video clips from this “Speak Good English Movement”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l3nHHBJDAU . Tell me if you wouldn’t love to go out to lunch with that guy.
Comments about this article
США
Local time: 21:56
Член ProZ.com c 2008
испанский => английский
+ ...
Students who came to Boise from Bei Jing seemed similar, there are existing variations of all languages. On one side you have the purists, and then the naturalists.
Таиланд
Local time: 10:56
английский => таи
+ ...
I live in Thailand, the country where English is the first foreign language. Thais speak bad English since the education system cannot provide how to practice standard foreign language. Singlish is still better, among foreigners, to communicate than using other local languages. I never negatively assess such language handicaps at all.
Soonthon Lupkitaro Ph.D.
Испания
Local time: 05:56
английский => испанский
How can you encourage good English, whatever that means?
Singlish is Ok, lah
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