Since young, I spoked dialect (Cantonese) at home. In school & work, if someone is of the same dialect group with me, I speak dialect with them too.

Why not?

Speaking dialects, i disagreed with the MM that it will affect our use of languages.

I think i am eloquent on both English and Chinese even though I speak Cantonese to my mum and some Hokkein.

Moreover, I feel bad that my mum cant speak to her grand daughter who doesn’t speak any dialect at all.

What have we so far, after speaking Mandarin for the past decades?

>> majority of parents/children and young adults speaks deplorable English – many can’t even write their own letters and resumes
>> tuitors from China are preferred; why? because they teach proper Mandarin
>> many have suffered academically because of 2nd Language and thus are now struggling on in life with a lesser academic qualification

I ask hence; do we have a National Identity yet???
I feel we have been misguided….

For us Peranakans, usually its more of English, Dialect and a smattering of Malay. I’ve always held the view that my dialect group would naturally assume the role of historical ethnic identity, and consequently my mother tongue.

Hence, I may not consider Mandarin my mother tongue, but rather English, Hokkien and Pasar Malay in a larger set of linguistic heritage markers that form what we can see as a language bond between a person’s cultural identity and his/her past. It is subjective and should not be seen as monolithical.

Mandarin is the state language in China, but I communicate much more easily with ethnic Chinese abroad in either Hokkien or Cantonese. Let’s not fall into the illusion that there is only one language that binds Chinese together.

I learned the Hokkien dialect from my grandparents/parents when I was really young, and even though we did not use it regularly, my siblings’ language skills are poorer than mine despite not knowing a single Hokkien phrase. Maybe knowing a few dialects/languages from young triggers the brain to understand the concept of language and all future infusions become easier when done properly?

My dad speaks a few dialects and Malay, and his English and Chinese languages are stronger than some young people I know.

The young generation struggle with learning Mandarin even though they do not speak dialects, so thus learning dialects affect the ability to master Mandarin. I doubt so.

When I visit the government boards or hospitals or polyclinic, I felt sad when the I see the younger generation using their half past six Mandarin to communicate with the old people. Most of the times I help to translate it to cantonese or hokkien to the old people.

Is Singapore being successful in implementing the Speak Mandarin campaign? I doubt so.

2) Gilbert Goh on June 30th, 2009 10.39 am ,

the old man only spoke for himself. i agree totally for native dialects speaking as long as we know maturely what our national language stand for.

look at USA and Europe, they have so many dialects among them and do they lack in their national language or deteriorating. NO!

USA has hundred if not thousand of dialects and yet they speak english as world norm.

so go ahead with it before our native dialects perish just cos of one old man said so.

I remember there’s a article in straits times many years ago that a mentally-challenged picked up 5 or more different languages. Hence, how many languages you want to learn, including dialects, I believe is a personal choice in my opinion. I don’t think it’s has anything to do about capacity to learn.

I think it is good to know dialect, as sometimes when go overseas, I can use it to converse with my friends/family members, not letting others know what are we talking about…especially when dealing with fishy matters…

5) Ryvyan

Ryvyan’s point is interesting.

Take my wife for example, she’s from KL, she took malay and no mandarin during her school years in M’sia. Came to SG, her second language is malay up to JC level. At home, she speaks cantonese.

She is able to pick up mandarin with not much difficulty.

These days we felt “hearten” whenever we hear our 6 yr old son speaking some words of cantonese to his granny! Hey! He knows cantonese! wow!!!

it’s the other way round now.

Mandarin is another dialect of the chinese race. What makes it so special and more equal than the other dialects? I will not for once use it even if i can make money out from it. i am also no betrayer to my race if i can’t speak mandarin because i am a teochew. as far as i know, mandarin belongs to an alien tribe in the north for which i have no business dealings with.

By the way, I always tell everyone that my mother tongue is teochew because my mom is teochew! This idea of mother tongue, following from what your mom use to speak originally, seems to be forgotten by many people.

Forget about mandarin please! tell the whole world.

also, do not let the old man lky convince you that speaking your mother tongue other than mandarin will corrupt your ability to speak other languages, e.g. mandarin. this is pure non-sense! where’s the evidence? where the statistics? the old man is senile.

I don’t care about ‘mother’ tongue. I think having some proficiency in more than 1 language is good, and I am happy with them being English and Mandarin.

People say it’s sad that people are not able to communicate properly with old folk due to lack of dialect proficiency. How is this going to ever improve if we ever only learn our own dialect?

On the other hand, when the generation that learns Mandarin and English becomes the ‘old folk’ will the young still have problem communicating with them? Some I think.. but I think LESS than what it is now.

Why do they put uneducated people to head GPCs for education? She obviously doesn’t know anything about language when she says ‘…dialects make my life colorful…in professional life…mandarin made the difference’.

‘…protecting dialects…’ etc

Language is not a mere tool nor is it a cultural artifact if one is familiar with the writings of Bakhtin and post-colonial studies discourses about language. Without addressing the concept (and its politcs) of language, the ‘discussion’ is a farce aimed solely at reinforcing the government’s policy of Sinicizing Singaporean society.

Walau,

Language is also a channel of power and statist dominance. That is why I feel the bilingual policy has its roots in economics, and not actual preservation of cultural identity. How do you preserve when you are creating an artificial structure at the same time.

Coming from a generation that has felt the “full force” of this policy, I lament the fact that I am not fluent in Teo Chew (my dialect group), or any other dialects. I have a passable grasp of Hokkien and Teo Chew, but it is not satisfactory by far. As all my grandparents have passed away, I resort to watching shows in dialect over the internet. I think it is ridiculous how we don’t have radio/TV shows in dialect.

Anyway I can never understand why the government insists that our non elite singaporean brains cannot handle more than 2 languages (english and mother tongue). people around the world (especially in europe) are regularly fluent in 3 or more languages. Are we dumber than them?

anyway I think the Lee family’s grasp of mandarin isn’t particularly strong either. If I recall correctly, they had to go for mandarin classes, and even now their accent is still a bit off.

Weijia,

It doesn’t matter if its Mandarin, Hokkien, Spanish (which I am interested in).. it’s about being able to just give it a good shot at learning as many languages as you can.

Multilingualism is a good thing, but enforced bilingualism brings about a negative impact because it presumes that the Mother Tongue which you are told to study, is your mother tongue.

I use Caps to denote the Official vs the local, which is our perception and feeling of what our mother tongue is, namely, the dialect group you inherit. China is not a single civilisation of homogenous people, it is made up of hundreds of diverse groups.

We are Singapore, we should advocate learning of Mandarin as just another language of commerce and business. And at the very least, let us not push dialects into the background because if we had just left it as it is, the mere presence of dialect will actually improve social bonding and community spirit.

In fact, we should also introduce basic Malay classes given that we are in the Malay Archipelago, and it is shameful that we do not know how to speak even Pasar Malay today..

when i watched some variety show recently compered by media corp young gal artist who happened to be a malaysia chinese. guess what? during the episode showing about the culture and life style of malaysia interesting spots, she can speaks fluently in mandarin, cantonese, english and malay and she probably around 20 – 25 years old gal and put singaporean gal to shame.

do you think singapore artist can emulates that?? as for me, besides english, i can speak almost all dialects including mandarin and i am very proud of it.

if authority still beleives on old man stubborn view to remain only english, for sure we will lose out nation culture and heritage for good simply just cos of HIM.

i think it’s good to pick up dialect for both commercial (due to the growing influence of China) and interpersonal reasons. We need it to communcaite with our elders and ppl who only understand dialects.

Knowing that it’s not easy to master more than 2 languages (i.e English and Mandarin), i will still want my children to learn dialect as it’s part of their heritage roots.

If we deliberately do away with dialects, our younger generations who are born and bred in S’pore would forget their ‘real roots ,traditions and real culture’ . Each dialect group has its own peculiar traditions and culture. Eg , wedding a ceremony for a cantonese couple and for a teochew one has differences.

We have all been victims of one man’s tyranny, someone whose objective was to achieve what HE wants. He was prepared to and did in fact deprived the old folks of a means to communicate with their children, grandchildren as well as access to their only source of entertainment and culture through dialect. LKY virtually proscribed the use of dialects- eg. Redifussion which is a source of culture and entertainment to old folks had to TERMINATE its dialects programmes or face closure. Cinemas were not allowed to show dialect films. Dialect programmes were removed from TV and radio.Dialect tapes were discouraged from trade. Shops which brought in dialect tapes were discriminated against and given low priority for clearance by the censorship board. ‘tharn koo, koo’ before the tapes were released!

I suspect he can do that because he himself don’t speak a word of his own dialect group, being peranakan.He did this because he treats Singaporeans like EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS, in the FLAWED belief that by removing dialects from our external, hence controllable, environment, we will ‘kwai kwai’ lap up Mandarin. HOW WRONG HE IS BEING PROVEN TO BE! The govt is staring at decades of student populations the great majority of which is neither good in Mandarin nor proficient in English. Yet, as recently as just a couple of months back, his PPS wrote some arrogant and foolish/stupid reply, defending Mandarin in reply to an NTU’s suggestion for dialects!

Those who have been to China and Taiwan will know for a fact that dialects are alive and well there AS WELL AS MANDARIN. But, sad to say LKY will NEVER admit wrong, just as he has never apologised for gainsaying and contradicting himself on recent statements he made relating to GIC/Temasek’s investment. The man has not clothes on but who dares tell him about his naked foolish pride? Definitely, none of his offsprings since one can obviously see how intimidated they are.

Gimmicks like SAP schools are no more than DAMAGE CONTROL measures after the fact.

11) You are quite right, not everyone in China speaks Mandarin! The dialets are still strong there.Some of them abhor Mandarin. It was a deliberate policy, to try to “control” people through a common language like the Japs and Koreans.
That’s why they also took aways the dialet TV shows.

mandarin is also a dialect, historically.

I was one of those students who was forced to change my name to the pinyinised version which sounded Greek to me and my friends because of zealous following of the use of Mandarin only in the 1980s. I ended up hating the language. Nuff said.

At the rate things are going, by the next generation dialects will be gone?

When I went on a business trip with my associate both hokkien to China we spoke hokkien to each other and was surprised our China partners cannot understand. It is good that we can communicate in hokkien during negotiation with each other without our China partners knowing what transacted. Do you know in China most know mandarin but not their own dialect!

How about let’s all hail Singlish!

not a bad ideas. even USA has the cowboy slang in english too and i think that is smiliar to our singlish to english. yea, why not?

For some grandparents and their grand-children, there is a total disconnect between them as grandparents can only speak their own dialects whereas the grandchildren can only speak English and Mandarin. Thus grandparents cannot impart a lot of cultural values and chinese folklore accumulated through life experiences to their grandchildren. Most people do not even have a scant knowledge of chinese history, geography, customs, folklore, culture, etc. They are total disorientated and does not belong to the western culture nor the eastern culture.

Hindsight,

For those of us with grandparents who are educated in English or can speak in Mandarin, we should cherish them.. :)

Don’t be fooled by the OLD MAN’s reason for doing away with dialects. The true reason, those old enough will remember, was that in 60’s and 70’s his gang was mainly English speaking and poor in dialects whereas the opposition gang was strong in dialects which had a far reach to the ears of the large mass of lesser mortals-voters of those days. He had to sturggle to learn hokkien but very few of his other leaders could handle dialects and the opposition was attracting huge crowds to their rallies . Even now as seen in the last election, the Workers Party’s rallies with dialect speakers attracted huge crowds.

Mandarin was used as the excuse to supress the communication channel through dialects to neutralise the disadvantage for his gang. MP Teo as you can see has to be defensive of that policy.

Conversational dialects can be learnt without affecting the learning of English and Mandarin and serve as the social and cultural connect with the older folks. We have lost that in 1-2 generations.

Dialects is part of a country’s culture and that is why it should be preserved in any way and not be destroyed due to economical reason. A country without culture is a country without soul. Unfortunately, the same Pappies betrayed the dialect that elect them power. Anyone guess who deliver the speeches in dialect back when PAP is the opp party ?

“I learnt my dialects from speaking with children. If you really want to learn, it is not impossible.”

It is not about learning dialect, it is about preserving the dialect, the root of your heritage. How can you ever learn dialect from your children when they don’t even speak dialect at all ? It is the children that learn dialect from parent in Singapore, not parent learning from children, and when the parent gone, who is going to help preserve the dialect ?

It is already clear from the government that discouraging dialect is due to economical reason, what is there to wayang about and beat around the bush, debate about issues when the government’s decision already pre-made, just like GST hike ?

The choice is yours really, if you leaving in another country you will face the same question. So folks, is really up to you. You decide!

I learned dialects like Hokkien,Teochew and Cantonese thru neighbourly friends back in the 60’s.

And kelantanese and Trengganus becos my late mum was a Kelantan born, Banjarnese becos my late father was a Banjarnese, and now my wife, a Javanese where I picked Javanese and Bahasa Indonesia.

Naturally, Malay is my dialect.

So I am lucky to learn several dialects and that’s a plus for me.

They should really be more honest about the whole thing. If its a campaign to encourage people to speak Mandarin then call it a campaign. Don’t any-o-how call it a ‘discussion’ maciam damn serious about really wanting to nurture critical thinking and examination of public policy. If its a campaign, I’d rather see our Mediacorpse stars like Mark Lee & co, entertain us about it, not some unqualified gahmen bureaucrats pretending to know what they’re talking about,

It is futile listening to Josephine Teo and even more nonsensical having her as one of the panelists. Being part of the establishment, she has to say things that are in line with policy. Tell her to put her hands onto her heart and tell us whether what she uttered is from the bottom of her heart.

Look around you – whether at work, at home or in school, what level of English or Mandarin is being paraded around by our younger generation? Can they write well? Do they speak well? It’s definitely a resounding “NO”! And this is the failings of our education system and of our language policies over the years.

Now look at our older generation – those in their 40’s and above. What do we see and hear? They speak English, Mandarin, Malay, Teochew, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka – the lot. These are the generations that grew up without our touted language policies and they are definitely much better off than our current younger generation. They can write better and definitely speak better.

What does it tells us but that we have been hood-winked by those that governed? Can they honestly stand up and tell everyone that our younger generation of today are better off linguistically? Do they not admit that they write terribly nowadays? And at the end of it all, they are worse off because they are now dialect-deficient. Don’t tell us that by discouraging the use of dialects, our younger generation can fare better in English and Mandarin. You know it is not so, and it is not happening.

You cannot argue your way out of this!

The most sickening, sinking, shameful nonsense is none other the blanking(muting/cut-off) off of Dialect narration, dialogue and song segments in telecast and broadcast.

AND

yet in Charity Shows, dialects were allowed.

And

on every Friday Morning, Ch8 telecasts operas in Dialects.

Can the Authority please cut-off your hypocrisies please ! !

Full of silly nonsense !!!

patriot

Hi All;

I like to add to my post above.

Please bring back all the Dialect Programmes in our broadcasts and telecasts.

patriot

Ms Josephine Teo may want to read this:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/274568/1/.html

“Mark Jit Tine, an elderly from TOUCH Seniors Activity Centre, said: “I’m very happy to teach them how to speak Cantonese, the kids are very bright. And I try to teach them slowly because I don’t want this language to be lost.”

27) Arix

//// How about let’s all hail Singlish!/////////

I second that.

I speak Cantonese fluently because my childhood was spent in the neighbourhood of Majestic Theatre and Upper Chin Chew Street where each morning in the 1940’s all the Samsoi women assembled for the lorry to take them to work in construction sites. However, the Samsoi women spoke their own Cantonese dialect…much different from the Cantonese spoken in the yamcha or coffee shops. There is saying among the Hokkiens that if you marry a Cantonese girl, the all your children will grow up speaking Cantonese.

But my mother was a Nonya whose relatives spoke to another in Hokkien and Peranakan Malay. I also picked up these dialects. When I went to school, there were Cantonese boys from rich family but most of them could not understand my Cantonese because my spoken dialect was crude and vulgar which I picked up from the mechnics/fitters in Chinatown. Every sentence begins with “tiu” and ends with “sei” and it is still heard in Hong Kong too.

To sum it up, dialects have “dialects”too. The dhoby shop owner spoke ’sei yap”Cantonese and with Hokkien…there is the Penang type, the Amoy sound and Taiwanese Min Nang dialect.

Dialect is fun. My favourite Chinese TV Program is JadeTv, the only Cantonese channel available. Sometime I heard Hokkien and Cantonese on radios and it is
really a change on the air. Sek fang (Cantonese), chiak pun (Hokkien), chih fai
(Shanghainese) …..all mean the same……eat rice lah….lo….leh….!!!!!

obamaosamaadasama

39)Patriot
Yalor , the present channel 8 Taiwanese series EE NAN WANG will be more interesting and touching if broadcast in Dialects.This is also a good opportunity for those interested to learn Taiwanese Taigu / Marn Nam Gu /Hokkien here.
Anyway can sing more dialect song to keep Dialect alive.Latest Wa Merng Nthee(I ask sky) is quite meaningful in dialect.

1/7/09

My answer is “Bring back all the Chinese dialects across Modern Singapore as they are colorful and where our traditions and cultures are embedded and conversely Mandarin is dull, colorless, traditionaless and cultureless. Let me ask all my fellow Singaporeans ie how many Singaporean Chinese can really go to China to work, do business-trading and open factories and my answer is 5% or less. Look at Hongkong, they have dumbed Mandarin and across Hongkong, they are concentrating on English and their dialect which is Cantonese continues. The same in our Modern Singapore ie bring back all the Chinese dialects and focus on English as much as possible before it is too late and one day when we wake up, we find our younger generations speaking broken English and unable to write a simple English sentence-this is what has happened in Malaysia and only idiots and morons and asking the Government to discard the use of English in the teaching of Science and Mathematics”.

Regards
Andrew Chuah

Hi Agongkia:

nice to have your company !

Me is one last dinosaur, love all things languages make, song from Pavaroti, Celine Dion, Yutian, Marantika, Alley Cats Engelbert, Vietnamese, Thai, Teachew, Hokkein, Cantonese, Hainanese contemporary and opera and all lah, too long to list. I expose myself to the beauties of all languages and dialects, the only regret is that I am proficient in none.

No murder of spoken words should be condoned, it is languages that make mankind different from other species and it is words that man gets enlightened.

And loosing ones’ root or allowing roots to rot is a sin in itself, let’s not sell our own soul.

patriot

Why is it easier to pick up dialects than Mandarin? Simple. One does not need to know how to read in dialects, one merely converses in them. There are also no written exams and grading in dialects and we don’t depend on their passing grades to get into college or university. Dialects are used in a conversational setting, often it is a relaxed social setting, a playground, a marketplace for example, and seem to flow out of our mouths easily when they are taught to us by our dialect-speaking grandparents when we were toddlers. So dialects are really ‘mother tongues’. Dialects are like gut instincts whereas Mandarin is a laid-over veneer, like an outer coat which we take off when we feel warm. Perhaps that’s why over a time of disuse, we lose the grasp of Mandarin but not so dialects.

But despite all that the govt has done to promote Mandarin, we and future gens will never be able to transmit it to our children as our parents have transmitted dialects to us. The trouble is that one often treats Mandarin as suspect and superficial, that it is all propaganda and politically driven (for example, just because LKY turned to learning Mandarin late in life and so everything in Singapore has to be turned upside down to follow his command?), so the result is that people get put off and react to that in a negative way when something is pushed down their throats.

I am not a hokkien but i love the hokkien language. use it everyday at work. fires up the mind. i think if hokkien is use in speeches to the crowd it would also fire up the hearts!

to all, keep your mother tongue alive; let us embrace the language of hokkien, teochew, cantonese ,…

seems like I am the only supporter of Mandarin policy here. lol

One thing I might like to point out.. if we all spoke our own dialects… would our English actually improve? Coz I have been speaking Mandarin to chinese (race) friends (minus some who are English-only people) , and English to others since school days till now working. If we didn’t understand each other, we’d be force to speak English not just to malay and Indian friends, but also to each other. With more practice… we might have better English foundation… or Singlish.. lol

whiteraven,

Mandarin is a tool of supression, to supress Singaporeans’ natural will and instinct against tyrannical practices such as that by LKY and his cohort.

As someone above posted it was a weapon wielded against political opponents to deprive them of access to their constituents.

Do not believe the crap about mandarin being to cut across communication with the local masses. In fact, the opposite is true, by forcing it on the population via all tyrannical measures at its disposal the govt effectively cut off the population’s and the oppositions’ ability to come together via dialects.

To LKY every sacrifice must be exacted from Singaporeans to make sure he has his ways. And we all know how flawed, even wicked and myopic, his ways and objectives have turned out.

50) George,

I would advise you not to over indulge your instinct against tyranny. Even dictators can sometimes come up with good ideas/policies. Judge their deeds individually, and not ‘use 1 bamboo to sweep all the boats’, just become the policy came from someone bad.

Frankly, I am a bit lost about your comment on: “effectively cut off the population’s and the oppositions’ ability to come together via dialects.” How exactly does ‘dialects’ unite population/opposition?

Whatever languange or dialect, if u have the will to pick it up, u will learn it well…
Singapore’s trend is that many parents only speak English(or Singlish) to their children, so these kids end up with limited language skills, and that’s where TianXia and other Mandarin learning centres make their money…
Sometimes, it is so incomprehensible when kids say learning Mandarin is so difficult…u lose your own identity. Pity…

49) lobo76 on July 1st, 2009 1.32 pm

One thing I might like to point out.. if we all spoke our own dialects… would our English actually improve? Coz I have been speaking Mandarin to chinese (race) friends (minus some who are English-only people) , and English to others since school days till now working. If we didn’t understand each other, we’d be force to speak English not just to malay and Indian friends, but also to each other. With more practice… we might have better English foundation… or Singlish..)

–> you’re actually quite spot on with your assessment.

IMHO, language is simply a method of communication and not a major part of a person’s identity.

Since the HKers (now) and Taiwanese speak Mandarin, why should Singaporeans learn dialects on purpose? I feel Singaporeans should be more worried that the Chinese language as a whole die out rather than the individual “dialects” of the language. If Chinese in Singapore is only used in tabloids, rather than in business or serious analytical newspapers, this can only result in a deterioration of the quality of the language + give a very negative impression of local Chinese speakers.

That being said, I do admire the polyglot Malaysian Chinese / Indian / Malay, despite not having higher proficiencies in some of the languages they speak. I feel that it is a matter of personal choice, interest and free time one has.

i dun understand the fuss… who is stopping us from learning or teaching our kids dialect? Just becoz the govt does not teach dialect in sch or use dialect in mainstream media, means dialects will die out?

in the end, education also comes from parents/grandparents too.
we can make a choice whether we/our children learns dialect.

the govt does not control everything and here, we have personal choice.
To lament over why the govt did not do XXX, is to place our life in the hands of the govt and give up personal control over our lives.

if parents who know dialect, decides not to teach dialect to their children, it is a choice of the parents. if most parents have chosen to do that, society as a whole has made its choice.

Once on a tourist bus, a Baba scolded his wife who got separated from the group and we all had to spend time searching for her. The China Guide “ÿahYah” asked why the husband told his wife to “pergi maang pos !” Yah Yah said in Mandarin, I can understand a little bit Malay, especially if you scold me! But what is “maang post”. Is it Post Ofice ? I told him it means :”"Go to Hell !”" Everybody laughed !

Obamaosama

55) RW
//the govt does not control everything and here, we have personal choice.///

It a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation
about gahmen controlling everything in their life, to the extend they are having such a miserable life now, yet gahmen not doing enough for their them to the extend they are having such a miserable life now,

quite a popular view here at at TOC
whereas mine is not popular

Hi RW Post#55:

You are right in saying that parents/grandparents are not forced to stop using and teaching their offsprings dialects. However, the point is the removal of dialect materials in other areas such as broadcasts and telecasts etc and the constant reminders and campaigns to promote Mandarin.

There is evidence indeed that the younger generation(s) had/has lost much of their command and understanding of their mother tongue aka dialects since Mandarin was/is promoted. This, we cannot deny.

patriot

Each language/dialect have its unique words that cannot be translated
The beauty of the word is lost in translation

In TCM, no equivalent English word can really describe “heatiness”
Shiok is shiok, and no other language can describe until we are shiok that it means the same.
“Cow pay cow bu” has no Mandarin translation to is able to retain the essence it’s crudeness.
Pek chek has no Mandarin translation to can satisfactorily decribe it.

Dailects adds color to our life.

Hi KopitiamApek:

From the responses and interactions You got, I tend to feel You are one of the more popular commenter I have came across to date.

Personally, I am happy to read the exchanges between You and other netizens, they are very interesting and it enlivens the discussions.

Good to have You around I must say.

patriot

I agree with 55) RW that you have a personal choice to speak dialects to your children and grand children if you want to. Nobody is controlling and stopping you from speaking dialects. Don’t any how point finger at others while 3 fingers are pointing at yourself. There are many places where the Hokian and Cantonese dialects are still spoken openly and nobody is stopping them. You have your personal choice!

The policy could have accelerated the use of Mandarin in our young.
I am heartened to see the our genX and genY conversing fluently in Mandarin, and switching to English with similar ease
I personally do not see the need to lament about the dailects being wiped out, for it will never be.
However, when the policy was rammed down hard with dialects in the mass media literally obliterated it did have an adverse impact on the old when their one source of entertainment dissapeared overnight.
The other other major implication is that grannies and grandkid are now like chicken and ducks when communicating.
Howver, by the next gen, this situation will self correct as grannies will speak English and Mandarin and dialects..
Is that a price worth paying, there will be differing views on this.

60) patriot

you made my day !!!

51) lobo76

I am at times awe-struck by the ingenuity of some posters here, their ability to link the most remote topic to the oft repeated and extremely popular bitching of ministers with million dollar pay, Temasek’s zillion dollar lost, tyrrany of that old man, loasy gahmen.

Not that none of these oft repeated stuff are unfounded, but I am amazed really . They are turning into an art.

And also thanks to TOC for their abilty to select the most apt topics to feed the fire : )

Ngoh gok tak ngoh dei ying goi po lau ngoh dei ge chiun tong. Ho dor see how, lee d chiun tong hei kao yu yun lei chiun lok bei ha yat doi. Soh yee ngoh sin hei kwong dong yan, ha hei sing ga po yan.

Ming pak ngoh kong mat ye mah?

Cantonese: Ngoh mm Sek Teng, mm Sek Gong Kwong Dong wah,
Hokkien : Wa Xi Hockkien Lang , jia ba bo sai bang
Teochew: Wa Xi Teochew Lang(1st sound), ka ceng ang ang
Hakka : Hak Hak Hak, Ka ka ka

I love dialects~~ ! It adds colors to our life.

[...] and Shell Petroleum – Yawning Bread: Extortion rackets as a symptom of political malaise – TOC: Should the use of dialects be encouraged once more? – Yawning Bread: Mediacorp should stay out of events management – Nomed Letters: Sympathizers and [...]

What’s wrong with speaking Cantonese, Hokkien and other dialects? Malaysian Chinese community also speak Mandarin fluenttly but they can still speak another dialects, too. As long as I know no Chinese leaders there (be it the ruling party ones or the oppostition) try to treat Cantonese, Hokkien etc. like some sort of pariah language as LKY did. Speak Good Mandarin doesn’t mean you had to declare war on other dialects!

Man, being a Singaporean born during the SGM era, I suffered psychologically when I trying like hell to communicate with my Malaysian relatives in Cantonese. Luckilly they understand what I had to endure under this misguided SGM policy!

Well, SGM can also be defined as Speak Good Mandarin and Destroy Another Dialects!

I’m bewildered why Japanese adverts are allowed on air but not dialects. Is the Japanese language deemed superior to dialects?

lobo76 (#49),

While English does help us connect better to each other – and mandarin too, among the Chinese – it is a colonial language, not a native language. English is British and American, so it contains elements from those cultures, and is best spoken and related to by people of those cultures. Learning English helps us be able to converse with the UK and US people, especially when they are the dominant superpowers.

Similarly, Mandarin helps us to converse with the Chinese people in the mainland, where Mandarin supposedly is the imperial language. After the Qing collapse of course… well, that’s another story. Mandarin is a spoken and written language that acts as a glue between all the nationalities/dialect-groups in China. (China is far less homogeneous than Russia.)

However, neither English nor Mandarin are a local language capable of giving us a unique national identity. That is because Singapore is neither wholly-English or wholly-Chinese. Although we have a Chinese majority racial group, the ethnicity of the Chinese in Singapore is also coloured by our interactions with other minority groups and expats even. So the Chinese-ness of Singapore Chinese is a number of degrees less than the Chinese-ness of Han Chinese.

The “language” best capable of doing that, ironically, is Singlish. Singlish captures both Singaporean terminology and figures of speech in a way that both Queen’s English and biao zhun hua yu are unable to. It also captures Singaporean feeling in a uniquely Singaporean way. By aiming to eliminate Singlish, the government more or less eliminated part of a national identity.

As for dialects, they should be permitted too. They are a way in which cultural axioms are passed from generation to generation, same as Singlish, but they are more ethnocentric though, so we need to be careful there.

lobo76,

When there is a virtual proscription of the use dialects, the elders are basically imprisoned/held in incommunicado – little and even no effective communication/interaction between them and the young ones. It’s like garotting, the victims eventually die of stragulation. While this had effectively cut off grassroot support from the opposition, the process has also slowly but surely murdered our roots. It is an abuse of power by the govt to deprive a legitimate and very basic human right of a significant segment of the population for its own political ends.

Translate “Your mother cross the sea ! ” and say it loudly in Cantonese dialect !What did you say ?
Keep it to yourself please.

Osamakjiahart

#51 lobo76 /// I would advise you not to over indulge your instinct against tyranny ///// ;;;;; Its mindblowing to know that there are still people who are dishing-out advise to not exercise our instincts against tyranny. Its like telling people not to move aside when a 5 ton truck is heading in their direction to crush them into mince-meat. Therefore, to put the matter into proper perspective, lets have the meaning and connotations of the 2 words tyrant and tyranny and see whether it rings some bells to these so-called advisors;;;;;TYRANT— a harsh and cruel ruler who places his own interest or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population;;;;;TYRANNY— (a) arbitrary or unrestricted exercise of power (b) despotic abuse of authority (c) a state ruled by a tyrant or absolute ruler (d) oppressive and unjustly severe goverment on the part of the ruler (e) undue severity and harshness ( f ) a tyrannical act or proceeding.

LKY’s main intent in his “mandarin in and dialects out” policy was to cow and totally remove any dissent from the 75% chinese population here. Therefore this policy was his test-case to see how they reacted to it. Until today, when i think of this trick that lky played on the chinese here, i fail to understand how they just gave in without even a whimper. After ‘ramming down their throat’ something of such magnitude and suceeding, lky knew he could ram anything down the poor singaporeans throat and get away with it

Why are we still talking about dialects today? I think dialects are dying a slow death. I remember that to master dialects, it has to start from home. You look at young people in their twenties and thirties today, they came from family who mostly use English at home. I think their children would face a much bigger problem if we start to think of introducing dialects to them again. Their parents had lost the skills of using dialects almost completely and how on earth are we going to wind back the clock. LKY had already killed this altogether when he made that choice for Singaporeans to use Mandarin instead of dialects at home.
I think the greater problem is to encourage more Singapore Chinese to speak good Mandarin instead. I don’t see the younger generation speaking better Mandarin. Many of them don’t write and read in Chinese even though they claimed that they scored well in Chinese in schools. The reason is that the common language of Singaporeans is English in both workplace and home. If they do use Mandarin socially, they use this with a mixture of English or vice versa. To the listening ear, this is really Singaporean. To people in China or USA, they probably asked what kind of language is that. To me, I think it is really bad English and Mandarin. Further, if we talked to older Singaporeans in Mandarin today, many I had met before just stared at me with a blank look. Only when I decided to switch back to English then they realized I am actually a Singaporean like them.
I really worry about this for Singaporeans. I found many Chinese from the mainland today speak really good English. I know this because I do a lot of interviews with people in China.
So in fact our Chinese language ability is regressing and our English standard is not getting better than others even though all of us received English education.

THe use of dialects does add colour to our culture, we have many unique phrases in Hokkien or Cantonese (like knnbccb, simi lancheow, lan lan, cow peh cow bu) which the meaning will be lost or subdued when translated to Mandarin or English. The stunting of dialects of television and schools make us lost our unique Chinese culture. I agree that Mandarin and English are good for commerce and business purposes as it allows us to communicate with the Ang Mohs in England and America and PRC Chinese which is a large market of 2 billion people. Of course the forced bilingual policies have created a generation of people who have little interest in Chinese and degrading Chinese standards. Younger generation like myself have a poor command of English and Mandarin and can only speak a smattering of Mandarin all due to the bilingual policy which we are forced to speak and write languages alien to our culture and suppress our natural language (Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese etc) which we are born with but not taught in school . My mother which used to stay in kampongs and not force in the bilingual policy can speak Mandarin, English, Hokkien, Hock Chia and Cantonese, and the present generation of people are a far cry from our parents and grandparents in the standard of Chinese Langauge.

76) Eureka

Interestingly the more educated younger generation becomes less apt in learning languages than the illiterate older generation.

5/7/09

Hi KSSS (75)-We must never let our dialects die at all costs and as Singapore born Chinese, we must continue using our dialects and do away with Mandarin-how far can this Mandarin takes us (the Mandarin speaking world is a small one compare to the English speaking world which is huge and vast). Further, how many Singaporeans can really go to China to work, do business-trade or open factories,maximum 5% and minumum 2% or less.

Hongkong has abandoned Mandarin since this year and is all out promoting usage of English throughout Hongkong and please don’t tell me Hongkis are stupid and morons, don’t know what they are doing-my answer is not. Since our government Speak Mandarin Campaign, our English standard has dropped alot….sad. I am just an ordinary Singapore born Chinese-Hokkien and I have refused to speak and write Mandarin and when I am in China, I use English (even I refuse to write my name in Chinese-to me English is the most important language and my dialect is Hokkien and I can speak Candonese as well)

Regards
Andrew Chuah

78) Andrew Chuah on July 5th, 2009 3.06 pm

please don’t tell me Hongkis are stupid and morons

And please don’t describe Hong Kong people as Hongkis. That is downright rude. Do you like people to call you a Chink?

If you are able to speak one or more dialects – then make an effort to encourage others who are capable or keen to do the same and not be deterred or discouraged by any one person or those chorusing along : whether sycophant or not .

Dialects bring along many valuable tangible benefits – esp. irreplacable cultural types which make life more enriching and colourful whereas the grandiose speak Mandarin campaign breeds a dialect foreign younger generation that cannot even communoicate with their grandparents and
their identity cards would identify them either as teochew, hokien, hakka etc
etc – this indeed is farcical .

The younger generation are supposed to be a more brighter breed then mine – and if my generation can speak English and Mandarin – some even fairly well – I do not understang why they are not able to do so.

I am not against speaking dialects. What I meant is that how are we to encourage more people to speak dialects when in fact the ability to teach dialects already died in our homes. If we want to blame anyone, we only have to blame ourselves first because many of us have gotten used to speaking English at home.

What’s the point of keeping our dialect culture when the purpose is to be able to use some “bad words” in our conversation. Don’t you think it is really awful to greet our friends “by talking about our mothers first” in Hokien and Teochew. I think it’s best we keep this habit away from our children.

If someone works in China and refuses to use Mandarin and choose English instead, don’t you think that this is rather foolish. I can understand it if you were in the USA.

If you were a Chinese and you don’t want to write your name in Chinese, then what cultural heritage are you talking about. Don’t you know that whether you write your name in Hokien or Mandarin, they will look the same in Chinese. If we don’t know that Hokien and Mandarin are in fact Chinese languages, then this is really a cultural issue.

Speaking a language is all about communicating effectively. It’s better to ensure that we speak well in order to ensure that people who listen to us understand us correctly. If someone can master many dialects and languages effectively, then he or she is in fact very talented. Unfortunately many of us don’t fall into this category. In Singapore, many of us have the ability to communicate in at least two languages/dialects. It’s good that we teach our children to choose them correctly and ensure they are able to speak them effectively.

Did you read the recent article on the influx of new migrants? (sorry can’t really remember what it’s about)
but it was something about Tharman Shanmugaratman visiting Punggol constituency.
And there, someone asked him why the government encouraged Indians to speak their native language as opposed to say, Tamil, which is one of our national languages.
Tharman replied saying that it was not so much of the government encouraging this, it was more of they couldn’t very well force people to give up their heritage.
Now why did they succeed with the Chinese?
It could be because the different languages of India are generally not very related. And most recent migrants speak languages in the Indo-Aryan family as opposed to the Dravidian family, which Tamil belongs to.
But then again, why can’t the government just let dialects be?
I can assure you that if someone told me that I HAD to give up my native tongue and speak in another language to unify all the members of my race, I wouldn’t be happy.

“Tharman replied saying that it was not so much of the government encouraging this, it was more of they couldn’t very well force people to give up their heritage.”

Spoken like a politician. If Tharman were to agree that all the new Indians FT should learn Tamil, all the non-Tamil Indian FT would probably leave for India or another country!

Dialects are the roots of Singaporean ethnic Chinese. So to prevent and suppress the use of dialects is the same as to suppress the growth and proliferation of what our dialect roots would have been able to pass on to us from our forefathers.

On the learning of Mandarin the govt had gone to extreme lengths to make Singaporean ethnic Chinese learn it at the expense of their respective dialects. After almost half a century what have the govt through its MOE to show for all the sufferings exacted on older Singaporean Chinese, the virtual castration of our ethnic cultures but generations of Singaporeans ethnic Chinese students the great majority of whom would not be able to speak (let alone read) Mandarin competently enough even if their lives depends on it. On top of that, the learning of English – the language of schooling, work, govt, and pretty everything else here – becomes a victim of the dual langauge emphasis and ended up good in neither.

Perhaps the biggest disservice the govt is doing to Singaporean Chinese is that despite its apparent emphasis on the learning of Mandarin, after half a century it has still not found an effective way to teach Mandarin effectively in schools. Year in year out at least 75%-80% of Singaporean ethnic Chinese students agonised over its learning. It is nothing short of sadistic for govt to make it mandatory to pass Chinese in order to proceed further in their aspiration for higher education.

Everyy morning at the kopitiam, I do not ever recall the kopi-boy yelling “ka fei yi pei”. He is is yelling “kopi-O chit puay”
So fear not, dialects is not going away as yet.

With all the above post saying how crappy our mandarin has become, and dailects not being used, I dread the day when I hear this in the morning:

“Sir, may I take you order please. Thank you sir. May I repeat your order sir. That would be a cup of coffee black.”

In which I may reply in Queen’s English:

“Wah lau eh, lim peh lim kopi pun ai kong amgmo wei ah”

13/7/09

Hi, KSS (81)

I noted your reply and I just came back from China and as usual, I used English and not Mandarin and I filled up the China Immigration forms-Arrival & Departure in English.

Let us take a look at Singapore’s English since the introduction of Speak Mandarin Campaign and I am sure, our English level has dropped very drastically till we now have Singlish-Broken English and let me ask you have we really gone forward and ahead, or backward. Malaysia just announced the reversal of teaching Science and Mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia for political gains especially both ruling BN-UMNO and Pakatan Rakyat, to gain votes from the rural Malays and the hardcore Mandarin and Tamil groups who are controlling the Chinese schools,but the majority of the Malaysians including former PM Dr Mahathir are openly against this decision and all these people can see is Malaysia is going backward (the same for Singapore since the introduction of Speak Mandarin Campaign).

Modern Singapore and as Singaporean born Chinese, we must go all out to speak our Dialects which holds our true cultural and traditions, and not Mandarin, and let us be like the Hongkis who dumped Mandarin and all out in promoting the use of English as a way going forward.

I am just an Ordinary Singaporean born Chinese who puts our Modern Singapore very dearly in my heart and is our only place we call our home.

Regards
Andrew Chuah

Dear Andrew, I like you am not against speaking dialects. However, we must be aware that the skills to transfer dialects had long been killed in Singapore. As such, how are we to “resurrect” this skill in our community….I just wonder. It is just impossible to leave this ambition to a few enthusiastic “lone rangers”.

To be honest, dialect skills all over Asia’s Chinese societies including China and Taiwan are on the decline. This is because of the emphasis of using Huayu or Putonghua. is gaining popularity. As such, this is really not a Singapore unique problem.

I think as rightly pointed out by you, the Cantonese dialect is still pretty strong in HK. If you asked me that this will continue in the same way in the next 20 years in HK, I really am not confident that this will be so.

We are all fighting the tide of Putonghua dominating all other Chinese dialects. I really think that at the end of it Putonghua will become the lingua franca for the Chnese speaking community.

The proficiency of English in decline in Singapore is not due to our education policy on Chinese. In fact, Chinese with all the emphasis is declining faster than English, just like Malay and Tamil in Singapore.

Our English if it is declining is more due to the usage of Singlish and also all those horrible acronyms used in SMS. If we continued this way, then we are going to create a future generation of people who cannot speak grammatically correct English as well cannot write English at all. Don’t you think so?

Dear Andrew, recently I had a discussion with a friend through email over the subject of ensuring we speak both good English and Mandarin and the benefits of doing this. I hope this will convince to write Chinese when working in China. I have the same disadvantage like you because I am English educated like you.

今天在飞机里面阅读了黄春花先生在联合早报的发表文章，我认为他以前所遇到的障碍是准确的。我想我们都是很清楚这种偏见看法的来源。 我认为那个时代的教育政策强调英文也是正确的，因为国人一般的英文基础比别人好，我们这个小国家就意外产生一个生存的空间，如果详细回顾过去我们不能否认国家的生存机会确实渺小的。

如今世界和以前是不一样了。中国的经济和政治权威逐日加强，意味着汉语的使用越来越广泛。虽然我们的教育政策有同步的进度，关键是我们的下一代几乎很像西方人一样，我认为我们的国人和如今住在澳洲的华人大同小异。只要我们的教育制度还是强调应用英文，怎么样去鼓励华人讲华语的策略总不会有很好的收获，根据我的个人观察我认为我们未来也不会取得可观性的突破。我们不可以指定精英的成果来做比较因为在新加坡的一班人口里面还是多数不会讲中文，如果说会讲的，水平的确令人失望，因为好像政府花了很多功夫和金钱还不能纠正这个问题。

若是我们不迅速纠正恐怕我们现在的优势会逐渐削弱。我时常在上海就碰到好多住在大陆的洋人讲的普通话和当地人没有很大的相差。虽然现在老外讲中文还算是少数但是明显是有增强的现象。中国（包括台湾香港东南亚的华人社群）的经济和政治的权威是世界每个人都能看见的，所以中文将成为很多人选择的关键外语课程，意味着未来越来越多人会讲中文，像很多中国人拼命地在学英文一样，在这种发展我们国家的双语优势不可能比人家更强的。说句老实话很多新加坡华人确实不会讲华文也不愿意学习掌握中文。如果你提出这个问题，很多人用一种狭窄的回应。。。“有没有看见过小龙女带给我们的社会问题，我真恨死这些中国人，所以我不学中文啦”。

15/7/09

Hi KSS (86 & 87)- We just need A Few Good Men to stand up in Parliament and make it a formal stand ie Bring Back Dialects in Singpore for Singaporean born Chinese (the independence of Modern Singapore was a result of one man ie Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and his few old guards) and I am confident that we can do it and a simple one is screening of Taiwan hokkien tv and Hongkong cantonese tv serials (also Hakka tv serials).

Mandarin speaking world is just a small number and let us not fool ourselves or being misinform that the Mandarin world is a very very big world-to me is nonsense.

Regards
Andrew Chuah

Sorry
I am a 17 year old singaporean chinese and am one of the thousands of singaporean youth affected who have lost part of their roots because we have to compromise ourselves to this speak mandarin policy.

i find it unfair that we are the ones who have to lose out.
yes, this speak mandarin policy did help improve marginally our standards of speaking english and chinese. but it has made us lose our roots.

i hate it that i have to hear adults speaking in dialects and i am only able to pick smidgets of their conversation.

i am a hakka yet i do not speak a word of hakka.

my parents are able to speak hakka cantonese hokkien and bits of malay and teochew if i am not wrong.

i have to ask them what this person is speaking or have to try dissect what they are saying.

eg. in the recent movie fann wong and mark lee starred, ah long pte ltd. they spoke cantonese in some parts of the movie. and when the audience laughed at some funny parts of what they were sayng, i had to read the subtitles to understand. and even reading the subtitles did not make me understand that “private joke”.

i wonder if down the years, we even have to pay to learn such dialects, like how we need to pay to learn french or japanese or all those foreign languages? i even admire how young chinese malaysians are able to speak all these languages fluently.

i personally think that this policy has gone over its purpose. if they do want to carry out this policy, carry it out in schools. dont ban shows and voice sub taiwanese hokkien dramas, or hongkong cantonese dramas. it loses all the flavour.

stop controlling us and please let us retain some bit of our cultural roots.

:D

just for your info, taiwan not only has hokkien drama serials, they even have a hakka channel and hakka drama serials. Shanghai also has a shanghaiese TV stations.

dialects will always thrive because dialects are really chinese and have been in use for more than a thousand years. ｉｔ　ｉｓ　ｐｒｏｇｒａｍｍｅｄ　ｉｎｔｏ　ｔｈｅ　ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　ｍｉｎｄ．
they may evolve but they will never be extinct. mandarin is not 100%　ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ．　ｉｔ　ｉｓ　ａ　ｂｅｉｊｉｎｇ　ｄｉａｌｅｃｔ　ｗｈｉｃｈ　ｉｓ　ｈｅａｖｉｌｙ　ｉｎｆｌｕｅｎｃｅｄ　ｂｙ　ｍｏｎｇｏｌ，　ｍａｎｃｈｕ　ａｎｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｌａｎｇｕｇｅｓ　ｏｆ　ｄｉｆｆｅｒｅｎｔ　ａｌｔａｌｔａｉｃ　ｏｒ　ｔｕｎｇｕｓｉｃ　ｔｒｉｂｅｓ　ｗｈｏ　ｒｕｌｅｄ　ｎｏｒｔｈｅｒｎ　ｃｈｉｎａ　ｆｒｏｍ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｔｏ　ｔｉｍｅ．