Cerelia Lim
Should the use of dialects be encouraged once more?
This question was the focus of the Dialect Forum: The Forgotten Tongue hosted by the People’s Youth Association Movement at Toa Payoh Central Community Club on 27th June.
“I will say that dialects made my life colorful, but beyond that, in the area of work in the professional life, it was mandarin that made the difference,” summed up Mrs Josephine Teo, MP for Bishan- Toa Payoh GRC.
Mrs Teo, who speaks Hakka, Cantonese and Hokkien, is also the GPC chairman for education. She was present as one of the panelists at the forum.
Having studied in Dunman High, a Special Assistance Plan (SAP) school, Mrs Teo had a good grounding in mandarin. This stood her in good stead when she accepted a posting to work on the Suzhou Industrial Park Project. Although she spoke Hakka at home, she mastered English and mandarin at school. Cantonese was learnt from accompanying her grandmother to the market. And, as her family owed a shoe shop in Geylang, she learnt how to speak Hokkien and a smattering of Malay.
In the early days of Singapore, the majority of the Chinese community spoke their native dialects. Mandarin was rarely used and English only utilized for official businesses as we were a British colony then.
In 1979, in a bid to simplify the language environment and improve communication amongst the different dialect groups within the Chinese community, the Speak Mandarin Campaign was launched by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
The present Chinese community of today is mostly bilingual in English and mandarin. Amongst the Generation X and Y, dialects are a tongue unknown to them, a language of their grandparents’ era.
However, has the gradual phasing out of our dialects erased more than just a local lingo?
Mr Danny Yeo (Yang Jun Wei), a panelist and also a Chinese studies lecturer with Ngee Ann Polytechnic, told participants that in many of his drama performances at Chinatown, he often finds himself using dialects, instead of mandarin to engage the audience. He mentioned that his ability to speak Cantonese opened up doors and unlocked the obstacles between the audience and himself.
Medical doctor, Mr Yong Tong, who is also the chairman of the Chinese association (Youth Wing), recounted that learning English and Chinese at the first language level allowed him to do his Executive MBA in Chinese but it was dialect that allowed him to communicate with his patients in the hospitals.
Another participant of the forum, Ms Xuan Na, a Human Resources practitioner who studied in Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools, questioned if our pursuit of the bilingualism policy is at the expense of dialects.
In defense of the policy, Mrs Teo replied that as a parent if her children are able to master English and mandarin well, she would have no problems if they wanted to learn dialects as well. However, she reiterated that we should not have the belief that being able to speak a variety of languages is better than being able to speak well in a lesser number of languages.
“Must it be assumed from the Speak Mandarin Campaign and the educational policies that the advocation of dialects come at the expense of English and mandarin?” Sherman, a Nanyang Technological University undergraduate.
Elaborating further, he said that dialects have a role in society and their role is in our cultural identity. He also asked if there was a need to believe that learning of dialects will compromise learning standards of other languages and proposed that we appreciate our rich linguistics mix.
In response, Mr Yeo said that he is an advocate of promoting mandarin and protecting dialects. He feels that we need to look at the language abilities of the youths today and compare it to the youths 10, 20 years ago. He said that if the language capabilities of the youths have decreased over the years, then a review of the language policy should be conducted.
However, he also added that besides education, there are other ways of learning dialects such as watching popular Hongkong Cantonese dramas on cable.
Ms Jillian Tiong, a Fuzhou native who has lived in Singapore from more than 20 years, concurs and said that learning dialects is not a difficult thing.
“I learnt my dialects from speaking with children. If you really want to learn, it is not impossible.”
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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.