unlike japan, where they have resources and pretty large handouts from the americans; singapore had none of that as our parting shot with the british… the world is no longer dependent on english speaking people, but do you reckon that we would have had so much success in the last 40 odd years?

i don’t know about you, but i think being bilingual (i am bilingual and able to speak 2 dialects by the way), i have had greater benefits when it comes to communicating with foreign colleagues. at the end of the day, the individual must see value in learning more than what is being taught. my grandma can speak mandarin and malay, 3 dialects herself – all because it had value to her when she went marketing.

some europeans are able to master up to 5 languages, why not us at some stage?

English is mistaken to be the language that is a must for progress or for survival.

This is not True.

Case in point, Japanese scholars and scientists do not speak engrish.

They have one of the highest standards in this world in terms of Technologies, Standards of living, Innovation, Creativity, Education etc.

The world uses Japanese technology like electronics , laptops etc.

The world is dependent on Non-Engrish speaking people.

Do not be a frog in a well.

It’s really sad hearing about Hokkien and other Chinese languages being devalued and overwritten by Mandarin (not to mention English taking over the world). I know it’s a strategic choice to learn the language that grants you the most prestige and lets you communicate with the greatest number of people…but it’s also a choice that people should be allowed to make themselves, not something that the government should impose on them!

Like you said, language mixing will happen on its own anyway, if you let it. And what results from than mixing is far more interesting than what you get when you teach the doctrine of “pure” languages.

THIS IS INCORRECT, the majority and earliest China immigrants to Singapore were the Hokkien and TeoChew, they first settled down along both side of Singapore river, which is the first plot of land allocated to Chinese by Colonial authority

“The product of their alliances, friendships and inter-marriages is reflected in the language they have passed on to us. To lose this legacy is to sever a vital connection not only to the historical origins of the Nanyang Chinese, but also to Singapore’s dynamic multicultural past.”

to me, there’s something spontaneous and organic in the way languages borrow from each other, adapting to suit the vibe of times. if an interference or disturbance, aka government policies, stall this process or even kill it, then i say it’s decay or death is part of that organic-ness. my point is, don’t you think there’s something contrived and contradictory in trying to preserve it?

Another great article from you. Congratulations.

By the way, can you speak Hokkien? I can.

I still speak Hokkien with my friends whenever and wherever I can. Hokkien, to me is unique and contains some kind of irreplaceable element by Mandarin. A visitor from Fujian province was amazed with my ability to converse Hokkien with him, and this brought very much goodwill and confidence between us.

Singapore, in fact, is fortunate to have you as citizen. Your articles are useful to Malaysian as well. I am looking forward to read more of your articles and if possible, meet you in person one of the days.

By the way, I think if you can learn some teachings of the Buddha, that will help you a lot in your works. I am not trying to convert you here, as knowledge of Buddha’s teachings will make you a better person, a better Muslim. After all, to me, in essence, Buddhism is not a religion, it believes in no creator God. His teachings are about universal truths.

I recommend you to go this blog to know Buddhism better.

http://lifeislikethat999.blogspot.com/

Let us assume that the bulk of early Chinese migration to Singapore was of Cantonese stock and it came largely from Hong Kong, a thriving British mercantile centre port then. People from the southern regions flocked into Hong Kong either to elk a living or sojourn there for 2-3 years or more before moving to Singapore. During this transit stay period in the Cantonese speaking environment, they would have probably picked up basic Cantonese to understand and speak it. Hence the Chinese society here would have turned up speaking Cantonese largely and make it a dominant dialect though the population itself is an inter-mix of sub-groups like Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka and others.

Oxford Dude (87), in noting that identity has always been an organic realization from the bottom of the heart, seems to argues that if the goal is to serve economic and strategic needs, it is sufficient to confine language expansion to the teaching of Mandarin in schools whilst keeping the dialects intact instead of super-imposing Mandarin forcefully at the expense of dialects. He has a valid point. Perhaps the government should consider reviving the dialects.

Whilst the above depicted Chinese inflow from Hong Kong is perhaps largely hypothetical, the inflow of early immigrants to Singapore from India under similar circumstances, on the other hand, was real.

During the time of East India Company and much later, the British administered India by dividing it in two zones, the North and the South. The Northern administrative capital was Calicut (now Kolkata) in West Bengal. Calicut was also the capital of British Raj with the Governor-General located there. The Southern zone was designated as Madras Presidency with Madras (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu) as capital, with a Governor, subordinate to the Governor-General. The non-Hindi speaking Southern states, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka came under the administration of Madras Presidency.
As a thriving trading post Madras attracted thousands of people from Kerala (Malayalam-speaking), Andhra (Telungu-speaking) and Karnataka (Kannada- speaking). By staying in Tamil Nadu and interacting with the Tamils there they picked up the Tamil Language. The early Indian settlers to Singapore came largely from Madras and constituted these polyglot groups. Hence they and their decedents embraced Tamil here, making the Indian community here in later years almost 80% Tamil speaking

The demographic profile of the Indians here has, particularly over the past 10 years, changed significantly with the influx of PRs and new citizens, who are largely well-heeled entrepreneurs, professionals and business people, most of them Hindi-speaking, if not non-Tamil speaking. This segment is quietly increasing and they wield considerable clout. Few examples: Oli 98.6 Tamil radio station, which used to announce in Tamil the Hindi songs to be played on its channel has, in acceding to their demand, now been making the announcements both in English and Tamil (which I think is only sensible); they are allowed to run their own language classes (Hindi, Punjabi and Gujarati) outside school hours to enable their children to offer their mother tongue as a ‘O’ level subject ; a free monthly tabloid titled “Tabla” (published by Singapore Press Holdings) and a dedicated Hindi song channel from 5 to 8 pm (FM 96.3) daily.

Out of the 7% Indian community here, some 60-65% of them read, write, speak or understand.Tamil. If the percentage drops to below 50% or lower – and the trend indicates to this – the issue of retaining Tamil as an official language will crop up. It is fool hardy to continue spending considerable resources on an endeavour which lacks a critical mass. I am versatile both in Tamil and English. Tamil is a very old classical language and unlike Sanskrit, Latin and Greek, it is holding its ground and thriving. Singapore is the only country outside India where it is given an official language. I will certainly mourn the day it loses its official status here.

Yeah, think first heard that phrase from Malaysian colleagues (KL or Penang). Anyway, point of origin not important to me since S’poreans seem to simply pick up such things on the go.

But this kinda illustrates my point. I mean shouting “bei guai tew” or “Sang zai mou see fut” (many thks Lop) in a heated argument would hardly fizzle your opponent! In fact, they sound hilarious! Screaming them in Mandarin, Hokkein, etc… translations would kinda lose the “soul” of the meanings, you know what I mean? I guess when we go to just English or Mandarin, we lose each “soul” of the …. southern china languages(?). Something just can’t be translated.

Aside, without some cross-breeding/rojak of dialects, how can we appreciate things like what NOT to name our kids, e.g. (Everyone know these, I am sure…..)

Paul Chan (Cantonese = go bust)
Monica Cheng (Hokkien = molest your backside)
etc…

No, that curse is not exclusive to Mandarin. The Cantonese version:

“Sang zai mou see fut”

LOL

I just want to add that, i think “do jeh” is like saying “thank you”, while “mgoi” means “you should’t have (done this for me)”and it is less formal.

Is this an assumption / opinion or empirical fact? According to Wikipedia (or some article I have read), Chinese lacks a proper “grammar” apparently to English users or least lacks some of the rules of English grammar, but communicates the same desired meaning of any given sentence effectively nevertheless. And with regards to grammar, if I am not mistaken, one must be at least a post graduate of English to understand some of the more arcane and obscure rules of English grammar; strict adherence to which in normal everyday life would be laboriously pedantic and in my opinion, asininely inefficient.

“PS. what about the Cantonese phrase cursing that someone’s kid will be born without backside?!”

Think that is a Mandarin curse, not a Cantonese one. I have never come across it in Cantonese. But then, my Cantonese is somewhat limited to what I hear in my family and what I learnt from Hong Konger ex-colleagues.

My point, however, pertains to the average person constrained by aptitude and time. For him, language is a Swiss Army knife — multifunctional, precisely engineered, efficient. The fact that that particular ‘Swiss Army’ knife was ‘Made in China’ is and should be of little concern to him. Tracing the links between language and culture is indeed a valuable exercise, but only a few are dedicated and skilled enough (sociologists, linguistic scholars, writers) to take up this historical conservation project.

Moreover, it’s far more advisable for the average person to own one Swiss Army knife and learn how to use it really well (all its attachments), than to own several such knives but only know how to use a single blade in each.

Why would a person with poor linguistic ability be “tragically limited”? Because language is bound up with cognition, with the ability to process what’s happening around us. It’s not just about being able to read a legal document or a poem (arguably, these activities require some expertise, if one is to get the ‘full experience’).

Having a wide vocabulary means more ways of cataloguing our experiences (and therefore, experiencing more), rather than just feeling either “shiok” or “tu lan“, or assessing something as either “sui” or “CMI”. I concede, though, that loan words, if used in a way that is sensitive to their cultural nuances, can supplement the vocabulary of one’s primary language. (The problem with pidgin languages like ‘NS’ Hokkien and bazaar Malay, however, is that they each have a small inventory of mostly generic expressions.)

Equally important, though, is proper grammar — which an examination of loan words will inevitably ignore. Without grammar, all we have are fragments of meaning, a quaint word here and an evocative phrase there. Proper grammar is indispensable to understanding the relationships between the words we use, whether these relationships be spatial (prepositions), temporal (grammatical tense), or logical/causal (conjunctions, subject-object relationships, punctuation, interrogative words, independent and dependent clauses, negation, conditionals, etc.). Good grammar and cogent thinking go hand in hand.

Hence, being familiar with a wide range of loan words is pointless if one hasn’t mastered the grammar of at least one language. Grammar is, of course, the more unappetizing part of any language, not least because it bears much less relation to culture and history (though I can instantly think of some counter-examples, like grammatical gender in the Romance languages and the lack of past tense in Mandarin and Malay).

———————————————————————————————–
30+ telling-off 50+ for bullying 70+

Something interesting happened at lunch today. I, a 30-something, told off 2 ladies, in their fifties, for bullying 2 ladies in their seventies.

I was at lunch at HDB Hub’s basement food court. It was filled with the lunchtime crowd. I could hardly find a place for myself, a solo diner. Then I spotted a place at 2 adjoining tables. Table 1 with seats L1, L2, R1 and R2 and table 2 with seats L3, L4, R3 and R4.

L1 L2 L3 L4
R1 R2 R3 R4

R1 and R2 were taken up by 2 young ladies in office wear. The lady at R1 told me that L1 and L2 were also taken. L3, L4 and R4 were taken up by a family of 4 who were about to finish their lunch and R3 was vacated by one of their child. I asked the parents if I could occupy R3, despite the table being almost full of dirty dishes. The parents kindly shared their table with me. Soon enough the family completed their meal and left the table.

A lady, who looked like she was in her fifties and dressed in office wear, came over to asked me if seat R4 was taken. I indicated that she could have the seat. Then she went off to buy her lunch. She returned with her soupy meal, left it on the table and went off again to buy something else. Then she returned to her R4 seat. Let’s call her Lady 50A.

Then 2 elderly ladies, dressed in casual, came by. They looked like they were in their seventies. One of them, facing me and Lady 50A, asked if they could occupy seats L3 and L4. I nodded that they could have the seats. Both of them sat down. Let’s call the one sitting at L3 Lady 70A and the other sitting at L4 Lady 70B. Lady 50A did not make any remark.

Lady 70B decided to buy her food, leaving Lady 70A to reserve seat L4 for her with small plastic bag of things on the table. After a while, a friend of Lady 50A came by and stood next to seat L4. Let’s call her Lady 50B. Lady 50B chatted briefly about the food with Lady 50A. Then Lady 50B turned to face Lady 70A, who was sitting at L3. Lady 50B pointed to seat L2 and said the following to Lady 70A.

“你坐那遍。我剛才坐那遍，你可以坐那遍。”

To think that all 5 of us (I, Lady 50A, Lady 50B, Lady 70A and Lady 70B) are Chinese and the typical Chinese emphasis on value of respecting one’s elders. I kept quiet, waiting for Lady 50A to correct her friend. Instead I was stunned by the deafening silence from Lady 50A and the “this is my seat” serious look on the face of Lady 50B.

Without complaining, Lady 70A moved over to seat L2. Lady 50B sat down on L4. Both Lady 50A and Lady 50B started eating lunch and chatting as if nothing happened. These two 50-something professional looking ladies spoke in fluent English to each other, not Singlish. I looked at Lady 70A and gave her an apologetic smile, indicated to her with my eyes darting to Lady 50B and shook my head. Chinese body language for “那個人沒家教”。 Sometime later, Lady 70A moved further to seat T1L1 and her friend Lady 70B sat at another table, to the left of R1.

After a while, Lady 50B got up from her seat to get something from the stalls. To avoid Lady 50A from “丟臉”， I took this opportunity while her friend was not around and feedback to her,

“Next time you should have informed that you are reserving the table for 3. We are all here to find a place for lunch, we should be kind to each other.”

“My friend was sitting at there (pointing vaguely to the direction of L1 and L2). When I came over, I was expecting to be sitting alone.” was her lame defence. By then, her friend Lady 50B returned and indicated with her body language to Lady 50A “what’s going on?”

I looked at her and repeated, “I was just telling your friend that next time she should have informed that she was reserving the table for 3. Don’t demand that an elderly moves from her seat.”

“But I offered my seat to her”, Lady 50B retorted, raising her voice in her defence.

“You should not demand that she moves over. She an elderly. You could offer your seat, but not demand that she moves.”

Lady 50B insisted that she offered her seat. Is her Chinese language so poor that she doesn’t know how to offer her seat to an elderly in a polite manner? Even then, is her body language so lousy that she don’t know how to smile when making a request? Then Lady 50B sat down, ate her lunch and started talking to Lady 50A as if nothing happened. Lady 50B decided to adopt the “ignore the nuisance” (aka me) strategy.

I turned to Lady 50A and repeated, “Next time you should inform that you are reserving the table for 3.”

Lady 50A whined, “I was expecting to eat alone”. I’m not convinced. If that were true, why didn’t she tell her friend not to bully an elderly lady into giving up the seats? The only logical conclusion I could come to was that she did not see anything wrong with her friend’s bullying and played along so as to have a nice face-to-face seating for her lunchtime chat with her friend. Anyway, after my final sentence, she became quieter and less participative in her conversation with Lady 50B.

I finished lunched quickly and left the table without further words. Fifty-somethings in Singapore often lament the lack of traditional values in the younger set. It is perhaps time for them to look into the mirror.

Good one, Lop,

I will definitely add “bei guai tew” to my vocabulary. Though “guai” could also mean devil/demon/spouse, etc… in local context (I think), but not sure in HK.