Long live Singlish!

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

LOL, nice one!

Laughing

In any case, it is indeed unfortunate he did not read the poem, for it makes a powerful statement for Singlish.

With his kind of "aiyah I don't understand it then no need to bother with it" kind of attitude, how can Singapore english improve?

Mat Toro:

SELF PWNED!

Mat Toro SG

you are right. I didn't read. of course, you didn't read as well. nobody read.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

LOL

+1

Mat Toro SG

eh? no more big word posts from ST?

jondizzle foshizzle SG

Mat Toro sure is a dickhead...he seems to be a pain in everyone's ass in whichever thread he posts in. My solution is go fuck yourself.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

LOL, why should there be when they have already made such a stong case for Singlish?

+1

and PWNAGE!

Laughing

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

Originally posted by jondizzle foshizzle:
[b]Mat Toro sure is a dickhead...he seems to be a pain in everyone's ass in whichever thread he posts in. [b]

Well, you might be more understanding of him once you know of his... erm, special condition:

Mat Toro SG

that creature looks like you ST.

sgdiehard SG

If you are looking for serious discussions here, you will be sad to see yet another discussion degraded into names calling, but looking at the lighter side of it, now this is more entertaining with the pictures posted. Laughing

In europe it is not uncommon for people who speak 3 to 4 languages. In Malaysia, many Chinese are speaking Malay, English and Chinese, plus another 1 or 2 dialect. If we speak only Singlish, we are no different from the average HKger who speaks only cantonese, but there are a lot more cantonese speaking people outside HK; or the japanese, who always have problem speaking proper english, but there are over 1 billion of them speaking japanese in their little islands.

Singlish is our newly developed culture, not heritage. There is nothing to be ashamed of. But take note that Singlish does not link us with the world, its English, Mandarin and even Malay.

Our older generation, my father and uncles, they speak Mandarin, enough english to conduct business with the angmohs, some malay to find ways around malaysia and indonesia, plus many chinese dialects, even though they only learn chinese in schools. Almost all indians then spoke malay, and some english, besides their tamil, some even speak hokkien.

why now people are having so much problem with just learning 2 languages that are taught in schools? People are even migrating cause their children cannot cope with a second language Laughing Besides Singlish, why can't we master proper english and chinese, your mother tongue?

Singlish is our identity, the language of Singaporean, alone it doesn't get us anywhere outside of Singapore. English is our link with the angmoh world, Chinese, Malay or Indian is our link with the respective countries or market in this region, and our ethnic identity. ever met a Malay who can't speak malay? or an indian who can't speak tamil or hindi? or a german who don't speak german? NO. Only Chinese who can't speak chinese, some singaporean chinese. My friend put it very well: " my friend from america was very surprised I spoke very good english, but he was more surprised I could not speak chinese." Mr. Green Embarassed

Language is more than just economic value. Our ability to speak indicate our ability to communicate and adapt, it also reflects our mindset. If we think singlish or english are enough, our mindset will not go very far. Blame the government, blame the education system, but his one you can't even blame your parents, you are doing the learning, the opportunities are there.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

If you need to know, the linguists who have studied our language issues have concluded that Singlish is not really the issue, but a the result of our own myopic language teaching policies.

I suspect the constant targeting of Singlish is either a "quick fix" solution by people who are unwilling to take steps to understand the entire problem, or some elitist cultural bias that seeks to deride anything that seems peasant.

In any case, no matter what they do, Singlish will remain as long as our language policies remain the way they are, and that is to pretend we are all native English speakers when actually quite a lot of us are not and have little recourse.

jondizzle foshizzle SG

lol wow such a good comeback, very witty. About the equivalent of a 6 year old saying "I know you are but what am I?".

bigmouthjoe SG

I find the poem very relevant... especially the last few couplets.

Singaporeans need a common identity, ableit it's not really an ideal common identity, it's still something unique that Singaporeans can relate to.

How many a time have we identified fellow Singaporeans from our unique accents when abroad? It does brings back the warm feeling that home brings.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

LOL, that's a really feeble comback you know.

Laughing

Did it occur to you that it is actually best not to post comment on the picture at all if you do not have anything effective to say or else it might actually make the picture more effective by showcasing your inability to properly respond to it?

Please, don't self-pwn leh...

Laughing

sgdiehard SG

hehe, we don't need linguists to tell us that. If English can become American language in America, why can't english become singlish in singapore. Language is very much a living thing that stay with a culture, and the multi racial society in Singapore has over the years developed its own culture, Singlish is part of our culture, as our identity. It stays even if they change all the language policies in Singapore.

There are actually two versions of Singlish, one is spoken english mixed with mandarin, dialects and malay, the other type is mandarin spoken with patches of english, dialects and malay.

But it doesn't mean that because we speak the english version of singlish, we can't learn to speak english or american or australian properly; if we speak the chinese version of singlish, we can't learn to speak mandarin properly.

Mat Toro SG

i don't think singlish is something we shld be proud of cos its a copy langauge anyway.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

Erm, might we point out that English, with it's over 2 million (and constantly growing) words is actually the ultimate copy language in the world. In fact even the two western powers that use English, namely the Yanks and the Tommies can even have problems understanding each other at times.

Also most lingists would disagree with you about the cultural utility of Singlish on plenty of grounds, the existence and utility of creole languages have long been observed in many different cultures and in fact is an important part of the culture itself.

Singlish is hardly unique in this sense. Go to Korean, Japan or even Indonesia and you will immediately see that they have a brand of creole just like us, but are far less uptight about it.

The only difference it seems for us is that we have somehow been less sucessful in understanding Singlish as a local creole, prehaps because the powers that are insist on being so hostile towards it instead of understanding that it was actually a child of the overly-fast drive towards introducing english that ended up alienating a large proportion of the population and creating Singlish.

LazerLordz SG

Fark lah, workplan this workplan that.

It's not THAT difficult to code-switch, assuming sufficient intelligence on the part of the individual and a willingness to learn the proper linguistic rules of English.

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