Insofar as English is a neutral language, in that it does not
favour any local peoples (with the exception perhaps of the
Eurasians), it serves as a useful language of education,
administration and business.
The other advantage of using English as a local lingua franca is
that it is also truly an international language, thus providing
Singapore with an effective means of communicating with the world,
including the world of business and that of science and
technology.
Still, there is logic in the government's bilingual policy. Malay
is useful if only because we are surrounded by Malay-speaking
peoples; the growing importance of China, and to a lesser extent,
India, also make it important that some of us are conversant in
Mandarin and Tamil (or Hindustani, or Gujerati, as the case may
be).
As for Singlish, this is nothing to be worked up about. As long as
it is not too actively encouraged, it will not be overly pervasive.
The bastardization of languages is also a natural phenomenon --
every language spoken in the world has its variety of ideolects,
because people speak a language with differing degrees of
proficiency.
