Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Teo Chee
Hean said organisations which want to be creative
must be mindful of the values of the races and
religions in Singapore.
Dialects are vulgar, polluting and associated
with the uneducated; Mandarin is refined and
part of the literary culture. Mr. Rabim Ishak, then Senior Minister
of State (Foreign Affairs) noted the vulgarity associated with
dialects in a speech where he noted that he learnt swear words in
Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew and Hainanese whereas in Mandarin, the
swear words were less common and was a language for the refined
people” (ST, 11 July 1980).
- Dialects are divisive, fragmentary and a major
cause of miscommunication and
misunderstanding; Mandarin is the language
of unity, cohesion and a bridge between the different members of
the Chinese Community. Goh Chok Tong, then Second Defence and
Health Minister, pointed out at the opening ceremony of the SMC in
his constituency that “The spoken and written form in Mandarin are
in unison and do not create problems, unlike dialects where one
word can have several meanings depending on the dialect it is
spoken in” (ST, 9 June 1981).
- Dialects are a burden on the
young, forcing them to learn two languages
when they go to school; Mandarin facilitates academic success. Lee
Kuan Yew argued that “dialect will hinder the learning of the child
if he uses dialect … to
speak dialect with your child is to ruin his
future” (ST, 17 November 1980).
- Dialects have no value, neither culturally nor
economically; Mandarin is linked to a
5000-year old history, rich in culture and bears immense economic
potential with the opening up of China’s market. Lee Kwan Yew
stressed that unlike Mandarin which “has cultural value and will
also have economic value twenty years later,” dialects “have no economic value in Singapore.
Their cultural value is also very low” (ST,
17 October 1980).
- Dialects represent the past and are
primitive; Mandarin is the future. Lee Kwan
Yew in a television forum argued, “Mandarin is a developing
language; on the other hand, dialect
is a stagnant language” (ST, 10 January
1980).
http://www.oocities.org/eugene_esther/section4.htm
Dialects are vulgar, polluting and associated
with the uneducated
to
speak dialect with your child is to ruin his
future”
Dialects have no value, neither culturally nor
economically;
dialects “have no economic value in
Singapore. Their cultural value is also very
low”
Dialects represent the past and are
primitive
