is english the language of peranakans lol? dun think so.english
is the language of the english people in england. but I wonder why
scottish and welsh, ireland people speak english too?
I think the mother tongue of peranakans in Singapore used to be
baba malay.
But in time, there was a shift as baba malay slowly weakened and
was replaced by english as mother tongue.
According to below source, Harry Lee could speak baba malay:
Lee Kuan Yew,
who became prime minister of Singapore aged just 35, is the most
obvious example. He claims a Hakka heritage, although his
upbringing was that of a baba: at home, he spoke English with his
parents and baba Malay to his
grandparents.
http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/648273/
he spoke English with his parents and
baba Malay to his
grandparents.
Baba Malay as a lingua franca had been on the
decline from the '20s
onwards, and after Merdeka, English became the
most important lingua
franca.
In addition, a
gradual and incomplete switch in mother tongue from
Baba
Malay to English occurred among the Singapore
Babas.
Although the level of Baba Malay tended to be still high among
the older
generation, it was deteriorating among, and not transmitted to,
the younger
generation. The
younger Babas, in particular, showed little interest
in
Baba culture and were often reluctant to conceive
of, or at least to openly
identify, themselves as Babas or Nyonyas.
Occasionally, there was an
outright rejection of one's "Babaness", as in
this view of one Baba who
declined to be
named:
http://www.asiawind.com/pub/forum/fhakka/mhonarc/msg01319.html
a gradual and incomplete switch in mother tongue
from Baba
Malay to English occurred among the Singapore
Babas.
