Di_tr0q_G4k.txt

Speaker 1:          00:11          Hello everyone. Today we're going to focus on the languages of Singapore. Singapore has one of the few remaining city states in the world located in Southeast Asia at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. The archipelago that makes up Singapore is just a stone's throw away from peninsular. Malaysia separated from it by the streets of Johor. Despite being one of the smallest countries in the world. Singapore is a culturally and linguistically diverse place and as one of the world's leading financial centers, it continues to attract immigrants and ex patriots from around the world. Singapore was originally a molay trading port called Tomasek around the 14th century and later became known as single Pooda. It eventually fell into obscurity until it was established as a British trading colony in 1819 from 1963 to 1965 Singapore briefly became part of the new federation of Malaysia, which was formed from former British colonies in the region.

Speaker 1:          01:08          It then became independent in 1965 while under British rule, Singapore had a free trade policy which attracted Chinese traders and laborers from Malaysia and China and Chinese grew to become the majority of the population. Also, Singapore and India were under British rule at the same time, which led to a flow of migrants from India. Today, and for most of Singapore's history, ethnic Indians have formed the third largest ethnic group in Singapore after Chinese and malaise. Singapore has four official languages that were chosen to represent the largest ethnic groups in the country at the time that the constitution was written. First English, due to Singapore's history as a British colony, Mandarin Chinese to unite the large Chinese population molay which doubles as the national language of Singapore because it's the language of the indigenous population and Tamil to represent the Indian population of Singapore on an administrative level.

Speaker 1:          02:03          The unofficial Lingua Franca of the country is English, and it serves as the main language of instruction in schools. The language of the justice system and the language of business. The vast majority of Singapore ends are bilingual as a result of the country's education policy with 73.2% of the population identifying as bilingual or multilingual. All Singaporeans are now mainly educated in English, but they're also required to take courses in the mother tongue that corresponds to their ethnic background that so-called mother tongue doesn't necessarily correspond to the student's native language and it's better to think of it as a heritage language. Mandarin is the mother tongue assigned to students of Chinese background, even though the students family might use a different Chinese language or English at home. Similarly, Tamil is the mother tongue, a scientist, students of Indian background, even though they may speak a different Indian language or English at home and Molay is the mother tongue assigned to students molay background, even though some may speak English or another language at home.

Speaker 1:          03:03          Now, let's take a look at each of the four official languages. English, the official language most commonly spoken at home is English with approximately 36.9% of the resident population speaking it as their first language with the rest of the population. Having some level of fluency. There are very few Singaporeans who speak no English and amongst the younger generation, basically everybody speaks it fluently. English was made the main language of school instruction in all government schools beginning in 1987 before that, different schools offered instruction in different mother tongues, immigrants and ex pats aside. There are two basic forms of English that are used in Singapore. First standards, Singaporean English, which is based on the conventions of British English, but it's spoken with a uniquely Singaporean accent and an English creole known academically as colloquial Singaporean English and more popularly known as singlish. The standard form of the language is highly promoted by the government of Singapore through state sponsored programs such as the speak good English movement that was specifically started in order to curb the use of English.

Speaker 1:          04:08          But why do they care if people use singlish? Well, I suppose that's because they want people to use a form of English that can successfully be used in academic and professional situations. But speaking singlish doesn't mean that you can't speak standard English. Standard English and singlish exist along a socio elect continuum meaning that the form of English used depends on the social context. In the most formal situations people use standard English and in the most informal situations they might use pure singlish and they often mix them to varying degrees depending on the level of formality of the situation. Singlish is topic prominent like Chinese or Japanese and as such many sentences, we'll begin by mentioning the topic of the sentence first. Other noticeable features are that the use of the plural form of nouns as well as articles and the verb to be are all optional and also the grammatical subject can be dropped if it's clear from the context. Here are a couple of examples of singlish

Speaker 2:          05:05          our drawings, those impact how to pass

Speaker 1:          05:08          and in standard English something like how can we get good marks with such a simple drawing. In this sentence we see topic prominence with the topic placed at the beginning of the sentence

Speaker 2:          05:18          still got heading

Speaker 1:          05:20          and in standard English I've still got a headache. In this sentence, you can see that the subject isn't included and there's also no auxiliary verb and there's no indefinite article.

Speaker 2:          05:31          The Nisha already law

Speaker 1:          05:33          in this sentence, the subject isn't included, so you would only know who or what has finished from the context of the previous sentences and notice the word at the end of the sentence. La. This word emphasizes a statement or assertion. There are other similar words that show uncertainty or indicate that you're asking a question. These words are borrowed from varieties of Chinese like Hokkien and in fact, many of the features of singlish are in those Chinese varieties. And one more example that you can rise restaurant over there. See Bait the Kong, their food dye dye must try in standard English. That chicken rice restaurant over there has amazingly good food. We've got to try it. If it's the last thing we do, this first sentence starts off like standard English, but then we see this phrase here, seabed topcon. Topcon is a phrase from Hokkien which means very good and CBA is an intensifier with the somewhat grim etymology.

Speaker 1:          06:26          In the second sentence, you see the topic placed at the beginning again and there's no subject in the sentence because it's clear from the context and then we have this unique adverbial phrase die, die. Even though the use of singlish is discouraged by the government, that doesn't really mean that it's on the decline. In fact, to many people, English has become a source of local pride and identity and just as there have been attempts to stamp it out into diminish its use, there has also been a significant amount of pushback from locals who want to prevent it from disappearing completely mandarin after English. The second most commonly used language at home is Mandarin Chinese, which is used by around 34.9% of the resident population as a first language. But if we add to that, all of the other varieties of Chinese, which are around 12.2% of the population than Chinese, comprises the largest language group in Singapore.

Speaker 1:          07:20          But to be clear, that's a group of languages, not just one language. Before the Constitution of Singapore was written. Both Mandarin and Hokkien functioned as Lingua Franca for the diverse Chinese community. When the constitution was written in 1965 the government chose Mandarin in order to officially unite the population and then in 1979 the government led by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew started the now annual speak Mandarin campaign to continuously promote the use and learning of the language instead of other Chinese languages. This has resulted in an increase in the number of mandarin speakers and a decrease in the number of speakers of other Chinese languages and I guess that was exactly the intention of that program. The form of Mandarin used in Singapore very closely follows the conventions of the mandarin used in China and Taiwan. However, just as with English, Mandarin and Singapore has not been able to avoid the influence of other languages and has developed a socio elekta continuum just as English has.

Speaker 1:          08:16          On opposite ends of the spectrum, you have standard mandarin and sing Durham or colloquial Singaporean mandarin sing. Dorin is a result of the wide adoption of Mandarin by speakers of other Chinese languages, as well as contact with languages of the other ethnic communities, singer and seems to have some creole elements as well as an element of code switching, especially with English. The grammar is essentially mandarin with a lot of vocabulary borrowed from other Chinese languages, ballet as well as English and sometimes entire phrases or clauses or in English. Here are a couple of sentences in sing Durham Conan. Next week, how's the whole woman tie an English? Maybe we can meet next week after I finished my exams. In this first sentence, we see basically a mandarin sentence with some English vocabulary taking the place of Mandarin words

Speaker 3:          09:09          wait

Speaker 1:          09:11          and English. The weather today is too hot. I can't stand it. In the second sentence we see an English word and then this word boy is a Hokkien word, meaning cannot, and this word [inaudible] Hahn is a Malay word, meaning tolerate. These two words often appear together in this phrase, meaning something like, I can't stand it. Other forms of Chinese spoken in Singapore apart from Mandarin and Hokkien include guilt. You Cantonese Haka and high knees, but the government's promotion of Mandarin is causing it to gradually replace the others Malai. The third most widely spoken of the four official languages is molay or Bahasa Melayu, which is spoken by around 10.7% of the officially resident population. Malaya has also given special status as the national language of Singapore as a result of this special status. It's used in the national anthem in military drills and on the Singaporean coat of arms.

Speaker 1:          10:06          Malaysia and Singapore in its standard form is essentially the same as standard molay as used in Malaysia and in Brunei. In addition to standard Molay, there's also a molay creole called Baba Malai or Peranakan Malai, which is endangered, but it's still spoken fluently by some older people. The peranakan are the descendants of settlers who married local malaise. This contact of cultures resulted in a creole language with mostly malave vocabulary, but with influence of Chinese grammar. There's another similar form of molay called Bazaar Malaysia or Malaya Pasada, a pigeon form of my leg, which has no native speakers. Decades ago when English was less widely spoken. Bazaar molay often functioned as a Lingua Franca. It's now spoken mainly by some older Singaporeans. Here's an example of bazaar millay. I'll give you a sentence. Meaning when a Singaporean, here's where goods are cheap, he goes there first in Standard Malaya [inaudible] Monday, Nada, 10 Dung, Tim Pat, young men pony I baton Woulda, [inaudible] huggy Kissy to a more or less direct translation into English would be when person of Singapore.

Speaker 1:          11:13          Here's about place that has cheap goods. He will go to there next in bazaar, Millay Singapore up when you're done telling a dia de God man, a young bud, Buddha, the buggy, uh, more or less direct translation of this would be Singapore's person. His ear here, where that goods cheap, he goes in the bazaar millay sentence, the word for when is absent and then we see a different way of expressing Singaporean in standard molay. The word [inaudible], meaning person comes first and the modifying word single Pooda comes after in bazaar millay. The modifier Singapore comes before and followed by the modifying particle Poonja. This word exists in Standard Malaya and means have an actually, you can see it as the root of this word right here and then Brunei. But in bazaar molay it mimics this Chinese modifying particle. Let me point out one more difference in the standard molay sentence.

Speaker 1:          12:10          You see the word for here when the God, but in Bazaar Molay you see Donato in bazaar, Millay affixes are often dropped and the word root is used instead. Tamil, the least widely spoken of the four official languages is Tamil, uh, dravidian language that is spoken primarily in southern India and in some parts of Sri Lanka and has also spoken by a significant minority in Malaysia. It has approximately 70 million native speakers worldwide. In Singapore, 9.1% of the population is of Indian background, but only 3.3% speak Tamil as their main language at home. Many ethnic Indians speak English as their home language or another Indian language or my lay. At the time when Tamil was chosen as an official language, it was spoken by the majority of the Indian population of Singapore. But the language has declined and has now learned as a second language by the majority of the Indian population since it's still their assigned mother tongue.

Speaker 1:          13:10          This information we've discussed so far includes the so called resident population which is comprised of both citizens and permanent residents of Singapore. The total resident population is about 3.9 million but there's also a large non resident population of about 1.7 million people. The term non resident is misleading and you should think of them as non permanent residents or as expatriates because we're not talking about tourists. These are people who do reside in Singapore having one of the freest economies in the world. Singapore has attracted a large number of foreign companies and foreign workers to its shores making Singapore a cosmopolitan business and finance hub where you can hear languages from all over the world being spoken. The main Lingua Franca used amongst these diverse groups of people is English with Mandarin. Also serving as a Lingua Franca for the Chinese community, both residents and non resident with Singapore granting permanent residence and citizenship to new immigrants every year.

Speaker 1:          14:06          The linguistic situation there will certainly continue to be rich and colorful and vibrant. The question of the day for Singaporeans, what languages do you regularly speak and in what situations do you use them? And for other people living in Singapore, what language do you use most often there? If you speak English, what has been your experience with Singaporean English and singlish? Be sure to follow Lang, focus on facebook, twitter, and instagram. And once again, thank you to all of my amazing patrion supporters, especially these ones right here on the screen. They are my top tier patrion supporters. So many thanks to them once again and to all of you, thank you for watching and have a nice day.

Speaker 4:          14:50          Okay. Yeah.