Singlish

Singlish is an English-based creole language native to Singapore. It is the first language of many younger Singaporeans, especially those whose parents do not share a native language or dialect, and is the second language of nearly all the rest of the country's residents.

The vocabulary of Singlish consists of words originating from English, Malay (mainly Bahasa Melayu rather than Indonesian), Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Tamil and to a lesser extent various other European, Indic and Sinitic languages, while Singlish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese. Also, elements of American and Australian slang have come through from imported television series. To date, other Asian languages like Japanese, Korean and other lesser known Chinese dialects such as Shanghainese have also been incorporated into Singlish. Recently, due to the fact that Mandarin is taught to all Singaporean Chinese in school, Mandarin words have also found their way into Singlish.

Singlish is closely related to Manglish of neighboring Malaysia.

The Singaporean government currently discourages the use of Singlish in favour of Singapore Standard English as it believes in the need for Singaporeans to be able to effectively communicate with the other English users in the world. The government runs the Speak Good English Movement to emphasise the point.

Overview

Singlish originated with the arrival of the British and the establishment of English language schools in Singapore. Soon, English filtered out of schools and onto the streets, to be picked up by non-English-speakers in a pidgin-like form for communication purposes. After some time, this new form of English, now loaded with substantial influences from Indian English, Baba Malay, and the southern varieties of Chinese, became the language of the streets and began to be learned "natively" in its own right. Creolization occurred, and Singlish then became a fully formed, stabilized, and independent English creole.

Singlish shares substantial linguistic similarities with Malaysian English (Manglish) in Malaysia, although distinctions can be made, particularly in vocabulary. Manglish generally now receives more Malay influence and Singlish more Chinese (Mandarin, Hokkien etc.) influence.

Initially, "Singlish" and "Manglish" were essentially the same language, when Singapore and peninsular Malaysia were a single geographic entity — Malaya. In Malaya, English was the language of the British administration whilst Malay was spoken as the lingua franca of the street. Thus, even the Chinese would revert to Malay when speaking to Chinese people who did not speak the same Chinese varieties. The Chinese varieties themselves also contained many loan-words from Malay, eg Cantonese: baa sat, lo di (from Malay 'pasar', 'roti' meaning 'market', 'bread'), Hokkien gu li, jam bban (from Malay 'guli', 'jamban' meaning 'marble', 'latrine'/WC).

File:Danger-keep-out-sign.jpg

Many signs in Singapore include all four official languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. In this multilingual environment, it is hardly surprising that the local English has become influenced by other languages.

After Singapore's independence in 1965, and successive "Speak Mandarin" campaigns, a subtle language shift among the post-'65 generation became more and more evident as Malay idiomatic expressions were, and continued to be, displaced by idioms borrowed from Chinese spoken varieties, such as Hokkien.

The English language in Singapore is a sociolect continuum. The continuum runs through the following varieties:

Acrolectal: This is the "highest-class" form of speech, used by the well-educated in formal situations. Acrolectal Singaporean English is roughly the same as formal British English with the exception of some pronunciation differences that occur due to the influence of Singlish pronunciation [1]. Acrolectal Singaporean English does exhibit, however, a much smaller degree of Singlish pronunciation features than do Mesolectal, Basilectal, and pidgin variants of Singlish. For example, speakers of acrolectal Singaporean English attempt to restore the phonemes /θ/ and /ð/ (as in thin and then).

Mesolectal: This is more "middle-class", and is used in formal and semi-formal situations. At this level, features not found in other forms of English begin to emerge.

Basilectal: This is the colloquial speech used by almost everyone, educated or not, in informal settings, and is the speech usually referred to as "Singlish". Here can be found all of the unique phonological, lexical, and grammatical features of Singlish. Many of these features can be attributed to Asian languages such as the Chinese languages, Malay, or Indian languages such as Tamil, though some cannot.

Pidgin: This is the "pidgin" level of Singlish, which is probably a good representative of an earlier stage of Singlish, before creolization took place and solidified Singlish as a fully formed creole. Like all pidgins, speakers at the pidgin level speak another language as a first language, and Singlish as a second language. However, since many people today learn Singlish natively, the number of speakers at the "pidgin" level of Singlish is dwindling. This is because by definition, a pidgin is not learned natively.

The coexistence of basilectal Singlish and acrolectal Standard English can also be analysed as a diglossia, which is a split between a "high" formal language and a "low" informal language.

The Sociolect Continuum of Singaporean English
Each of the following means the same thing, but the basilectal and mesolectal versions incorporate some colloquial additions for illustrative purposes.

Basilect ("Singlish") "Dis guy Singrish si beh powderful sia. Hoh seh liao lah! Damn steady wan la!"

Mesolect "Dis guy Singlish damn powerful one leh."

Acrolect ("Standard") "This person's Singlish is very good."

The phenomenon of code switching, or the alternation between multiple languages within the same conversation, further complicates the linguistic situation in Singapore. Since many Singaporeans can speak English at multiple points along the sociolect spectrum, code switching can occur very frequently between acrolectal and basilectal Singaporean English. In addition, as many Singaporeans are also speakers of the Chinese languages, Malay, or Indian languages such as Tamil, code switching between English and other languages also occurs very frequently.

Usage in society

Due to its origins, Singlish shares many similarities with pidgin varieties of English, and can easily give the impression of "broken English" or "bad English" to a speaker of some other, less divergent variety of English. In addition, the profusion of Singlish features, especially loanwords from Asian languages, mood particles, and topic-prominent structure, can easily make Singlish incomprehensible to a speaker of standard English. As a result, the use of Singlish is greatly frowned on by the government, and two former prime ministers, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong,have publicly declared that Singlish is substandard English that handicaps Singaporeans, presents an obstacle to learning proper English, and renders the speaker incomprehensible to everyone except another speaker. Current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong has also said that Singlish should not be part of Singapore's identity. In the interest of promoting equality and better communication with the rest of the world, in 2000 the government launched the Speak Good English Movement to eradicate it, at least from formal usage. In spite of this, in recent years the use of Singlish on television and radio has proliferated as localised Singlish continues to be popular among Singaporeans.

Singlish is strongly discouraged in Singaporean schools at a governmental level as it is believed to hinder the proper learning of standard English, and so faces a situation of diglossia. The use of Singlish when speaking in classes or to teachers, however officially frowned upon, is rather inevitable given that many teachers themselves are comfortable with the variety For many students, using Singlish is also inevitable when interacting with their peers, siblings, parents and elders. In polytechnics, students feel the greater need to socialise with their peers in a learning environment less rigid than primary or secondary school, and as a result Singlish is popular . The government continues to wage an uphill battle in discouraging students from developing a Singlish-speaking habit.

Singaporean men find speaking Singlish necessary during their time in the military, or national service (NS), as Singlish has replaced Hokkien as the standard vernacular in the Singapore Armed Forces. The informality of Singlish fits well in stressful training situations, and are used among soldiers regardless of ethnic groups and level of education . Many phrases originating in the military have filtered into the lexicon over the years and they have become a method of distinguishing those who have undergone NS (National Service). One such phrase is kena arrow.

In most workplaces, Singlish is avoided in formal settings, especially at job interviews, meetings with clients, presentations or meetings . Nonetheless, select Singlish phrases are sometimes injected into discussions to build rapport or for a humorous effect, especially when the audience consists mainly of locals.

In other informal settings, such as during conversation with friends, or transactions in kopi tiams (coffee shops) and shopping malls, Singlish is used without restriction. The only exception is that that it may be considered impolite to speak Singlish when a foreigner is present, as it is likely that he or she will have difficulty comprehending what is being said.

It should also be noted that Singlish itself consists of a diverse continuum ranging from an acrolect that is very similar to British or American English, to a mesolect that is more divergent, to a basilect that is nearly incomprehensible to the average native speaker of English. In a formal situation, the acrolect may be acceptable, while the basilect would be unacceptable; in an informal situation, the situation may be reversed with the acrolect being too stiff and the basilect more acceptable.

Singapore humour writer Sylvia Toh Paik Choo was the first to put a spelling and a punctuation to Singlish in her books Eh Goondu (1982) and Lagi Goondu (1986) which are essentially a glossary of Singlish which she terms 'Pasar Patois'.

Phonology

Background

Singlish pronunciation, while built on a base of British English, is also heavily influenced by Chinese and Malay.

There is variation within Singlish, both geographically and ethnically. Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and other ethnic groups in Singapore all have distinct accents.

The East Coast area, particularly the districts that stretch from Siglap to Katong, is renowned as a the prestigious aerie of this ex-British colony. A residential and cultural mecca of sorts for the British civil servants, the elite Chinese tycoons, the aristocratic Peranakan and the Eurasian communities that formed from intermarriages, the East Coast accent is the de facto acrolectal accent of Singapore. The East Coast community is the "English-educated" or "English-ed" community in Singapore.

All of these communities were formed by the earliest immigrants to Singapore and thus have been British subjects for at least 3 or more generations. Thus, they have received no other "native education" than solely British colonial education. Especially true for those born before 1965, all of the education received has been direct English rather than British influences. Many of the East Coast communities were descendants or in other ways, privileged to be granted British colonial education similar to those in Britain. As such the acrolectal standard of English does not diverge from the acrolectal standard in Great Britain at this time.

The English-educated in Singapore received their English pedagogical instruction through missionary schools and convents such as the Anglo-Chinese School ACS, Methodist Girls' School MGS, Marymount Convent School, Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (Katong Convent), Canossa's Convent (now defunct). However, as decolonization occurred, many expatriate English returned to Britain and the post-65 generation - those that were born with the nationality as "Singaporean" rather than as "British subjects" became increasingly taught by non-native teachers. In the late 1990s, due to budget constraints and privatization of public schools, the standard of English language instruction fell, leading to confusion of grammar and vocabulary. Hence, in an unregulated socio-linguistic environment, the spontaneous varieties of a creolized English began to form after the 1960s. English language began to be taught by native Malay teachers as many affluent middle-class Singapore born Chinese found careers in banking and corporate sectors or abroad and Singapore born European, Eurasian and Indian communities (the group most fluent in colonial English due to the long history of colonization in India) built legal careers that were more commercially viable.

As such, since the 1990s, the English being taught in public schools has been influenced by Malay intonation and grammatical roots. Being originally a Malay island, the Government thus had to give priority to the indigenous minority of Singapura to avoid racial tensions and conflicts that led to many riots and deaths in the 1960s. Prominent members of society still speak the acrolectal Queen's English in formal situations including Benjamin Sheares, David Marshall, Harry Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Siew Chow, Francis Seow and other affluent descendants of the East Coast communities.

However, after 1965, with colonial attitudes being unpopular politically, a new "culture-free" English was promoted through the newsreading of television newscasters in the former SBC (Singapore Broadcasting Corporation), through to its renaming as TCS (Television Corporation of Singapore) and to the current MediaCorp. This post-1965 accent, often ridiculed and slightly satirized in Singapore theatre by the English-educated classes, is known as the "Channel 5 accent" named after the English Channel owned by the State media group. This gave rise to a new standard of artificially-constructed but standardised acrolectal English for Singapore that did not equate to Received Pronunciation in Britain but corresponded to the latter's social function and status within the new Singaporean national context due to draconian state monopoly, censorship and control over media in this early stage of Singaporean national politics. Despite this, the more affluent English-educated classes continued to support the original Christian missionary and Convent schools financially to stem the degradation of English language instruction. Despite all attempts, the English language in Singapore began to naturally creolize. The post-1965 English-educated accent is hence different from that of the pre-1965 "English-ed accent". For example, PM Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Hsien Yang, sons of the political figure Lee Kuan Yew, do not speak their father's Queen's English accent. The pure English diphthongs in words like "home", the liaison in pronunciation of "r" at the end of words ending with "r" followed by a word beginning with a vowel (such as "ever emerging", pronounced in Queen's English as "eveR emerging" does not occur. Instead, diphthongs are converted into simplified vowels, and elements of Chinese, Malay and other accents and influences begin to exert itself on the evolving acrolect.

In the East Coast, the teaching professions, especially teaching English, was a popular option in the European, Eurasian, Peranakan and Chinese communities who descended from privileged colonial Civil Service families for the Queen's Crown, from the beginning of the last century up till the 1970's. From 1970s onwards, the permanent decolonization meant that the original Queen's English taught began to experience deformation and modification from other languages. As a result, whole generations of school-children in the Siglap/Katong districts were taught English with an "English-ed", modified Queen's English accent minimally influenced by Eurasian, Peranakan and Hokkien Chinese intonation. Their Siglap/Katong accent, though not a pure form of Queen's English, is considered to be the prestigious variant of English in Singapore. Because the East Coast / Katong crowd is also the ruling and civil service classes, many uneducated immigrant Chinese, Malay (from Malaysia), Indian (new Tamil immigrants) who are trapped in the lower rungs of the social scale, often mock and ridicule this "un-modern" and "foreign-sounding" English. With the rise of the consumerist and mass middle-class, second-generation immigrants of humble origins have begun to deliberately deform taught acrolectal English for street pidgin patois as a form of identity-creation, self-actualization and self-determination.

Parallel to this, British economic, political and linguistic influence began to decline starkly throughout the world as colonies gained independence, such as India, while the United States of America rose as a superpower and American English superseded as the international economic and cultural prestige variant. This change became more pervasive with the rise of Hollywood and American popular culture. As such, even among the "English-educated classes", the type and use of English shifted again as more affluent families, scholarship boards and charities sent the youth to boarding schools, colleges and universities in the United States over the United Kingdom. Many more Singaporeans then began to be born abroad to a jetsetting English-ed class and descendants of the ex-Civil Service class for left for higher-paying education, legal and corporate positions in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and a huge middle-class segment to Australia and New Zealand. As such, the English-educated class born after 1965 do not speak the Queen's English any more, nor do they hold the "Channel 5 accent" as a standard, reverting between the prestige variant of the countries they received schooling in, and the bourgeois patois for familiarity. As such, the English-ed accent in Singapore has become an international hybrid similar to that of affluent families in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo. This constitutes about less than 5 per cent of the population.

This English-ed accent has become an extremely controversial issue in Singapore as it obviously reflects the socio-economic and class divides in a supposedly meritocratic society. The results of meritocracy are not a politically comforting answer because they spell "class divide" and "class tensions". Many in the lower middling classes and better-informed students also started to imitate the American English and British English they receive from popular and instructional media and abandoned the often erroneous intonations, pronunciations from their teachers, in part fired by adolescent rebellion.

Meanwhile, the poorer classes who could not even afford to or have access to UK and US-based media sources and who could not even cope with the economic pressures of day-to-day living suffered. Despite the rapid transformation and success of Singapore into an Asian Tiger along with Hong Kong, South Korean and Taiwan from Newly Industrialized Countries (NIC) status in the 1980s, wage differentials and class divides widened. Many poorer Singapore-born children failed to learn the acrolectal standard prescribed by society. They could have been more fluent in their mother tongue such as the various Chinese and Malay languages, than they were in English. However, due to the importance of English language for university entrance, many of those from more humble families entered the polytechnic track instead of the prestigious pre-university junior college education track. This class pushed for the widespread use and acceptance of Singlish because as a result of their education and environment in which they were born in, they are neither here nor there and can only communicate in a pidgin, generalized as "Singlish". This gave rise to the popularity of shows highlighting the Singlish problem, or even using Singlish dialogue such as "The Ra Ra Show", "Phua Chu Kang", "Under One Roof" by 'Channel 5'.

Social reactions were mixed in all levels of Singapore, from the government civil service to the lower rungs of society, many were repulsed, relieved, gained pride, felt ashamed depending on their family background and personal socio-political objectives. When unemployment rose during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, Singlish came under official attack as undermining an economic competitivity factor - English language fluency. For linguists and sociologists, it is interesting to note that the phenomenon is not unique to Singapore. Post-colonization and post-handover Hong Kong experienced a similar "Chinglish" phenomenon, an Asian linguistic diglossia.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p b			t d			k g
Affricates					tʃ dʒ
Fricatives		f (v)	(θ ð)	s (z)	ʃ (ʒ)			h
Nasals	m			n			ŋ
Laterals				l
Approximants	w			r		j

(See International Phonetic Alphabet for an in-depth guide to the symbols.)

In general:

• The dental fricatives — /θ/ and /ð/ — merge with /t/ and /d/, so that three = tree and then = den. In syllable-final position, -th is pronounced as -f /f/, so with and birth are pronounced wiff /wif/ and birff /bəf/ respectively . Under the influence of with, without is often pronounced with /v/ in place of /ð/: /wivaut/. The dental fricatives do occur in acrolectal speech, though even among educated speakers there is some variation.

• The voiceless stops — /p/, /t/ and /k/ — are sometimes unaspirated, especially among Malays. (Aspiration refers to the strong puff of air that may accompany the release of these stop consonants.) The acoustic effect of this is that the Singlish pronunciation of pat, tin and come sound more similar to bat, din, and gum than in other varieties of English.

• The distinction between /l/ and /r/ is not stable at the basilectal level, as evinced by TV personality Phua Chu Kang's oft-repeated refrain to "Use your blain!" (use your brain) and "'Don pray pray!'" (Don't play-play, i.e. Don't fool around). One might note, however, that both these examples involve initial consonant clusters (/bl/ and /pl/ respectively), and conflation of /l/ and /r/ is found less often when they are not part of a cluster.

• /l/ at the end of a syllable, pronounced as a velarised "dark l" in British or American English, is often so velarised in Singlish that it approaches the Close-mid back unrounded vowel [ɤ], e.g. sale [seɤ]. /l/ also tends to be lost after the back vowels /ɔ/, /o/, /u/, and for some basilectal speakers, the central vowel /ə/. Hence pall = paw /pɔ/, roll = row /ro/, tool = two /tu/, and for some, pearl = per /pə/

• Syllabic consonants never occur. Hence taken [tekən] and battle [bɛtəɤ], never [tekn̩] or [bɛtl̩]. When the final /l/ is vocalised, little and litter may be homophones.

• [ʔ], the glottal stop, is inserted at the beginning of all words starting with a vowel, similar to German. As a result, final consonants do not experience liaison, i.e. run onto the next word. For example, "run out of eggs" would be "run-nout-to-veggs" in most dialects of English (e.g. [rʌ nau ɾə vɛgz] in General American), but "run 'out 'of 'eggs" (e.g. [rʌn ʔau ʔɔf ʔeks] in Singlish. This contributes to what some have described as the 'staccato effect' of Singapore English.

• [ʔ] replaces final plosive consonants of syllables in regular- to fast-paced speed speech, especially stops: Goodwood Park becomes Gu'-wu' Pa' /guʔ wuʔ pɑʔ/, and there may be a glottal stop at the end of words such as back and out..

• In final position, the distinction between voiced and voiceless sounds — i.e. /s/ & /z/, /t/ & /d/, etc. — is usually not maintained, especially for fricatives. As a result, cease = seize /sis/ and race = raise /res/.. This leads to some mergers of noun/verb pairs, such as belief with believe /bilif/.

• Final consonant clusters simplify, especially in fast speech. In general, stops, especially /t/ and /d/, are lost if they come after another consonant: bent = Ben /bɛn/, tact = tack /tɛk/, nest = Ness /nɛs/. /s/ is also commonly lost at the end of a consonant cluster: relax = relac /rilɛk/.

Vowels

Broadly speaking, there is a one-to-many mapping of Singlish vowel phonemes to British Received Pronunciation vowel phonemes, with a few exceptions (as discussed below, with regard to egg and peg). The following describes a typical system. Some speakers may further merge /e/ and /ɛ/; other speakers (especially better educated ones) make a distinction between /i/ and /ɪ/, /ɛ/ and /ɛə/, or /ɑ/ and /ʌ/. There is generally no distinction between the non-close front monophthongs, so pet and pat are pronounced the same /pɛt/.

At the acrolectal level, the merged vowel phonemes are distinguished to some extent, and for some speakers elements from American English are introduced, such as post-vocalic [r] (pronouncing the "r" in bird, port, etc.). Current estimates are that about 20 per cent of university undergraduates sometimes use this American-style post-vocalic [r] when reading a pasage.

Monophthongs

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e	ə	o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		ɑ

Diphthongs

ai

au

ɔi

iə

uə

Mapping between Singlish and British RP vowels:

Singlish phoneme	RP phoneme(s)	as in
/i/	/iː/	meet
	/ɪ/	pit
/e/	/eɪ/	day
	/ɛ/ (before a voiced plosive)	leg
/ɛ/	/ɛ/	set
	/æ/	map
	/ɛə/	hair
/ɑ/	/ɑː/	car
		pass
		father
	/ʌ/	bus
	/aɪ/ (before /l/)	mile
/ɔ/	/ɒ/	mock
	/ɔː/	thought
		court
/o/	/əʊ/	low
/u/	/uː/	food
	/ʊ/	put
/ə/ - see below	/ɜː/	bird
	/ə/	idea
		better
/ai/	/aɪ/	my
/au/	/aʊ/	mouth
/ɔi/	/ɔɪ/	boy
/jə/	/ɪə/	here
/wə/	/ʊə/	tour
/jɔ/	/jʊə/	cure
/ai jə/	/aɪə/	fire
/au wə/	/aʊə/	power

• /ɛ/ remains /ɛ/ in Singlish, except when followed by a voiced plosive (/b/, /d/, or /g/), in which case it becomes /e/ among some speakers. However, this is not entirely predictable, as egg has a close vowel (so it rhymes with vague) while peg has an open vowel (and rhymes with tag); and similarly for most speakers bed has a close vowel (so it rhymes with made), while fed has a more open vowel (the same vowel as in bad). Which vowel occurs in each word therefore appears in these cases not to be predictable.

• /ai/ remains /ai/ in Singlish, except when followed by /l/, in which case it is the monophthong /ɑ/.

• Examples of words have idiosyncratic pronunciations: flour /flɑ/ (expected: /flɑ wə/ = flower),; and their /djɑ/ (expected: /dɛ/ = there). Flour/flower and their/there are therefore not homophones in Singlish.

• In general, Singlish vowels are tenser — there are no lax vowels (which RP has in pit, put, and so forth).

• The vowels in words such as day /de/ and low /lo/ are pronounced with less glide than the comparable diphthongs in RP, so they can be regarded as monophthongs — i.e. vowels with no glide.

• Where other varieties of English have an unstressed /ə/, i.e. a reduced vowel, Singlish tends to use the full vowel based on orthography. This can be seen in words such as accept /ɛksɛp/, example /ɛ(k)sɑmpəl/, purchase /pətʃes/, maintenance /mentɛnəns/, presentation /prisɛnteʃən/, and so on. However, this does not mean that the reduced vowel /ə/ never occurs, as about and again have /ə/ in their first syllable. It seems that the letter 'a' is often pronounced as /ə/, but the letter 'o' usually has a full vowel quality, especially in the con prefix (control, consider, etc.). There is a greater tendency to use a full vowel in a syllable which is closed off with a final consonant, so a full vowel is much more likely at the start of absorb /ɛbzɔb/ than afford /əfɔd/.

• In loanwords from Hokkien that contain nasal vowels, the nasalisation is often kept — one prominent example being the mood particle hor, pronounced as [hõ].

Prosody

One of the most prominent and noticeable features of Singlish is its unique intonation pattern, which is quite unlike British, American or Australian English, etc.. For example:

• Singlish is syllable-timed compared to most traditional varieties of English, which are usually stress-timed. This in turn gives Singlish rather a staccato feel.

• There is a tendency to use a rise-fall tone to indicate special emphasis. A rise-fall tone can occur quite often on the final word of an utterance, for example on the word cycle in "I will try to go to the park to cycle" without carrying any of the suggestive meaning associated with a rise-fall tone in British English. In fact, a rise-fall tone may be found on as many as 21 per cent of declaratives, and this use of the tone can convey a sense of strong approval or disapproval.

• There is a lack of the de-accenting that is found in other dialects of English (e.g. British and American), so information that is repeated or predictable is still given full prominence.

• There is often an 'early booster' at the start of an utterance, so an utterance like "I think they are quite nice and interesting magazines" may have a very high pitch occurring on the word think.

File:Coxford Singlish Dictionary.jpg

Coxford Singlish Dictionary, a published book on Singlish

• There may be greater movement over individual syllables in Singlish than in other varieties of English. This makes Singlish sound as if it has the tones of Chinese, especially when speakers sometimes maintain the original tones of words that are borrowed into Singlish from Chinese languages.

Overall, the differences between the different ethnic communities in Singapore are most evident in the patterns of intonation, so for example Malay Singaporeans often have the main pitch excursion later in an utterance than ethnically Chinese and Indian Singaporeans.

Grammar

The grammar of Singlish has been heavily influenced by other languages and dialects in the region, such as Malay and Chinese, with some structures being identical to ones in Mandarin and other Chinese languages. As a result, Singlish has acquired some unique features, especially at the basilectal level. Note that all of the features described below disappear at the acrolectal level, as people in formal situations tend to adjust their speech towards accepted norms found in other varieties of English.

Topic prominence

Singlish is topic-prominent, like Chinese and Japanese. This means that Singlish sentences often begin with a topic (or a known reference of the conversation), followed by a comment (or new information) Compared to other varieties of English, the semantic relationship between topic and comment is not important; moreover, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and even entire subject-verb-object phrases can all serve as the topic:

• Dis country weather very hot one. — In this country, the weather is very warm.
• Dat person there cannot trust. — That person over there is not trustworthy.
• Tomorrow dun need bring camera. — You don't need to bring a camera tomorrow.
• He play soccer also very good one leh. — He's very good at playing soccer too.

The above constructions can be translated analogously into Chinese, with little change to the word order.

The topic can be omitted when the context is clear, or shared between clauses. This results in constructions that appear to be missing a subject to a speaker of British, American, South African, Australian, or New Zealand English, and so called PRO-drop utterances may be regarded as a diagnostic feature of Singapore Colloquial English (or 'Singlish') . For example:

• Not good one lah. — This isn't good.
• Cannot anihow go liddat one leh. — You/it can't go just like that.
• How come never show up? — Why didn't you/he/it show up? (See the use of never in place of didn't under the "Past tense" section.)
• I li badminton, dat's why I every weekend go play. — I like badminton, so I play it every weekend.
• He not feel well, so he stay home sleep lor. — He's not feeling well, so he decided to stay home and sleep.

Nouns

Nouns are optionally marked for plurality. Articles are also optional.. For example:

• He can play piano.
• I like to read storybook.
• Your computer got virus anot? (Does your computer have viruses?)

It is more common to mark the plural in the presence of a modifier that implies plurality, such as "many" or "four".

Many nouns which seem logically to refer to a countable item are used in the plural, including furniture and clothing. Examples of this usage from corpus recordings are:

• so I bought a lot of furnitures from IKEA
• I had to borrow some winter clothings

To be

The copula, which is the verb "to be" in most varieties of English, is treated somewhat differently in Singlish:

When occurring with an adjective or adjective phrase, the verb "to be" tends to be omitted:

• I damn naughty.

Sometimes, an adverb such as "very" occurs, and this is reminiscent of Chinese usage of the word 'hen' (很）:

• Dis house very nice.

It is also common for the verb "to be" to be omitted before passives:

• She punished.

and before the "-ing" form of the verb. :

• I still finding.
• How come you so late you still playing music, ah?
• You looking for trouble, izzit?

Slightly less common is the dropping out of "to be" when used as an equative between two nouns, or as a locative:

• De one de wife lah. ("That lady is his wife.")
• Dis boy the class monitor. (=class president)
• His house in Ang Mo Kio.

In general, "to be" drops out more after nouns and pronouns (except "I", "he", and "she"), and much less after a clause (what I think is...) or a demonstrative (this is...).

Past tense

Past tense marking is optional in Singlish. Marking of the past tense occurs most often in strong verbs (or irregular verbs), as well as verbs where the past tense suffix is pronounced as /ɪd/ . For example:

• I went to Orchard Road yesterday.
• He accepted in de end.

Due to consonant cluster simplification, the past tense is most often unmarked when it is pronounced as /t/ or /d/ at the end of a consonant cluster:

• He talk for so long, never stop, not even when I ask him.

The past tense is more likely to be marked if the verb describes an isolated event (it is a punctual verb), and it tends to be unmarked if the verb in question represents an action that goes on for an extended period:

• When I was young, ah, I go to school every day.
• When he was in school, he always get good marks one.
• Last night I mug so much, so sian already. (to mug is to cram for an examination. sian is an adjective for "bored/tired".)

There seems also to be a tendency to avoid use of the past tense to refer to someone who is still alive:

• the tour guide, he speaks Mandarin

Note in the final example that although he speaker is narrating a story, she probably uses the present tense in the belief that the tour guide is probably still alive (and maybe to avoid putting a curse on him!).

Change of state

Instead of the past tense, a change of state can be expressed by adding already or liao (/liɑ̂u/) to the end of the sentence, analogous to Chinese 了 (le). This is not the same as the past tense, but more of an aspect, as it does not cover past habitual or continuous occurrences, and it can refer to a real or hypothetical change of state in the past, present or future.

The frequent use of already in Singapore English is probably a direct influence of the Hokkien liao particle. For example:

• Aiyah, cannot wait any more, must go oreddy. (Oh dear, I cannot wait any longer. I must leave immediately.)
• Yesterday, dey go there oreddy. (They already went there yesterday.)
• Ah Song kena sai oreddy, then how? (If Ah Song were to get in trouble, what would you do?)

Some examples of the direct use of the Hokkien particle are:

• He throw it liao. (He has already thrown it away.)
• I eat liao. (I ate or I have eaten.)
• This new game, you play liao or not? (As for this new game, have you played it yet?)

Negation

Negation works in general like English, with not added after "to be", "to have", or modals, and don't before all other verbs. Contractions (can't, shouldn't) are used alongside their uncontracted forms.

However, due to final cluster simplification, the -t drops out from negative forms, and -n may also drop out after nasalising the previous vowel. This makes nasalisation the only mark of the negative.

• I do ([dõ]) want. — I don't want to.

Another effect of this is that in the verb "can", its positive and negative forms are distinguished only by vowel:

• I can /kɛn/ do this lah.
• I can't /kɑn/ do this lah.

Also, never is used as a negative past tense marker, and does not have to carry the English meaning. In this construction, the negated verb is never put into the past-tense form:

• How come today you never (=didn't) hand in homework?
• How come he never (=didn't) pay just now?

Interrogative

In addition to the usual way of forming yes-no questions, Singlish uses two more constructions:

In a construction similar (but not identical) to Chinese, or not is appended to the end of sentences to form yes/no questions. Or not cannot be used with sentences already in the negative:

• This book you want or not? — Do you want this book?
• Can or not? — Is this possible / permissible?

The phrase is it is also appended to the end of sentences to form yes-no questions. It is generic like the French n'est-ce pas? (isn't it so?), regardless of the actual verb in the sentence. Is it implies that the speaker is simply confirming something he/she has already inferred:

• They never study, is it? (No wonder they fail!)
• You don't like that, is it? (No wonder you had that face!)
• Alamak, you guys never read newspaper is it? — "What, haven't you guys ever read a newspaper?" (No wonder you aren't up to date!)

The phrase isn't it also occurs when the speaker thinks the hearer might disagree with the assertion.

There are also many discourse particles, such as hah, hor, meh, ar, that are used in questions. (See the "Discourse particles" section further down in this article.)

Reduplication

Another feature strongly reminiscent of Chinese and Malay, verbs are often repeated (e.g., TV personality Phua Chu Kang's "don't pray-pray!" pray = play.) In general verbs are repeated twice to indicate the delimitative aspect (that the action goes on for a short period), and three times to indicate greater length and continuity:

• You go ting ting a little bit, maybe den you will get answer. (Go and think over it for a while, and then you might understand.)
• So what I do was, I sit down and I ting ting ting, until I get answer lor. (So I sat down, thought, thought and thought, until I understood.)

The use of verb repetition also serves to provide a more vivid description of an activity:

• Want to go Orcher walk walk see see or not? (Let's go shopping/sightseeing at Orchard Road.)
• Dun anyhow touch here touch there leh. (Please don't mess with my things.)

In another usage reminiscent of Chinese, nouns referring to people can be repeated for intimacy. Most commonly, monosyllabic nouns are repeated:

• My boy-boy is going to Primary One oreddy. (My son is about to enter Year/Grade/Standard One.)
• We two fren-fren one. (We are close friends.)

However, occasionally reduplication is also found with bisyllabic nouns:

• We buddy-buddy. You don't play me out, OK?
• Im the kind who is buddy-buddy person.

Adjectives of one or two syllables can also be repeated for intensification:

• You go take the small-small one ah. (Retrieve the smaller item, please.)

Due to the frequent use of these repetitions on short words, Singlish expressions often sound to speakers of American or British English as if they are spoken by children, which non-Singlish speakers find quite amusing, and contributes to the impression of Singlish as an informal and sometimes intimate language.

Kena

Kena is used as an auxiliary to mark the passive voice, in addition to "to be" and "to get". It is derived from a Malay word that means "to encounter or to come into physical contact", and is only used with objects that have a negative effect or connotation. It is interesting to note that verbs after kena may appear in the infinitive form (i.e. without tense) or as a past participle. It is similar in meaning to passive markers in Chinese, such as Hokkien tio or Mandarin 被 bèi:

• He was scolded. = He got scolded. = He kena scold/scolded.
• If you don't listen to me, you will get punished, after which you will know that you were wrong = If u dun listen, later you get punished, and then you know = dun listen, later you kena punish/punished then you know.

Note that kena is not used with positive things:

• *He kena praised.
• *He kena lottery.
• *He kena jackpot. (huge winnings from playing the slot machine)

Usage of kena as in the above examples will not be understood, and may even be greeted with a confused reply: But strike lottery good wat! (But it's a good thing to strike the lottery!). However, when used in sarcasm, kena can be used, for example:

• He kena jackpot, come back to school after so long den got so much homework! (He received a lot of homework upon returning to school after a long absence.)

When the context is given, Kena may be used without a verb:

• Better clean the room, otherwise you kena. (You will be punished if you don't tidy the room.)
• Dun listen to me, later you kena.

Using another auxiliary verb with kena is perfectly acceptable as well:

• Better clean the room, otherwise you will kena.
• Dun listen to me, later you will kena.

Some examples of Singlish phrases with Kena:

• kena arrow: be assigned an undesirable task. (derives from National Service/military practice of placing arrows on a name list to denote those responsible for a task)
• kena bully: get bullied
• kena fine: get 'fined', or charged by the police
• kena hantam: be hit by something, such as a ball, or to be beaten up
• kena sabo: become a victim of sabotage or a practical joke
• kena sai: literally "hit by shit"; be harmed by an unpleasant event or object
• kena tekan: tekan means "press", as in "pressure", in Malay; the phrase means to be physically tortured or punished. Often used in the army, which all male citizens must serve in.
• kena whack: be beaten badly, in games or in physical fights
• kena ban/silence: one of the newer uses of kena, it means to be banned/silenced in a computer game. Please note the "silence" is only used when silenced from talking in chat by GMs (Game Masters), not having the "silence" effect that stops you from doing spells.

One

The word one is used to emphasize the predicate of the sentence by implying that it is unique and characteristic. It is analogous to the use of particles like 嘅 ge in Cantonese, 啲 e in Hokkien, or 的 de in southern-influenced Mandarin. One used in this way does not correspond to any use of the word "one" in British, American English, Australian English, etc: It can be compared to the British usage of 'eh'. It might also be analysed as a relative pronoun, though it occurs at the end of the relative clause instead of the beginning (as in Standard English)

• Wah lau! So stupid one! - Oh my gosh! He's so stupid!
• I do everything by habit one. - I always do everything by habit.
• He never go school one. - He doesn't go to school (unlike other people).

Under the influence of southern-influenced Mandarin, de can also be used in place of one.

Then

The word then is often pronounced or written as den /dɛn/. When used, it represents different meanings in different contexts. In this section, the word is referred to as den.

i) "Den" can be synonymous with "so" or "therefore". When it is intended to carry the meaning of "therefore", it is often used to explain one's blunder/negative consequences. In such contexts, it is a translation from Chinese "所以".

• I sleeping mah, den never check phone lor. - I was asleep, so I didn't see your SMS
• Never do homework den kena scolding lor. - I did not do my homework, therefore I got a scolding

Be careful that "den" cannot be freely interchanged with "so". It will sound grammatically erroneous when employed inappropriately. The following examples are inappropriate:

• I'm tired, den I'm going to sleep.
• I'm late, den I'm going to take a taxi.

ii) "Den" is also used to describe an action that will be performed later.

• I go home liao den call you. - I will call you when I reach home
• Later den say. - We'll discuss this later

iii) "Den" can used at the beginning of a sentence as a link to the previous sentence. In such cases, it often carries a connotation of an exclamation.

• I was at a park. Den hor, I was attacked by dinosaur leh!
• I woke up at 10. Den boss saw me coming in late. So suay!

iv) "Den" can be used to return an insult/negative comment back to the originator. When used in such a way, there must first be an insult/negative comment from another party. In such contexts, it is a translation from Chinese "才".

• A: You're so stupid!
• B: You den stupid la - You're the stupid one

• A: You're late!
• B: You den late hor. - You're the late one

v) "Den?" can be used as a single-worded phrase. Even if "den" is used in a single-worded phrase, even with the same pronunciation, it can represent 4 different meanings. It can either be synonymous with "so what?", or it can be a sarcastic expression that the other party is making a statement that arose from his/her actions, or similarly an arrogant expression which indicating that the other party is stating the obvious, or it can be used as a short form for "what happened then?".

[Synonymous with "so what?"]

• A: I slept at 4 last night leh...
• B: Den?

[Sacarstic expression] Speakers tend to emphasize the pronunciation of 'n'. Context: A is supposed to meet B before meeting a larger group but A is late for the first meeting

• A: Late liao leh...
• B: Dennn?

[Arrogant expression] Speakers have the option of using "Den" in a phrase, as in "Ah Bu Den" or "Ah Den"

• A: Wah seh! You actually make this computer all by yourself ah?
• B: Ah Bah Den!

[What happened then?]

• A: I found $100 today...
• B: Den?

Discourse particles

Particles in Singlish are highly comparable to Chinese. In general, discourse particles occur at the end of a sentence. Their presence changes the meaning or the tone of the sentence, but not its grammaticality.

Particles are noted for keeping their tones regardless of the remainder of the sentence. Most of the particles are directly borrowed from southern Chinese varieties, with the tones intact.

Lah

The ubiquitous word lah (/lɑ́/ or /lɑ̂/), rarely spelled as larh or luh, is used at the end of a sentence. It may originate from the Chinese character (啦, Pinyin: Lè/Là), though its usage in Singapore is also influenced by its occurrence in Malay. It simultaneously softens the force of an utterance and entices solidarity, though it can also have the opposite meaning so it is used to signal power. In addition, there are suggestions that there is more than one lah particle, so there may be a stressed and an unstressed variant and perhaps as many as nine tonal variants, all having a special pragmatic function

Note that 'lah' is often written after a comma for clarity, but there is never a pause before a lah. This is because in Malay, 'lah' is appended to the end of the word and is not a separate word by itself. It must also be noted that although 'lah' is usually spelled in the Malay fashion, its use is more akin to the Hokkien use.

In Malay, 'lah' is used to change a verb into a command or to soften its tone, particularly when usage of the verb may seem impolite. To drink is minum, but 'Here, drink!' is "minumlah!". Similarly, 'lah' is frequently used with imperatives in Singlish:

• Drink lah! — Come on, just Drink!

'Lah' also occurs frequently with "Yah" and "No" (hence "Yah lah" and "No lah"). This can, with the appropriate tone, result in a less-brusque declaration and facilitate the flow of conversation. (On the other hand, 'lah' with a low tone might indicate impatience.)

Lah is often used with brusque, short, negative responses:

• I dun have lah! — I just don't have any of that (which you were requesting)!
• Dun know oreddy lah! — Argh, I don't know anymore than what I told you! or I give up trying to understand this!

Lah is also used for reassurance:

• Dun worry, he can one lah. — Don't worry, he definitely can do it.
• Okay lah. — It's all right. Don't worry about it.

Lah can also be used to emphasise items in a spoken list, appearing after each item in the list.

Although lah can appear nearly anywhere, it cannot appear with a yes-no question. Other particles should be used instead:

• Did he do that ar?
• Later free or not?
• Don't tell me he punch her ar?

Wat

The particle wat (/wɑ̀t/), also spelled what, is used to remind or contradict the listener, especially when strengthening another assertion that follows from the current one:

• But he very good at sports wat. — But he is very good at sports(Shouldn't you know this already, having known him for years?).
• You never give me wat! — You were the one who didn't give it to me(Or else I would have gotten it, right?)!

It can also be used to strengthen any assertion:

• The food there not bad what. Can try la.

Mah

Mah (/mɑ́/), originating from the Cantonese (嘛,ma), is used to assert that something is obvious and final, and is usually used only with statements that are already patently true. It is often used to correct or cajole, and is equal to the word duh. This may seem condescending to the listener:

• This one also can work one mah! — Can't you see that this choice will also work?!

Lor

Lor (/lɔ́/), also spelled lorh or loh, from Cantonese, is a casual, sometimes jocular way to assert upon the listener either direct observations or obvious inferences. It also carries a sense of resignation, that "it happens this way and can't be helped":

• If you don't do the work, then you die lor! — If you don't do the work, then you're dead!
• Okay lor, you do what you want. — Fine, go ahead and do what you want.

Leh

Leh (/lɛ́/), from Hokkien, is used to soften a command, request, claim or complaint that may be brusque otherwise:

• Gimme leh. — Please, just give it to me.
• How come you don't give me leh? — Why aren't you giving it to me?
• The ticket seriously ex leh. — Argh, The tickets are really expensive.
• But I believe safe better than sorry leh. — The thing is, I believe it's better to be safe than sorry.

Especially when on a low tone, it can be used to show the speaker's disapproval:

• You call her walk there, very far le.

Hor

Hor (/hɔ̨̌/), from Hokkien and Cantonese, also spelled horh, is used to ask for the listener's attention and consent/support/agreement:

• Then horh, another person came out of the house. — And then, another person came out of the house.
• This shopping centre very nice horh. — This shopping centre is very nice isn't it?

Ar

Ar (/ɑ̌/), also spelled arh or ah, is inserted between topic and comment. It often gives a negative tone:

• Dis boy arh, always so naughty one! — This boy is so naughty!

Ar (/ɑ̌/) with a rising tone is used to reiterate a rhetorical question:

• How come lidat one, arh? — Why is it like that? / Why are you like that?

Ar (/ɑ̄/) with a mid-level tone, on the other hand, is used to mark a genuine question that does require a response: ('or not' can also be used in this context.)

• You going again ar? — "Are you going again?"

Hah

Hah (/hɑ̌/), also spelled har, originating from the British English word huh, is used to express disbelief or used in a questioning manner.

• Har? He really ponteng class yesterday ar! - What? Is it true that he played truant (=ponteng) yesterday?
• Har? How come like that one? End up kena caning! - What? How did he end up being caned?

Meh

Meh (/mɛ́/), from Cantonese, is used to form questions expressing surprise or scepticism:

• They never study meh? — Didn't they study? (I thought they did.)
• You don't like that one meh? — You don't like that? (I thought you did.)
• Really meh? — Is that really so? (I honestly thought otherwise.)

Siah

/sjɑ̀/, also spelled sia, is used to express envy and for emphasis. The term "siah" is derived from Hokkien which consists of two words 'si' (literrally die) and 'ah' (a form of exclamation).

• He very solid siah. — He's damn capable.
• Wahlau, heng siah. — Goodness me (=Wahlau)! That was a close shave (=heng)!

Summary

Summary of discourse and other particles:

Function	Example	Meaning	Notes
(Nothing)	Can.	"It can be done."
Solidarity	Can lah.	"Rest assured, it can be done."
Seeking attention / support (implicit)	Can hor / huh?	"It can be done, right?"
Characteristic	Can one / de (的).	"This can be accomplished."
(Vividness)	Liddat very nice.	"This looks very nice."
Acceptance / Resignation	Can lor.	"Well, seems that it can be done, since you say so."
Assertion (implies that listener should already know)	Can wat/ Can lor (in some situations, when used firmly).	"It can be done... shouldn't you know this?"
Assertion (strong)	Can mah.	"See?! It can be done!"
Assertion (softened)	Can leh.	"Can't you see that it can be done?"
Yes / No question	Can anot?	"Can it be done?"
Yes / No question (confirmation)	Can izzit?	"It can be done, right?"
Yes / No question (skepticism)	Can meh?	"Um... are you sure it can be done?"
Confirmation	Can ar... (low tone).	"So... it can really be done?"
Rhetorical	Can ar (rising).	"Alright then, don't come asking for help if problems arise."
Change of state (finished)	Can already / liao.	"It's done!"
(Indifference?)	Can huh (low tone).	"It can be done..."

Miscellaneous

Nia is originated from Hokkien which means 'only', mostly used to play down something that has been overestimated.

• Mary: "I not so old lah, I am 18 years old nia."

"Then you know" is a phrase often used at the end of a sentence or after a warning of the possible negative consequences of an action. Can be directly translate as "and you will regret not heeding my advice".

• Mother: "Ah boy, don't run here run there, wait you fall down then you know ar."

"There is"/"there are" and "has"/"have" are both expressed using got, so that sentences can be translated in either way back into British / American / Australasian English. This is equivalent to the Chinese 有 yǒu (to have):

• Got question? Any questions? / Is there a question? / Do you have a question?
• Yesterday ar, East Coast Park got so many people one! There were so many people at East Coast Park yesterday. / East Coast Park had so many people [there] yesterday.
• This bus got air-con or not? Is there air-conditioning on this bus? / Does this bus have air-conditioning?
• Where got!? lit. Where is there [this]?, or less politely, There isn't/aren't any! also more loosely, What are you talking about?; generic response to any accusation. Translation of the Malay "mana ada?" which has the same usage.

Can is used extensively as both a question particle and an answer particle. The negative is cannot.

• Gimme lah, can? Give it to me, OK?
• Can! Sure!
• Cannot. No way.

Can can be repeated for greater emphasis or to express enthusiasm:

• Boss: "Can you send me the report by this afternoon?" Employee: "Can Can!" (No problem!)

The Malay word with the same meaning boleh can be used in place of can to add a greater sense of multiculturalism in the conversation. The person in a dominant position may prefer to use boleh instead:

• Employee:"Boss, tomorrow can get my pay check or not?" Boss:"Boleh lah ..." (sure/possibly)

The phrase like that is commonly appended to the end of the sentence to emphasize descriptions by adding vividness and continuousness. Due to its frequency of use, it is often pronounced lidat (lye-dat):

• He so stupid lidat. - He's pretty stupid, you know.
• He acting like a little kid lidat. - He's really acting like a little kid, you know.

Like that can also be used as in other Englishes:

• Why he acting lidat?
• If lidat, how am I going to answer to the gong shi ting? - If that's the case, how am I going to answer to the board of directors?

In British English, "also" is used before the predicate, while "too" is used after the predicative at the end of the sentence. In Singlish (also in American and Australian English), "also" (pronounced oso, see phonology section above) can be used in either position.

• I oso like dis one. (I also like this one.)
• I like dis one oso. (I like this one too.)

"Also" is also used as a conjunction. In this case, "A also B" corresponds to "B although A". This stems from Chinese, where the words 也 (yě), 还 (hái) or 都 (dōu) (meaning also, usage depends on dialect or context) would be used to express these sentences.

• I try so hard oso cannot do. (I tried so hard, and still I can't do it. OR I can't do it even though I tried so hard.)

The order of the verb and the subject in an indirect question is the same as a direct question.

• "Eh, you know where is he?" "Excuse me, do you know where he is?"

"Ownself" is often used in place of "yourself", or more accurately, "yourself" being an individual, in a state of being alone.

• "Har? He ownself go party yesterday for what?" "Why did he go to the party alone yesterday?"

Not all expressions with the -self pronouns should be taken literally, but as the omission of "by":

• Wah, hungry liao! You eat yourself, we eat ourself, can? (Hey, I/you should be hungry by this time! Let's go Dutch, i.e. each person should pay for himself or herself at the restaurant.) - but this may also mean 'Let's split up and eat.' (then meet up again)

Some people have begun to add extra "ed"s to the past tense of words or pronouncing "ed" separately.

• "Jus now go and play game, character dieded siah!" "When I played a game just now, my character died!"

• "Wahlau, now stuckeded in the forest, how?" "My goodness! We are stuck in the forest! What do we do?"

Vocabulary

Main article: Singlish vocabulary

Singlish formally takes after British English (in terms of spelling and abbreviations), although naming conventions are in a mix of American and British ones (with American ones on the rise). For instance, local media have "sports pages" (sport in British English) and "soccer coverage" (the use of the word "soccer" is not common in British media).

Singlish also uses many words borrowed from Hokkien, the Chinese dialect native to more than 75% of the Chinese in Singapore, and from Malay. The most well-known instance of a borrowing from Hokkien is 'kiasu', which means "frightened of losing out", and is used to indicate behaviour such as queueing overnight to obtain something; and the most common borrowing from Malay is 'makan', meaning "to eat".

In many cases, English words take on the meaning of their Chinese counterparts, resulting in a shift in meaning. This is most obvious in such cases as "borrow"/"lend", which are functionally equivalent in Singlish and mapped to the same Mandarin word, "借" (jiè), which can mean to lend or to borrow. ("Oy, can borrow me your calculator?"); and 'send' can be used to mean "accompany someone", as in "Let me send you to the airport", probably under the influence of the Mandarin word "送" (sòng).

In pop culture

Movie

• Army Daze
• I Not Stupid
• I Not Stupid Too
• Money No Enough
• One Leg Kicking
• Talking Cock the Movie
• Singapore Dreaming
• Just Follow Law
• Perth[2]

Musical

• Cinderel-Lah!
• Oi! Sleeping Beauty

Television

• Comedy Night
• Phua Chu Kang
• ABC DJ
• Under One Roof
• Maggi & Me

Literature

For punctuation and spelling of Singlish see also Sylvia Toh Paik Choo's:

• Eh, Goondu! (1982) Singapore: Eastern Universities Press. ISBN 9971-71-168-0.
• Lagi Goondu! (1986) Singapore: Times Books International. ISBN 9971-65-224-2.

These published works are generally in English, but they describe the prevalence of Singlish in Singapore, and use many Singlish terms such as in dialogue.

• Chiang, Michael, Army Daze (Singapore: Times Books International, 1987) ISBN 981-3002-12-3
• Chong, C.S., NS: An Air-Level Story (Singapore: Times Books International, 1994) ISBN 981-204-312-8

Acceptance

On March 15, 2007, Demos, a UK think tank, recommended that the UK embrace 'modern' Englishes, since far from being corruptions of English, new versions of the language, like Chinglish and Singlish, have values "that the British need to learn to accommodate and relate to". [3]

See also

• Singlish vocabulary
• List of Singapore abbreviations

Further reading

• Brown, Adam (1999). Singapore English in a Nutshell: An Alphabetical Description of its Features. Singapore: Federal Publications. ISBN 981-01-2435-X.
• Crewe, William (ed. 1977) The English Language in Singapore. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
• Deterding, David (2007). Singapore English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2545-1.
• Deterding, David, Brown, Adam and Low Ee Ling (eds. 2005) English in Singapore: Phonetic Research on a Corpus. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia). ISBN 007-124727-0.
• Deterding, David, Low Ee Ling and Brown, Adam (eds. 2003) English in Singapore: Research on Grammar. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia). ISBN 0-07-123103-X.
• Deterding, David and Hvitfeldt, Robert (1994) 'The Features of Singapore English Pronunciation: Implications for Teachers', Teaching and Learning, 15 (1), 98-107. (on-line version)
• Deterding, David and Poedjosoedarmo, Gloria (2001) The Grammar of English: Morphology and Syntax for English Teachers in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Prentice Hall. (Chapter 19: Singapore English). ISBN 0-13-093009-1.
• Foley, Joseph (ed. 1988) New Englishes: the Case of Singapore, Singapore: Singapore University Press.
• Foley, J. A., T. Kandiah, Bao Zhiming, A.F. Gupta, L. Alsagoff, Ho Chee Lick, L. Wee, I. S. Talib and W. Bokhorst-Heng (eds. 1998) English in New Cultural Contexts: Reflections from Singapore. Singapore: Singapore Institute of Management/Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-588415-9.
• Gopinathan, S., Pakir, Anne, Ho Wah Kam and Saravanan, Vanithamani (eds. 1998) Language, Society and Education in Singapore (2nd edition), Singapore: Times Academic Press.
• Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1992) 'Contact features of Singapore Colloquial English'. In Kingsley Bolton and Helen Kwok (eds.) Sociolinguistics Today: International Perspectives, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 323–45.
• Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1994). The Step-Tongue: Children’s English in Singapore. Clevedon, UK: Multimedia Matters. ISBN 1-85359-229-3.
• Ho, Mian Lian and Platt, John Talbot (1993). Dynamics of a contact continuum: Singapore English. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-824828-8.
• Lim, Lisa (ed. 2004). Singapore English: a grammatical description. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ISBN 1-58811-576-3.
• Low, Ee Ling and Brown, Adam (2005) English in Singapore: An Introduction. Singapore: McGraw-Hill.
• Melcher, A. (2003). Unlearning Singlish: 400 Singlish-isms to avoid. Singapore: Andrew Melcher Pte. Ltd. ISBN 9810489528
• Newbrook, Mark (1987). Aspects of the syntax of educated Singaporean English: attitudes, beliefs, and usage. Frankfurt am Main; New York: P. Lang. ISBN 3-8204-9886-9.
• Ooi, Vincent B. Y. (ed. 2001) Evolving Identities: the English Language in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Times Academic. ISBN 981-210-156-X.
• Pakir, Anne (1991) ‘The range and depth of English-knowing bilinguals in Singapore’, World Englishes, 10(2), 167–79.
• Platt, John Talbot and Weber, Heidi (1980). English in Singapore and Malaysia: status, features, functions. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-580438-4.
• Shelley, R., Beng, K.-S., & Takut bin Salah. (2000). Sounds and sins of Singlish, and other nonsense. Kuala Lumpur: Times Books International. ISBN 9812043926
• Tongue, R. K. (1979) The English of Singapore and Malaysia (2nd edition). Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
• VJ Times Editorial Team. (2000). Singlish to English: basic grammar guide. Singapore: VJ Times. ISBN 9812211616
• Wee, Lionel (2004) 'Singapore English: Phonology'. In Edgar W. Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie and Clive Upton (eds.) A Handbook of Varieties of English. Volume 1: Phonology, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1017–33.
• Wee, Lionel (2004) 'Singapore English: morphology and syntax'. In Bernd Kortmann, Kate Burridge, Rajend Mesthrie, Edgar W. Schneider and Clive Upton (eds.) A Handbook of Varieties of English. Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1058–72.
• Wong, J. O. (2001). The natural semantic metalanguage approach to the universal syntax of the Singlish existential primitive. CAS research paper series, no. 30. Singapore: Centre for Advanced Studies, National University of Singapore. ISBN 9810438176

External links

• Singapore Speak Good English Movement
• Ah Beng's Guide to Singlish
• The Coxford Singlish Dictionary @ Talkingcock.com
• A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English
• Singapore Colloquial English (Singlish)
• An Annotated Bibliography of Works on Singapore English
• The NIE Corpus of Spoken Singapore English
• The Lim Siew Lwee Corpus of Informal Singapore Speech