Languages of Singapore

The Singapore Government recognizes four official languages: English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil. These official languages, along with a multitude of other languages, reflect Singapore's multiracial, multicultural and multilingual nature. In 2009, there are more than 20 languages identified as being spoken in Singapore. Singapore's role as a trading settlement in colonial times, and now a prominent cosmopolitan centre of trade and services, has long attracted foreigners from Asia and beyond. The languages they brought with them greatly influenced the languages in Singapore.

In the early years, the lingua franca of the island was Bazaar Malay (Melayu Pasar), a creole of Malay and Chinese, the language of trade in the Malay Archipelago. While it continues to be used among many on the island, especially Singaporean Malays, Malay has now been displaced by English. English became the lingua franca due to the British rule of Singapore, and was made the main language upon Singaporean independence. In early years it served to unite the races which each had their own languages, and remains the primary language of academic education.

Hokkien briefly emerged as a lingua franca among the Chinese, but by the late twentieth century was eclipsed by Mandarin. The government promotes Mandarin among Singaporean Chinese, since it views Mandarin as a bridge between Singapore's diverse non-Mandarin speaking groups, and as a tool for forging a common Chinese cultural identity. China's economic rise in the 21st century has also encouraged a greater use of Mandarin. On the other hand, other non-Mandarin Chinese languages such as Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese and Cantonese have been classified as dialects. Government language policies and changes in language attitudes based on such classifications have led to the subsequent decrease in the number of speakers of these languages. Tamil is the predominant Indian language in use; however, many other dialects are found. Unlike the smaller Malay and Chinese dialects, Indian dialects are able to be used in schools.

Singapore has a policy of bilingualism, where students learn in English but are taught the language of their ethnicity, referred to as their "mother tongue". The mother tongue is seen as a way to preserve unique cultural values in the multicultural society, although their usage is decreasing in the home as English becomes more predominant (see Language attrition). The loss of the dialects has been even more prominent, as many are now banned from usage on mass media and may only be spoken by the elderly.

English as the main language

Main article: Singapore English

All directional signs in Singapore are written in English.

Singapore English is an integral part of the Singaporean identity. It is regarded as the main language in Singapore, and is officially the main language of instruction in all the subjects except for mother tongue lessons in Singapore's education system. It is also the common language of the administration, and is promoted as an important language for international business. Spelling in Singapore follows the British system, due to the country's colonial past.

English was introduced to Singapore in 1819 when the British established a port and later a colony on the island. Under the colonial government, English gained prestige as the language of administration, law and business. As government administration increased, infrastructure and commerce developed, and access to education expanded producing a local English-speaking elite, English spread among Singaporeans. The visibility of English was also heightened through heavy usage by successful media outlets of the time.

When Singapore gained self-government in 1959 and independence in 1965, the local government decided to keep English as the main language to maximize economic benefits. Since English was rising as the global language for commerce, technology & science promoting it would expedite Singapore's development and integration into the global economy. Furthermore, the use of English as a lingua franca served to bridge the gap between the diverse ethnic groups in Singapore. This importance placed on English was reflected by Singapore schools switching to using only English as the medium of instruction. Between the early 1960s until the late 1970s, students registering for primarily English-medium schools jumped from 50% to 90%, as more parents chose to send their children to English-medium schools. Attendance at Mandarin, Malay and Tamil-medium schools consequently dropped and schools closed down. The Chinese-medium Nanyang University also made the change to using English as the medium of instruction despite meeting resistance, especially from the Chinese community.

There has been a steep increase in the use of the English language over the years. Education Minister Ng Eng Hen noted in December 2009 the increasing trend of Singaporeans with English as their home language. For children who started primary school in 2009, 60% of Chinese and Indian pupils as well as 35% of Malay pupils predominantly speak English at home. Overall, this means that 56% of Singaporean families with children in Primary school predominantly use English. English is the native language of 32% of Singaporeans, but has the largest number of speakers if second language speakers are included. Singlish, an English based creole language language with its own consistent rules and phonology, is also widely used on the island. However, usage of this language is discouraged by the local government, who favour Standard English.

Home languages

Since Singapore is a society made up by descendants of immigrants from different parts of Asia, the original home language of Singaporeans is not necessarily the dominant lingua franca such as English or even the respective mother tongue. Throughout the years, Singaporean households have experienced a change in home language occurring one or two generations later, as a result of exposure to more dominant languages in Singapore due to government language policy implementation.

Chinese languages

Chinese is the most commonly spoken home language, spoken by 51% of the population. The table below shows the change in distribution of Mandarin and other Chinese dialects, as well as English, as home languages in the resident Chinese population of Singapore in 1990 and 2000.

Language Most Frequently Spoken at Home Among Chinese Resident Population Aged 5 and Over.
Home language	1990 ('000)	2000 ('000)	1990 (%)	2000 (%)	2010 (%)
Total	1,884.0	2,236.1	100.0	100.0	100.0
English	363.4	533.9	19.3	23.9	32.6
Mandarin	566.2	1,008.5	30.1	45.1	47.7
Chinese Dialects	948.1	685.8	50.3	30.7	19.2
Others	6.4	7.9	0.3	0.4	0.4

Mandarin Chinese

Main articles: Singaporean Mandarin, Standard Singaporean Mandarin, and Singdarin

Mandarin Chinese is generally spoken as the lingua franca among the Chinese community in Singapore. Known simply as Chinese, it is the designated mother tongue or 'ethnic language' of Chinese Singaporeans, at the expense of the other Chinese languages. It was introduced to Singapore during the time that it was a British colony in the 1920s, when Chinese schools in Singapore using Mandarin as the teaching language began to grow in number.

The government heavily promoted Mandarin Chinese in 1979 with the Speak Mandarin Campaign. Then-Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew stated that Mandarin Chinese was chosen so as to unify the Chinese community with a single language. It is rising in prominence in Singapore, with politicians such as Lee theorizing that it might overtake English, despite relatively strong evidence to the contrary. Today, Mandarin Chinese is generally seen as a way to maintain a link to Chinese culture.

Other Chinese languages

See also: Singaporean Hokkien and Hokkien influence on Singaporean Mandarin

Other Chinese languages, sometimes known as Chinese dialects, such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, and Hainanese also have a presence in Singapore. Amongst them, Hokkien used to be an unofficial language of business until as recent as the 1980s. It is also used as a lingua franca among not just the Chinese Singaporeans, but is widely learnt by Malays and Indians to communicate with the Chinese majority.

Demographics

See also: Chinese Singaporean

The Teochew Building houses a prominent Teochew clan association in Singapore, the Ngee Ann Kongsi.

Hokkien

The first speakers of this language in Singapore were among the migrants who came to Singapore from the southern provinces of China such as Fujian. The language itself originated in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou in China. Hokkien is now spoken in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. There are 17,015 Hokkien households in Singapore as of 2005. People with Hokkien heritage make up the largest group within the Chinese community in Singapore.

Teochew

21% of the Chinese population in Singapore are of Teochew heritage as of 2000. They were migrants who came to Singapore and they originate from the eastern cities of Guangdong, China such as Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang. As of 2005, there are 115,107 people using Teochew as their home language in Singapore.

Hakka

The Hakka people in Singapore consist of 7.9% of the Chinese population in Singapore as of 2000. They originated from the Hakka speaking regions of the North-eastern part of Guangdong. As of 2005, there are 3,199 households of Hakka and other minority Chinese dialect groups in Singapore.

Hainanese

The Hainanese community make up 6.7% of the Chinese population in Singapore as of 2000. The Hainanese migrated from the Hainan province in China, mostly from the north-eastern part of the province. As of 2005, there are 3,199 households of Hainanese and other minority Chinese dialect groups in Singapore. As the number of Hainanese speakers is generally small in Singapore, the actual number of speakers are part of the 43,343 people who speak the minority Chinese languages in Singapore.

Cantonese

Cantonese speakers in Singapore make up 15.4% of the Chinese population in Singapore as of 2000. Most of these migrated to Singapore from the southern region of the Guangdong province in China. Cantonese speakers make up one of the larger groups of the Chinese people in Singapore with 136,753 speakers using it as their home language.

Written Chinese

See also: Singapore Chinese Characters

The development of Singapore's Chinese characters can be divided into three periods:

1. Before 1969 : Used Traditional Chinese Characters
2. 1969-1976: The Ministry of Education promulgated the Table of Simplified Characters (simplified Chinese: 简体字表; traditional Chinese: 簡體字表; pinyin: jiăntǐzì biǎo), which differed from the Simplified Chinese Characters of the People's Republic of China
3. After 1976: fully adopted the Simplified Chinese Characters of the People's Republic of China. In 1977, the second attempt to simplify the characters was stopped, ending the long period of confusion associated with simplification.

Malay languages

13% of Singaporeans speak Malay as their home language.

Bahasa Melayu

Malay is termed the "national language" of Singapore, and is written in the Latin script. To reflect Singapore's Malay heritage, Malay is used in the Singapore national anthem and in military footdrill commands. Malay is generally spoken by the Malays in Singapore, the indigenous people of Singapore. Linguistically, most Malays in Singapore speak the Johore-Riau variant of Malay similar to that spoken in the west Malaysian peninsula & Riau Islands. A few older Chinese, Indian and Eurasian Singaporeans can also speak Malay, while some speak "Singlay" which is to Malay what "Singlish" is to English.

Other Malay dialects

Bahasa Melayu Pasar, or Bazaar Malay (a pidginised variety of Malay) used to be the lingua franca spoken by all races before Singapore's independence and the switch to English in 1965. Baba Malay, a variety of Malay Creole influenced by Hokkien and Bazaar Malay, is still spoken today by around 10,000 Peranakans in Singapore.

Historically, other Austronesian languages (sometimes called Malay dialects) used to be spoken in Singapore as well. These include Javanese, Bugis, Minangkabau, Batak, Sundanese, Palembang dialect, Kedah dialect, Terengganu dialect, Boyanese and Banjar. The use of these dialects have declined over the years in favour of Bahasa Melayu, which is the standard form of the Malay language used presently in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. It is very similar to the language of Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia).

Indian languages

Main article: Indian languages in Singapore

Tamil

As of 2010, Indians make up 9.2% of Singapore's total population. About two-thirds of the of the Indian population are Tamil speakers from the India's southeastern state of Tamil Nadu. As of 2005, about 38.8% of Singapore's Indian population speaks Tamil frequently at home. This is a drop from 2000, when 45.3% of the Singapore Indian population spoke Tamil at home.

Tamil is taught in schools as a mother tongue, but there are schools which do not provide Tamil classes due to low percentage of Tamil students in that particular school. Students from such schools attend classes at the Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre (UPTLC) which offers Tamil (TL), Basic Tamil (BTL), Tamil Literature (TLL) and Higher Tamil (HTL) outside curriculum time to pupils of secondary schools which do not have a Tamil Language Programme. UPTLC was once known as the St. George's Tamil Primary School which was closed down in 1975 and later began to function fully as a Tamil Language Centre.

Other Indian languages

Other Indian languages spoken include Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Punjabi and Gujarati.

Malayalam is the mother tongue of Malayalees, who form the second largest ethnic group within the Indian community in Singapore; constituting 20% (25000) of the Indian population. Malayalam belongs to a family of Dravidian languages and originates from Kerala, the south-western coast of the Indian sub-continent.

There is a Hindi Society which is the biggest Hindi-language institution in Singapore. Classes are held at seven Hindi Centres and fifty-four schools participating in a Parallel Hindi Programme (PHP). They cover the entire spectrum of formal general Hindi education in Singapore, from Pre-Primary to Pre-University.

Kristang

See also: Kristang language

Kristang is a creole spoken by Portuguese Eurasians in Singapore and Malay. It developed when Portuguese colonizers incorporated borrowings from Malay, Chinese, Indian and Arab languages. When the British took over Singapore, Kristang declined as the Portuguese Eurasians learned English instead. Today, it is largely spoken by the elderly.

Bilingualism and multilingualism

Quadrilingual warning sign written in Singapore's four official languages; English, Chinese (Simplified), Tamil and Malay.

The majority of Singaporeans are bilingual in English and one of the other three official languages. For instance, most Chinese Singaporeans can speak English and Mandarin Chinese. Some, especially the older generation, can speak Malay and additional Chinese languages such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, and/or Hainanese. While the Singapore government states that bilingualism in English and Mandarin is increasing, in reality, multilingualism is in decline.

Education policies

See also: Language education in Singapore

Singapore has a bilingual education policy. All students in government schools are educated in English as their first language. Students in Primary and Secondary schools also learn a second language called their 'Mother Tongue' by the Ministry of Education, where they are either taught Mandarin Chinese, Malay, or Tamil. English is the language of instruction in all government schools with time provided for mother tongue lessons on a weekly basis. Mother tongue is also used in moral education classes in primary school. While 'mother tongue' generally refers to the first language (L1) overseas, it is used by the Ministry of Education to denote the "ethnic language" or the second language (L2) in Singapore.

The impact of the bilingual policy differs from students of one racial group to another. For the Chinese, when the policy was first implemented, many students found themselves struggling with two foreign languages: English and Mandarin. Even though dialects then were widely spoken at home, Chinese dialects were excluded from the classroom as it was felt that they would be an "impediment to learning Chinese". Today, although Mandarin Chinese is more widely spoken, many students still struggle with learning it. To ease their difficulties, several revisions have been made to the education system. These include the now-defunct EM3 stream and Chinese B, both in which Mandarin is taught at a lower than mainstream level.

The Malay-speaking community also faced similar problems when the bilingual policy was implemented. Today, the lack of support in school has led to the decline of dialects. Malay is the lingua franca among the Javanese, Boyanese, other Indonesian groups and some Arabs. It is Malay, and not dialects, which are valued as the means for transmitting familial and religious values. ‘Madrasahs’ or religious schools, mosques and religious classes all employ Malay. However, Malay in turn is facing competition from English.

For the Indians, the situation is different. Options for non-Vernacular Languages like Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and Urdu are available .

The Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore defines 'Mother Tongue' not by the home language or the first language learned by the student but by his/her father's ethnicity. For example, a child born to a Hokkien-speaking Chinese father and Tamil-speaking Indian mother would automatically be assigned to take Mandarin Chinese as the Mother Tongue language.

In 2007, the Ministry of Education announced that it would encourage many schools to offer conversational Malay or Chinese to those who are not taking either language as their mother tongue. The Ministry of Education will be providing the schools with the resources needed for this programme. In 2008, there were 488 schools offering this programme.

Singapore's 'bilingualism' policy of teaching and learning English and mother tongue in primary and secondary schools is rationalized as the 'cultural ballast' to safeguard Asian cultural identities and values against Western influence.

Challenges in the teaching of mother tongue

The teaching of mother tongue (especially Mandarin Chinese) in schools has encountered challenges due to more Singaporeans speaking and using English at home. The declining standards and command of Chinese language amongst younger generations of Chinese Singaporeans continue to be of concern to the older generations of Chinese Singaporeans, as they perceive it to be an erosion of Chinese culture and heritage. This concern has led to the government establishing the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language (SCCL) on November 2009. The SCCL's stated purpose is to enhance the effectiveness of teaching Chinese as a second language in a bilingual environment and to meet the learning needs of students from non-Mandarin speaking homes.

The propagation of Chinese language and culture amongst Chinese Singaporeans continues to be a challenge despite government support to promote Mandarin Chinese through the Speak Mandarin Campaign because Mandarin faces stiff competition from the strong presence of English.

Foreign population in Singapore

The huge population of non-English speaking foreigners in Singapore offers new challenges. 36% of the population in Singapore are foreigners and foreigners make up 50% of the service sector. It is very common to encounter service staff who are not fluent in English, especially as many, such as those from China, can survive in daily life without the use of English. This poses a problem to English-speaking Singaporeans who are not as fluent in a second language. The Straits Times reported that from July 2010, foreigners working in the hotel, food and beverage and retail service sectors would have to pass an English test before they are able to get their work permits. Employers with foreign employees in these sectors will pay $90 less in levies if their employees pass the English test.

Media and the arts

The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) restricts the use of Chinese dialects in the media. The rationale is that Chinese Singaporeans are already burdened with learning English and Mandarin, and a greater presence of Chinese dialects in the media will only add to their mental load. However, to cater to older Singaporeans who speak only dialects, videos, VCDs, DVDs, paid subscription radio services and pay TV channels are exempt from MICA's restrictions. Two free-to-air channels, okto and Channel 8, are also allowed to show dialect operas and arthouse movies with some dialect content respectively. More local films are also made containing, or in dialect. There are no restrictions on entries for film festivals.

Dialects are not as controlled in traditional arts. As such, they have managed to survive, and even flourish in these areas. In Singapore, types of Chinese opera include Hokkien, Teochew, Hainanese and Cantonese. In the past, this diversity encouraged the translation of scripts for popular stories between dialects. After the implementation of the bilingual policy and Speak Mandarin Campaign, Mandarin subtitles were introduced to help the audience understand. Today, as usage of English rises, some opera troupes not only provide English subtitles but translate the whole opera into English. For these English-Chinese operas, subtitles may be provided in either Mandarin, dialect or both. In this way, Chinese opera reaches out to as wide an audience as possible despite being dialect-specific.

Chinese clan associations also play a role in maintaining dialects. In the past, they provided support to migrant Chinese, based on the province they came from. Today, they provide a place for people who speak the same dialect to gather and interact. For example, the Hokkien Huay Kuan holds classes for performing arts, calligraphy, Chinese language and Hokkien dialect. They also organize the biennial Hokkien Festival which aims to promote Hokkien customs and culture. Efforts such as these could help Chinese dialects resist erosion.

The Eurasian Association also holds Kristang classes for anyone interested regardless of age. In this way, it hopes to preserve what it feels is a unique part of the Eurasian heritage.

Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce

The Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce used to allocate council members to represent different Chinese dialects. Seats were allocated based on the relative size of each group. For example, the Hokkien bang which was the biggest, had the most seats. However, this practice was abolished in 2010.

Treatment of Indian languages

Indian languages besides Tamil are treated differently than the non-Mandarin Chinese languages and other Malay dialects. Even though only Tamil has official status, there have been no attempts to discourage the use or spread of the Indian languages. With the increase in influx of Indian immigrants who speak Indian languages, the students who come from these families can now offer Malayalam, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi as their Mother-Tongue at the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) and the GCE O, N and A level examinations. Movies in these languages are shown in local theatres, and Tamil movies are quite popular with Indian expatriates of various ethnicities. Moreover, there are timeslots in the local Indian TV channel MediaCorp Vasantham.

Dialect preservation issues

See also: Speak Mandarin Campaign

Non-Mandarin Chinese languages (classified as dialects by the Singapore government) have been in steep decline since the independence of Singapore in 1965. This is in part due to the Speak Mandarin Campaign that was launched in 1979. As part of the campaign, all dialect programmes on TV and radio were stopped. Speeches in Hokkien by the prime minister were discontinued to prevent giving conflicting signals to the people. By the late 1980s, Mandarin managed to some extent, to replace dialects as the preferred languages for communication in public places such as restaurants and public transport.

The preservation of dialects in Singapore has been of increasing concern amongst the Chinese community in Singapore since the 2000s. This has arisen largely due to a steep decline in their use of as a home language. Most Chinese Singaporeans under the age of 40 have a working knowledge of both English and Mandarin but not any of the other Chinese languages spoken in Singapore. However, the vast majority of older Chinese Singaporeans can only speak in the other Chinese languages and have little or no proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. Because of this a language barrier is formed between them and their grandparents. Chinese culture and dialect preservationists in Singapore worry that the declining use of dialects might lead to the eventual death of dialects in Singapore.

'Stupid' to advocate the learning of dialects

In March 2009, a newspaper article was published in Singapore broadsheet daily The Straits Times on a Language and Diversity Symposium organised by the Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at Nanyang Technological University. Dr Ng Bee Chin, Acting Head of the Division, was quoted in the article as saying, "Although Singaporeans are still multilingual, 40 years ago, we were even more multilingual. Young children are not speaking some of these languages at all any more. All it takes is one generation for a language to die."

This prompted a reply from Mr Chee Hong Tat, the Principal Private Secretary of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. In a letter to the editor in the Straits Times Forum, he underlined the importance of English and Mandarin over dialects and how using dialects "interferes with the learning of Mandarin and English'; a statement that Mr Lee Kuan Yew later corroborated in a speech at the 30th anniversary of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. Referring to the progress of Singapore's bilingual education policy over the decades, Mr Chee Hong Tat also commented that "it would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin."

Dialects in local films

In the recent years, Singaporean film makers have been incorporating dialects into their films. In the movie “Singapore Gaga” a tissue seller sings a Hokkien song and “Perth” features a Singaporean taxi driver using Hokkien and Cantonese. Local directors have commented that dialects are vital as there are some expressions which just cannot be put across in Mandarin Chinese, and that dialects are an important part of Singapore that adds a sense of realness that locals will enjoy.

The local movie 881 revived the popularity of getai after it was released. Getai, mainly conducted in Hokkien and Teochew became more popular with the younger generations since the release of the movie. On the impact of the release of the movie 881, Professor Chua Beng Huat, Head of the Department of Sociology in the National University of Singapore (NUS), commented in the Straits Times that "''putting Hokkien on the silver screen gives Hokkien a kind of rebellious effect. It's like the return of the repressed."

The album sales of 881 movie soundtrack was the first local film soundtrack to hit platinum in Singapore.

Renewed interest in learning dialects

Since 2000, the Singapore government appears to have relaxed its stance towards dialects. In 2002, clans associations such as Hainanese Association of Singapore (Kheng Chiu Hwee Kuan) and Teochew Poit Ip Huay Kuan started classes to teach dialects. This was in response to an increased desire among Singaporeans to reconnect with their Chinese heritage and culture through learning dialects.

Furthermore, in 2007, a group of 140 students from Primary 3 to 6 from Paya Lebar Methodist Girls' Primary School students learnt Hokkien and Cantonese as an effort to communicate better with the elderly. The elderly themselves taught the students the languages. The programme was organised in the hope of bridging the generational gap that was formed due to the suppression of these dialects in Singapore.

Likewise, third year students from Dunman High can now take a module called "Pop Song Culture". This module lets them learn about pop culture in different dialect groups through dialect pop songs from the 70s and 80s. Besides this, students can also take an elective on different flavours and food cultures from various dialect groups.

Linguistic ecology of Singapore

The language situation in Singapore has undergone many changes throughout history. Linguist Anthea Fraser Gupta describe such changes as a language shift, guided predominantly by pragmatism. The language shift in Singapore is shaped by globalization, the government's language policy, and economic forces of the world.

Overview of change over three centuries:

Date	1800	1900	2000
Historical circumstances	Malay Sultanate	British colony	Independent country
Economic base	Malay littoral pattern – trading, ‘piracy’ and supportive fishing and agriculture.	Urban centre for British exploitation of hinterland. Trading and supportive fishing and agriculture. Base for activities in wider region.	Banking & investment. High-tech industry. Entrepot trade.
Ethnic groups	Malay littoral pattern – ‘Malays’, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Thais.	Sharp distinction between ‘natives’ and ‘Europeans’ (less than 2% as of 1901 census). Increasing proportions of Chinese (44% as of 1901) and Indians (11%). Continued arrival of ‘Malays’ (42%) of various origins, especially archipelago. Concern for classification by race. Segregation for housing supported officially.	Sharp distinction between citizens/ permanent residents (74% of population citizens and 7.2% permanent residents in 2000), and foreign residents. Citizens: Chinese (77%). ‘Malays’ (14%); Indians (7%)). Racial integration in most housing required by law, and in some schools.
Languages	‘Malay’ dominant (exoteric and esoteric varieties). Arabic important. Other languages associated with specific ethnic groups. Education available in Malay and Arabic, but for few individuals.	Many languages associated with specific ethnic groups. Contact varieties of Malay widespread use as lingua franca and as native language of some mixed groups. Government gives some support to education in Malay (for Malays) and to education in English (for non-Malays). Other private, religious, and community based organisations offer education in many other languages (including Tamil, Hokkien, Teochew). Education still minority activity, but participation rising.	Few monolingual individuals. Main languages in pre-school children now English (all groups) and Mandarin (Chinese population) – neither of which was a predominant language in 1900. Malay and Hokkien used less as cross-racial languages than in 1950. Increase in use of Malay at expense of related languages. English dominant as inter-racial lingua franca and government support only education through the medium of English, with one 'racially' congruent 'Mother Tongue'. Mandarin Chinese widespread as lingua franca among Chinese and considered as their mother tongue. Education recently made compulsory, but has been virtually universal for 30 years.

Further reading

• Bokhorst-Henga, Wendy D. and Imelda Santos Caleona. "The language attitudes of bilingual youth in multilingual Singapore." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Volume 30, Issue 3, 2009. p. 235-251. DOI: 10.1080/01434630802510121. Available at Taylor & Francis.