Singlish

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Singlish (a portmanteau of Singapore and English); formally known as Colloquial Singaporean English, is an English-based creole language originating in Singapore.^[1][2][3] Singlish arose out of a situation of prolonged language contact between speakers of many different Asian languages in Singapore, such as Malay, Cantonese, Hokkien, Mandarin, Teochew, and Tamil.^[4] The term Singlish refers to a blend of Singaporean slang and English and was first recorded in the early 1970s.^[5]

Singlish originated with the arrival of the British and the establishment of English language education in Singapore.^[6] Elements of English quickly filtered out of schools and onto the streets, resulting in the development of a pidgin language^[7] spoken by non-native speakers as a lingua franca used for communication between speakers of the many different languages used in Singapore. Singlish evolved mainly among the working classes who learned elements of English without formal schooling, mixing in elements of their native languages.^[8] After some time, this new pidgin language, now combined with substantial influences from Peranakan, southern varieties of Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, became the primary language of the streets. As Singlish grew in popularity, children began to acquire Singlish as their native language, a process known as creolization. Through this process of creolization, Singlish became a fully-formed, stabilized and independent creole language, acquiring a more robust vocabulary and more complex grammar, with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding.^[9][10]

Like all languages, Singlish and other creole languages show consistent internal logic and grammatical complexity, and are used naturally by a group of people to express thoughts and ideas.^[11] Due to its origins, Singlish shares many similarities with other English-based creole languages. As with many other creole languages, it is sometimes incorrectly perceived to be a "broken" form of the lexifier language - in this case, English.^[12] Due in part to this perception of Singlish as "broken English", the use of Singlish is greatly frowned on by the government. In 2000, the government launched the Speak Good English Movement to eradicate Singlish,^[13] although more recent Speak Good English campaigns are conducted with tacit acceptance of Singlish as valid for informal usage.^[9] Several current and former Singaporean prime ministers have publicly spoken out against Singlish.^[14][15][16] However, the prevailing view among contemporary linguists is that, regardless of perceptions that a dialect or language is "better" or "worse" than its counterparts, when dialects and languages are assessed "on purely linguistic grounds, all languages—and all dialects—have equal merit".^[17][18][19]

In addition, there have been recent surges in the interest of Singlish internationally, sparking several national conversations. In 2016, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) announced that it has added 19 new "Singapore English" items such as "Hawker centre", "shiok" and "sabo" in both its online and printed versions. Several Singlish words had previously made it into the OED's online version, which launched in March 2000. Words such as "Lah" and "sinseh" were already included in OED's debut, while "kiasu" made it into the online list in March 2007.^[20] Reactions were generally positive for this Singaporean identity to be recognized on a global level, and Singlish has been commonly associated with the country and is considered a unique aspect of Singaporean culture.^[21][22]