Minority languages enjoy new lease of life
Print Edition
Kevin Martens Wong reels off sentences in Kristang, which is among several minority languages in Singapore enjoying a new lease of life after a decades-long drive to encourage the use of English and Mandarin.
“Teng bong, ozi nus prendeh sorti-sorti di tempu,” the linguist told his eager students in the 500-year-old mish-mash of Portuguese and Malay — a greeting, and information that the class would be about the weather.
A former British colonial trading post that has long been a melting pot of different cultures, Singapore has an ethnically diverse population whose ancestors mostly came from principally China, India and the Malay archipelago.
On independence in 1965, Singaporeans spoke an array of tongues. English was common, but many used Chinese dialects, such as Hokkien, as well as Tamil from India, Malay and a smattering of more obscure languages.
Founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew made the study of English compulsory in schools as he positioned the country as a global commerce and finance hub, as well as one other “mother tongue.”
For local ethnic Chinese, who today make up the majority of Singapore’s population, it was usually Mandarin while it was Tamil or Malay for other citizens.
Non-Chinese tongues, such as Kristang — spoken by descendants of Portuguese colonisers who arrived in what is now Malaysia in the 16th century and married locals — also faded.
One thing that flourished was “Singlish,” a local patois that mixes English with words from the myriad tongues spoken in Singapore. It is still widely used, despite official efforts to discourage it.
Efforts have been made by bodies promoting Chinese culture to keep Hokkien alive. It is the Chinese dialect that is most common in Singapore but it has become less widespread among the young.
Observers see a relaxation in attitudes toward the old languages in the city-state of 5.6 million, which has grown into one of the world’s wealthiest and most stable societies. Most Singaporeans have already achieved an enviable level of English by global standards, lessening fears that focusing on other tongues will affect their English-speaking ability.
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