"Singlish is not proper English lor and I do not want my child to pick up Singlish from interactions between them and their peers. Aiyah you teachers please must be more sensitive towards the way they talk to each other."
That was a direct quote from a parent, among the many with regards to the same issue I hear about day in, day out. I guess I do not need to explain why I tried not to laugh in the face of this particular parent at all. Must say that it took me alot of effort to switch on the expression and thinking cap of a 'professional teacher' when that came stumbling out from her mouth. The thing was, at least she kind of accepted superficially my take on Singlish with a cynical smile before thanking me and walking away with her child to the car. Well who can blame her? Generally because of globalisation, Singapore's business markets have been opened up to business interactions between the countries from the East to the West. We are also seeing quite a huge influx of foreign talents into our country, many of them English speaking. Rather than finding Singlish an exotic and unique part of Singapore, they began to despise the way we speak and make fun of us. Even our MM Lee, when he was our PM, tried to encourage us to speak good English instead of Singlish. Actually even til now, the government has never stopped doing that and because of this, we now have highly overpaid English teachers from the so called native English speaking countries here, teaching our children how to speak like them (mostly enrichment courses nowadays) depriving Singaporeans who have all the skills, experiences and qualifications of the job.
Well first and foremost I have to declare that I am neither xenophobic nor do I disagree with the fact that we must use English in its proper form. I have also been given a great chance to experience teaching English in a non English speaking country, China. Besides that, my salary was considerably good although not as good as my counterparts who are either white or 'western' just because I look Asian. Personally I am all for foreign talents PROVIDED THAT they can do what we seriously cannot and be treated as equally as the locals, without double standards. However that seems like a very utopian concept that just don't work in a society like Singapore.
Anyway let's get back to my take on Singlish instead of rambling continuously about our very lovely foreign talents.
Never in my life have I considered Singlish to be English although the vocabulary seems to be mainly English. That is why it has been categorised as one of the Creole languages in the world (the parent was like... "So chim one ah..."). Maybe I am not accurate about the fact that Singlish isn't English but how can it be considered English when it's grammar is here, there and everywhere, defying the grammatical laws of the English language itself? Also at the same time, the grammar of Singlish seems to be highly influence by the grammar of the Chinese language even though it is not exactly literally. Besides that, the vocab used in Singlish has also been borrowed from the Malay language, Chinese and Chinese dialects, and a little bit of Tamil as well. The actual beginning of Singlish stems from the British colonialism of the Malay Peninsula. Immigrants came from all over the world speaking all sorts of languages and they gradually picked up some bits of the language that their colonial masters were speaking. With that, they began to interact among other immigrants from other countries, mixing what they have picked up, with their own mother tongue. Hence over time all the languages got jumbled up into one colourful plate of rojak called Singlish. The beauty I see in Singlish is that it is so colourful, like a painting palette filled with warm hues of every colour (I think that the parent must have thought me a mad person). It is something that everyone of us can identify with whether we share the same mother tongue or not. It is something that actually allows you to identify fellow Singaporeans in countries far away and (almost) never a time will it be deemed inaccurate. The point here is that, Singlish will always exist because it is so part of us and our society. It is also probably our only heritage besides our food. So how can it be possible to stop a child from picking Singlish up in this environment that we have everywhere?
Undoubtedly, teachers in the school(s) in Singapore teach English and correct the children during English lessons when they blurt out gross errors in the English language. That is because the teachers are teaching with the objective of inculcating a good foundation of the English language itself (talking about the Early Childhood Education industry), and not Singlish as we all know that it is very easy to score A* in Singlish. Teach a child how to learn to switch from Singlish to English instead of screaming at him whenever he repeats the way you speak (admit it Misus, you speak 'terrible English' and very good Singlish yourself). So in my opinion even as a teacher who is supposed to be brainwash by the government to think otherwise, I believe that Singlish is here to keep and stay.
In the case of being mocked by foreigners for speaking Singlish and not English, I think we can be glad that most of us are blessed with being bilingual or multi-lingual, rather than mono-lingual. Even though some of us have no ability to switch effectively to English, at least we are able to understand what the foreigners are talking about and it is their very loss for not being able to understand us. Then again of course there must be some form of social politeness to make effort to communicate effectively by the use of a common language so teach the child to do so, rather than despise a language that makes us so unique as who we are.
In fact, some of the so called native speakers of English do not speak as well as we think they do. In each and every country, the usage of English differs. North Americans (for example) have no idea what a lorry is and they do not get the insults used by the British. There are also often times whereby the British do not get what the Irish are saying, with their interesting phrases and (very hot) accent. Some of my British and American friends love to smile at the French way of saying the word 'helicopter' because they find it amusing. No one can agree with anyone about each other's usage of the English language and we have to accept this very fact. This applies to all other languages as well.
So seriously, Singlish makes things easier, especially when it comes to communication with a fellow Singaporean. It not only speaks familiarity, it is also easier to get the point across hahaa for example I still think that "Uncle, one teh peng." sounds better than "Tea with milk and ice please." when you are at a local coffee shop. Try using the latter and I will not be surprised that the uncle will be like "Alamak, talk properly please hor. What you want?!"
That is my take though and I hope the parent will not attempt to withdraw her child from the school just because I refused to agree fully with her.
Alamak... some parents are really so fussy leh but they should also look at themselves lor. Tak boleh tahan really, talk so much only. Singlish is a very powerful language that unites us and make us uniquely Singaporean. Cannot do without one! Right or not?
