Well, call it a steal but I borrowed the concept of 'Singlish' from a friend who blogged about the usage of Singlish...Was asked to comment on it and comment on it I did but at the risk of flooding her comment section, hence may I present....My very own "Singlish" entry!
Today, we shall consult Singlish linguist Sina Kosta...
Introduction
But first, some background information:Singlish has often been termed a creole interlanguage which has stubbornly defied the government's attempts to put an end to the corruption of the genuine English language as purported by the elite. May I so emphasize that the only ones who probably speak Queen's English these days are the British and those who were educated during the Colonial era. HEck!Even the other "Native Speakers" of the the English language (Australians, Americans,etc) have taken to slangs and colloquialism not unlike Singlish.
A check with wiki's definition of Singlish revealed that someone actually came up with a classification for English speakers in Singapore. Here's the summary:
Acrolectal: British English, less the thick Brit slang. Most often utilised during formal occasions or in business speak to project an image of professionalism.
(Novices in Singlish, if not totally oblivious)
Mesolectal: Halfway there, most commonly utilised form of Singlish in Singapore.
Basilectal: The ultimate graduates and masters of the Singlish language. Most often utilised by the Ah Bengs and Ah Lians of the Singlish World. Often incapable of articulating a proper sentence in perfect English (Just a totally misunderstood lot really).
**WARNING** Average native speaker of English would not be able to understand Basilectal at all - its that powderful**WARNING**
Here's an example of their sentence structure:
Acrolect ("Standard") -"This person's Singlish is very good."
Mesolect" - Dis guy Singlish damn powerful one leh."
Basilect ("Singlish") - "Dis guy Singrish si beh"powderful sia.
And now back to our interview with Sina Kosta...
Singlish is definitely an economical form of communication and I would support its usage as being unique to our motherland, yet easily accessible by recent migrants. Its distinct quality lies in the fact that one can easily identify a fellow Singaporean whilst in a foreign country the moment he/she opens his mouth.
For one, it takes a local upbringing to grasp the naunces of Singlish (like whether the 'lah' or 'lidddat' should come at the start or end of a sentence) and not to forget the fact that years of cultivation it takes to master the right tone of a 'har?'...I mean anyone can insert 'lor', 'meh', 'larh' into their sentence but somehow the newly-arrived ang moh expat who lives down the street simply doesn't seem to get it right. Agreed?
The vocabulary of the language in itself is a beauty, a blend of various languages - Baba Malay, Bahasa Melayu, Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Tamil and whatnot revolving around and often substituting words from an English core.
Oh, and did I mention economical?
Take for instance a corporate board meeting or school project for that matter...
Head of Operations: Our customers bo chap our latest extra value meal leh
Chairman looks at the Head of Marketing: Liddat how?
Imagine how different the conversation would have been if proper English were used:
Head of Operations: We seem to have a problem attracting customers to buy into our latest extra value meal product.
Chairman looks at the Head of Marketing: Any suggestions from the marketing viewpoint?
Observe the difference? Now you understand why Singapore often tops the chart for efficiency...just imagine a thousand such meetings occurring islandwide?
Another perculiar observation would be the grammatical usage of a "Den" (Singlish for 'then', or perhaps not alway the case...) which really is a very flexible term:
1) As a convenient term for "therefore"
- Late for school den kena scolding mah
2) As a would be verb
- Later den say
3) As a replacement for the comma:
- Suay lah! Was makan-ing my Nasi Lemak this morning. Den hor, got bird shit on my food!
4) As a replacement for "What happened then?"
- Coxta: I was brushing my teeth this morning
- Kosta: Den?
5) As a sarcastic remark (Roughly translated as "If not me, then who?")
- Coxta: Wah! You painted this house on your own arh?
- Kosta: Ah Bah Den?
6) Of course, with Singlish being extremely economical in nature, there's a short-form for the above point 5.
- Coxta: Wah!You painted this house on your own arh?
- Kosta: Dennn?
I shan't go into more details with the "lahs","lorhs","Wat","Mah", "leh", etc but they're all highly interesting and specialised vocabulary unique to Singlish.
Man am I proud to be a Singaporean!
Please note: Sina Kosta is overwhelmingly biased in favour of Singlish and hence you might just want to take his comments with a pinch of salt (or satt)
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