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Singapore Colloquial English, or Singlish for short, is the English dialect spoken colloquially in Singapore. Singlish derives mainly from British English, but it has creole-like characteristics, and takes many features from Asian languages such as Chinese and Malay.
Singlish began life with the arrival of the British and the establishment of English language schools in Singapore. Soon, English filtered out of schools and onto the streets, to be learned by non-English-speakers in a pidgin-like form for communication purposes. After some time, this new form of English, now loaded with substantial influences from Indian English, Baba Malay, and the southern varieties of Chinese, began to be learned "natively" in its own right. Creolization occurred, and Singlish then became a fully-formed, stabilized, and independent English creole-like dialect.
Like all other languages and dialects, Singlish is best thought of as a continuum. In Singlish's case, the continuum runs through the following varieties:
Acrolectal: This is the most "high-class" form of speech, used by the well-educated in formal situations. Acrolectal Singaporean English is basically identical to formal British English, except that a "toned-down" version of Singlish pronunciation is used. For example, speakers of acrolectal Singaporean English attempt to restore the phonemes /θ/ and /ð/ (as in thin and then).
Basilectal: This is "street" Singlish, and is used by everyone, educated or not, in informal settings. Here can be found all of the unique phonological, lexical, and grammatical features of Singlish, which will be the subject of the rest of this article.
Pidgin: This is the "pidgin" level of Singlish, which is probably a good representative of an earlier stage of Singlish, before creolization took place and solidified Singlish as a fully-formed creole-like dialect. Like all pidgins, speakers at the pidgin level speak another language as a first language, and Singlish as a second language. However, since many people today learn Singlish natively, the number of speakers at the "pidgin" level of Singlish is dwindling. (By definition, a pidgin is not learned natively.)
When Singaporeans speak to each other, mixing of Singlish with other languages, such as Chinese dialects, Malay, or Indian languages such as Tamil occurs very frequently. In fact, a sentence can begin in Singlish, switch languages several times along the way, and end up as another language. However, this can only occur if all participants of the conversation can already speak both Singlish and the language(s) into which they are switching. This article will therefore talk only about "pure" Singlish?the kind that may go on in a conversation between a Chinese, a Malay, and an Indian. Such speech will still contain Asian words, but those will be considered loanwords fully incorporated into Singlish, because everyone can understand them, regardless of what other Asian languages they may speak.
Due to its origins, Singlish shares many similarities with pidgin varieties of English, and can easily give off the impression of "broken English" or "bad English" to a speaker of some other, less divergent variety of English. In addition, the profusion of Singlish features, especially loanwords from Asian languages, mood particles, and topic-prominent structure, can easily make Singlish downright incomprehensible to a Brit or American. As a result, the Singaporean government considers Singlish a handicap, and in the interest of promoting equality and better communication with the rest of the world has launched the Speak Good English Movement to eradicate it, at least from formal usage. Use of Singlish on television or radio is banned and students would be warned if caught speaking Singlish in school. (On the other hand, it is Singlish that is the dominant form of English spoken in schools and on the streets.)
Most Singaporeans, on the other hand, think "bladi Gahmen si peh kaypoh one, why always so bedek kacang horh". This sentence can be approximately broken down into:
Singlish pronunciation, while built on a base of British English, is also heavily influenced by Chinese and Malay.
The phonology of Singlish:
| bilabial | labiodental | alveolar | postalveolar | palatal | velar | glottal | |
| stops | p b | t d | k g | ||||
| affricates | tʃ dʒ | ||||||
| fricatives | f (v) | s (z) | ʃ (ʒ) | h | |||
| nasals | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| laterals | l | ||||||
| approximants | w | r | j |
(See International Phonetic Alphabet for an in-depth guide to the symbols.)
In general:
| front | central | back | |
| close | i | u | |
| close-mid | e | ə | o |
| open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| open | ɑ | ||
| ai | au | ɔi | iə | uə |
The vowel system of Singlish can be directly derived by merging vowel phonemes in the British Received Pronunciation vowel system. The following describes a typical system. Some speakers may further merge /e/ and /ɛ/; other speakers make a distinction between /i/ and /ɪ/, /ɛ/ and /ɛə/, or /ɑ/ and /ʌ/.
At the acrolectal level, there is some effort to "un-merge" the merged vowel phonemes, and to introduce elements from American English, such as rhotic vowels (pronouncing the "r" in bird, port, etc.)
| Singlish phoneme | matches RP phoneme(s) | as in |
| /i/ | /i/ | meet |
| /ɪ/ | pit | |
| /e/ | /eɪ/ | day |
| /ɛ/ | /ɛ/ | set |
| /æ/ | map | |
| /ɛə/ | hair | |
| /ɑ/ | /ɑ/ | car |
| pass | ||
| father | ||
| /ʌ/ | bus | |
| /ɔ/ | /ɒ/ | mock |
| /ɔ/ | thought | |
| court | ||
| /o/ | /əʊ/ | low |
| /u/ | /u/ | room |
| /ʊ/ | put | |
| /ə/ - see below | /ɜ/ | bird |
| /ə/ | idea | |
| better | ||
| /ai/ | /ai/ | my |
| /au/ | /au/ | mouth |
| /ɔi/ | /ɔi/ | boy |
| /iə/ | /iə/ | here |
| /uə/ | /uə/ | tour |
| /ai jə/ | /aiə/ | fire |
| /au wə/ | /auə/ | power |
Two words with idiosyncratic pronunciations:
flour /flɑ/ (expected: /flɑ wə/ = flower)
their /djɑ/ (expected: /dɛ/ = there)
Flour/flower and their/there are therefore not homophones in Singlish.
In general, Singlish vowels are tenser and "purer"?there are no lax vowels (which RP has in pit, put, and so forth), and even the diphthongs are pronounced with less "glide" than the diphthongs in RP. Note that the vowels of day and low are pronounced as monophthongs?i.e. vowels with no glide.
In addition, where other varieties of English have an unstressed /ə/, reduced from another vowel, such as in accept, example, and so on, Singlish tends to restore the full vowel. This is because Singlish de-emphasizes the role of stress (see section on prosody below).
In loanwords from Hokkien that contain nasalized vowels, the nasalization is often kept - one prominent example being the mood particle hor, pronounced as /hɔ~/?somewhat (but not quite) like the vowel in French dent.
One of the most prominent and noticeable features of Singlish is its unique intonation pattern, which is quite unlike British or American English. For example:
Singlish formally takes after British English (in terms of spelling and abbreviations), although naming conventions are in a mix of American and British ones (with American ones on the rise). For instance, local media have "sports pages" (sport in British English) and "soccer coverage" (the use of the word "soccer" is not common in British media). Singlish also uses many words borrowed from Hokkien, the dialect of more than 50% of the Chinese population in Singapore, and from Malay. In many cases, English words take on the meaning of their Chinese counterparts, resulting in a shift in meaning. This is most obvious in such cases as "borrow"/"lend", which are functionally equivalent in Singlish and map to the same Mandarin word "jie". ("Oi, siao-eh, borrow me your calculator, can?")
Examples:
Other idioms include:
The grammar of Singlish has been heavily influenced by other languages and dialects in the region, such as Chinese and Malay. As a result, Singlish has acquired some unique features, especially at the basilectal level. Note that all of the features described below disappear at the acrolectal level, as people in formal situations tend to adjust their speech towards accepted norms found in other varieties of English.
Singlish is topic-prominent, like Chinese. This means that Singlish sentences are usually constructed by first putting down a topic (or a known reference of the conversation), followed by a comment (or new information). The semantic relationship between topic and comment is not important:
The above constructions can be translated analogously into Chinese or Japanese, which are topic-prominent languages.
Nouns are optionally marked for plurality. In general, a noun that is used to refer to a general category is not marked for the plural, and does not take any articles:
It is more common to mark the plural in the presence of a modifier that implies plurality, such as "several", "both".
The copula, which is the verb "to be" in most varieties of English, is treated somewhat differently in Singlish:
When occurring with an adjective, "to be" tends to drop out, and is often replaced by an adverb, such as "very". This is strongly reminiscent of Chinese usage:
When occurring with "-ing" to form the continuous aspect, "to be" may similarly drop out, leaving the "-ing" form as the independent continuous form:
Slightly less common is the dropping out of "to be" when used as an equative between two nouns, or as a clause (what I think is...) or a demonstrative (this is...).
Past tense marking is optional in Singlish. Marking of the past tense occurs most consistently in strong verbs (or irregular verbs), as well as verbs ending on -t and -d, such as:
Due to consonant cluster simplification, the past tense is unmarked when it is part of a complex consonant cluster:
The past tense tends to be unmarked if the verb in question goes on for an extended period, rather than as an isolated event (compare French imperfect):
Negation works in general like English, with not added after "to be", "to have", or modals, and don't before all other verbs. Contractions (can't, shouldn't) are used alongside their uncontracted forms.
However, due to final cluster simplification, the -t drops out from negative forms. This effectively makes -n the negative marker on modals:
An especially unique effect of this is that in the verb "can", its positive and negative forms are distinguished only by vowel:
Also, never is used as a negative past tense marker, and does not have to carry the English meaning. In this construction, the negated verb is never put into the past-tense form:
Another feature strongly reminiscent of Chinese, verbs are often repeated (e.g., TV personality Phua Chu Kang's "don't pray-pray!" pray = play.) In general verbs are repeated to imply vividness, repetition, and a sense of "wandering around":
Particles in Singlish are highly comparable to Chinese. They are generally used to express grammatical mood. For example:
Already
/ɔ11 rɛ33 di42/
Used to express a change in state, and is analogous to Chinese 了 (le):
Liao
/liɑu11/
Is similar to already.
Is it
/i11 sit24/ or /i11 zit24/
Used to form yes-no questions, generic like the French n'est-ce pas?, regardless of the actual verb in the sentence. Is it implies that the speaker has inferred (from some other evidence) that the answer is Yes, but needs it confirmed:
Meh
/mɛ55/
Also used to form yes-no questions, but with a decidedly different tone: the speaker implies that he/she had expected the answer to the question to be No, but has been surprised by new evidence that points the other way:
Or not
/ɔ11 nɔt41/
In a construction similar (but not identical) to Chinese, or not is used to form a yes/no question. Unlike is it or meh, or not carries no connotations of either Yes or No. Or not cannot be used with sentences already in the negative:
Ar
/ɑ24/
Inserted between topic and comment (often to give a negative tone), or at the end of a question (for added brusqueness).
One
/wɑn42/ or /wɑn55/
The word one is used to emphasize the predicate of the sentence by implying that it is in a continuous, habitual state. It can be compared to a similar use of de in southern Chinese. One used in this way does not correspond to any use of the word "one" in British or American English:
Liddat (Like that)
/lai11 dɛt41/
Is used to emphasize descriptions by adding vividness and continuousness:
Like that can also be used as in British or American English:
Lah
/lɑ55/ or /lɑ51/
The ubiquitous word 'lah' is used at the end of a sentence, for emphasis. In Malay it is used to change a verb into a command or to soften its tone, particularly when usage of the verb may seem impolite. To drink is minum, but 'Here, drink!' is minumlah. Hence a Singaporean would say
Lah is often used with brusque, short, negative responses:
Lah is also used for reassurance:
This is not to be confused with 'la' (short for 'lad'), which is found in the Scouse dialect spoken in Liverpool, England
What
/wɑt11/
Used to remind or contradict the listener, often in order to explain some other point the speaker has:
Mah
/mɑ55/
Used to assert that something is obvious and final, and is usually used only with statements that are already patently true. This may seem condescending to the listener:
Lor
/lɔ55/
A casual, sometimes joking way to assert upon the listener either direct observations or obvious inferences. This may also seem condescending if over-used:
Leh
/lɛ55/
Used to assert a command, request, claim or complaint:
Hor
/hɔ~24/
Used to draw the listener's attention and/or consent:
"Got" is used to mean "there is" or "there are":
"Can" is used extensively as both a question particle and an answer particle. The negative is cannot.
The order of the verb and the subject in an indirect question is the same as a direct question.
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