Singlish

Singlish (a portmanteau of Singapore and English), formally known as Colloquial Singaporean English (CSE) or Singapore Colloquial English (SCE), is an English-based contact language originating in Singapore, and an informal register of Singapore English used between Singaporeans in colloquial contexts. It linguistically resembles a creole, but its status as a creole is academically disputed. Singlish arose out of contact between speakers of different languages, mainly comprising different English varieties, different Malay varieties such as Baba Malay and Bazaar Malay, and different Chinese varieties such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Mandarin, and Teochew. Singlish and Standard Singapore English were modelled by academics as part of a creole continuum from 1975 to 1989, but were treated distinctly from 1990 as diglossia, with speakers employing code-switching. As opposed to the standard variety, Singlish is mostly used in informal situations. Driven by a shared history and close geography, Manglish of Malaysia closely mirrors Singlish, though there are subtle differences in vocabulary between the two. The term Singlish first appeared in newspapers and academic discourse in 1975.…

Singlish (a portmanteau of Singapore and English), formally known as Colloquial Singaporean English (CSE) or Singapore Colloquial English (SCE), is an English-based contact language originating in Singapore, and an informal register of Singapore English used between Singaporeans in colloquial contexts. It linguistically resembles a creole, but its status as a creole is academically disputed. Singlish arose out of contact between speakers of different languages, mainly comprising different English varieties, different Malay varieties such as Baba Malay and Bazaar Malay, and different Chinese varieties such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Mandarin, and Teochew. Singlish and Standard Singapore English were modelled by academics as part of a creole continuum from 1975 to 1989, but were treated distinctly from 1990 as diglossia, with speakers employing code-switching. As opposed to the standard variety, Singlish is mostly used in informal situations. Driven by a shared history and close geography, Manglish of Malaysia closely mirrors Singlish, though there are subtle differences in vocabulary between the two. The term Singlish first appeared in newspapers and academic discourse in 1975. Singlish was initially perceived as a threat by the government; Singlish advertisements were banned from 1993, multiple political leaders spoke out against it such as by Lee Kuan Yew in 1999, and the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) was launched to discourage Singlish in 2000. From the 2010s, Singlish became more accepted; SGEM adjusted their goal to differentiate English and Singlish, Singlish advertisements reappeared, and government organisations such as the Singapore Tourism Board used Singlish. According to Mie Hiramoto, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS), this shift in stance was driven by a surge in patriotism sparked by the 50th National Day celebrations and the death of Lee Kuan Yew in 2015. Ng E-Ching, an English lecturer at NUS, said that this trend coincided with a growing sense of pride in Singaporean identity. Since the 2010s, it has garnered greater international attention and is frequently used by foreign artists and celebrities during local concerts or visits to embrace the local culture. The pronunciation of Singlish is influenced by the race of the speaker and formality context. It is syllable-timed and contains tonal words. The grammar of Singlish includes topic-prominence, omission of the word be, reduplication of words, and discourse particles, which is a distinguishing feature of Singlish, such as ah, lah, and what. The vocabulary of Singlish is based on British English, with most loanwords from Malay and Hokkien, and an increasing influence from Mandarin. The Oxford English Dictionary has added Singlish words, such as lah in its debut in 2000, kiasu in 2007, and kaypoh in 2026.

Classification

History

Phonology

Variation

Singlish pronunciation, while built on a base of British English, is heavily influenced by Malay, Hokkien and Cantonese. There are variations within Singlish, both geographically and ethnically. Chinese, Native Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and other ethnic groups in Singapore all have distinct accents, and the accentedness depends on factors such as formality of the context and language dominance of the speaker. Pronunciation of Singlish is mostly similar to Singapore English.

Consonants

The consonants in Singlish are given below: Pronunciation of ⟨th⟩: As onset consonants, the dental fricatives and often merge with and , so three is pronounced like tree, and then like den. As coda consonants (i.e., at the end of syllables), they are fronted to and respectively, so north is pronounced like norf, and bathe like bave. The contrast is usually maintained in acrolectal speech, though even among educated speakers there is some variation. Aspiration: Onset , and are sometimes unaspirated, especially among Malays. Aspiration is retained in loanwords from Chinese. L-vocalisation: Word-final or preconsonantal , as in mail realised as a dark l in Received Pronunciation and American English is often so velarised in Singlish that it approaches a high back vowel, e.g. sale . The sound tends to be lost after the back vowels , and sometimes , which makes mall and more, wall and war, and Saul and saw homophones. This is not the case for some speakers with Tamil or Malay accents who may use clear or dark "l"s in these environments instead. Lack of syllabic consonants: Sequences like or are never syllabic consonants in Singlish, hence taken , never * . Glottal stop insertion: A glottal stop may be inserted at the beginning of words starting with a vowel, as in German. As a result, final consonants do not experience liaison, i.e. run onto the next word. For example, "ran out of eggs" is realised as for some speakers (compare General American ), with glottal stops in lieu of null onsets. Glottal replacement: Though uncommon in modern speakers, a glottal stop may replace final stop consonants (except ), especially in fast-paced speech: Goodwood Park becomes Gu'-wu' Pa , exist is realised as , and there may be a glottal stop at the end of words like back and out. Final-obstruent devoicing: Word-finally, the distinction between voiced and voiceless sounds, i.e. – , – , etc., is sometimes not maintained. As a result, cease = seize and race = raise for some speakers. Cluster reduction: Final consonant clusters may simplify, especially in fast speech. In general, plosives, especially and , are lost if they come after another consonant that is non-lateral, e.g. want = one , tact = tack . Additionally, may be deleted after , e.g. flask .

Vowels

Broadly speaking, there is a one-to-many mapping of Singlish vowel phonemes to British Received Pronunciation vowel phonemes, with a few exceptions (as discussed below, with regard to egg and peg). The following describes a typical system. There is generally no distinction between the non-close front monophthongs, so pet and pat are pronounced the same . At the acrolectal level, the merged vowel phonemes are distinguished to some extent. These speakers make a distinction between the tense vowels ( ) and the lax vowels ( ) respectively. Some speakers introduce elements from American English, such as pre-consonantal (pronouncing the "r" in bird, port, etc.). This is caused by the popularity of American TV programming. In 2007, about 20 per cent of university undergraduates sometimes use this American-style pre-consonantal when reading a passage. Vowel comparison between Singlish and English diaphonemic system: Next–text split: For many speakers, some words, including leg and bed, have the raised vowel , instead of . This is not entirely predictable, as egg has a close vowel (so it rhymes with vague) while peg has an open vowel (and rhymes with tag); and similarly for most speakers bed has a close vowel (so it rhymes with made), while fed has a more open vowel (the same vowel as in bad). The word next has the raised vowel and does not rhyme with text. Which vowel occurs in each word therefore appears in these cases not to be predictable. This is illustrated by the fact that red and read (past tense) are not homophones in Singlish. This split only applies to the diaphoneme . remains in Singlish, except when followed by , in which case it is the monophthong . Examples of words that have idiosyncratic pronunciations: flour (expected: = flower); and their (expected: = there). Flour/flower and their/there are therefore not homophones in Singlish. In general, Singlish vowels are tenser there are no lax vowels (which RP has in pit, put, and so forth). The vowels in words such as day and low are pronounced with less glide than the comparable diphthongs in RP, so they can be regarded as monophthongs i.e. vowels with no glide. Where other varieties of English have an unstressed , i.e. a reduced vowel, Singlish tends to use the full vowel based on orthography. This can be seen in words such as accept , example , purchase , maintenance , presentation , and so on. However, this does not mean that the reduced vowel never occurs, as about and again have in their first syllable. It seems that the letter 'a' is often pronounced , but the letter 'o' usually has a full vowel quality, especially in the con- prefix (control, consider, etc.). There is a greater tendency to use a full vowel in a syllable which is closed off with a final consonant, so a full vowel is much more likely at the start of absorb than afford . In loanwords from Hokkien that contain nasal vowels, the nasalisation is often kept one prominent example being the mood particle hor, pronounced .

Tone and prosody

Singlish is syllable-timed compared to most varieties of English, which are usually stress-timed. Singlish intonation is different from intonation in British English, due to an unclear position of a nucleus within an intonational phrase. Unlike American English, Singlish employs more prominent syllables and assigns the same amount of stress to syllables following a prominent syllable, such as in enclitics. Its intonation is influenced by Malay, and the extent of its influence varies by the speaker's ethnicity. Content words are typically stressed, and function words are typically unstressed with some exceptions. Repeated use of a content word do not undergo de-stressing unlike standard English. Demonstratives such as this and modals such as should receive stress. Sentence-final pronouns receive heavy stress. Similar stress is given to each syllable in most bisyllabic words such as language, with exceptions such as basic which has more stress on the first syllable. Trisyllabic words may have equal stress on all syllables, such as in continue, or on only some syllables, such as in the second syllable of remember. The final syllable of an utterance is often dragged out, similar to Malay, as an indicator of prominence, and may be analysed as a level tone. Words of Sinitic origin retain their original tones in Singlish, such as kiasu which maintains its original Hokkien tones, with the exception of words that are loaned via English first, such as Taiwan, which is said without tone. , from Chong (2012). Here, "aL" and "Ha" mark the left and right edges of an accentual phrase, and L* is a pitch accent falling on stressed syllables. The gradual downwards movement of pitch towards the end of the sentence is represented by the boundary tone L%. ]] Singlish is governed by pitch accent. It may be syllabically analysed using low, middle, and high tones. Tones do not glide gradually between tones, and instead move in sustained steps. Syllables with stress receive a middle tone according to Ng E-Ching, and an "L* pitch accent", referring to a drop in tone, according to Adam Chong. A low tone is assigned to the first syllable of a prosodic word if it is unstressed. A high tone is assigned to the last syllable of a prosodic word; some words such as watermelon may be split into water and melon, receiving a high tone at the end of water. Word-final high tones are a feature ultimately from indigenous Malay, through Bazaar Malay, with reinforcement from Baba Malay and Indian English. All other syllables are either given the middle tone or left unspecified. Tones may also be analysed as occurring over an entire word, as opposed to a syllabic analysis. A rising tone is most commonly used, accompanied by a long sequence of rising tones, and occurs rarely in the final position. A falling tone is used to emphasise a word or indicate the completion of a thought, which may mark the end of an intonational phrase. A lengthened falling tone additionally includes emotions such as disappointment. A rise-fall tone is used for emphasis, usually appearing in the final position, and may convey strong approval, strong disapproval, or surprise similar to British English. A level tone is used for filler words and signals an incomplete thought. A rise-level tone, while rarer, is also used for an incomplete thought. A fall-level tone is used to express a viewpoint believed to be correct with an expectation of a comment from the speaker. A level-fall tone is used to put more emphasis on an emotion. structure of Singlish proposed by Chong]] Accentual phrases, which may be a word or slightly longer, start with a low tone and end with a high tone. Intermediate and full intonational phrases are marked with a boundary tone, which can be low in declaratives and wh-questions and high in yes-no questions. A "boosted pitch" or "early booster" often occurs at the start of a sentence, such as in sentences that start with actually or I think, similar to the "high key" used in British English to signal a new topic. David Deterding wrote that a prosodic unit begins with a boosted pitch and ends with a falling or rise-fall tone. Questions may end in more commonly, a falling tone, and less commonly, a rise-fall tone. Sharp falling tones are associated with strong disagreement or surprise. Imperatives and exclamations more commonly use a falling or rise-fall tone. The pronunciation of Singlish is described as having a "staccato" effect by multiple linguists such as Platt, and others also say it has a "sing-song quality", according to Adam Chong. However, Adam Brown says that it is a musical term with no linguistic definition. Brown attributed Singlish having shortened vowels, along with no stress-timing and liaison, to it being described as "staccato". Overall, the differences between the different ethnic communities in Singapore are most evident in the patterns of intonation. For example, Malay Singaporeans often have the main pitch excursion later in an utterance, unlike ethnically Chinese and Indian Singaporeans.

Grammar

of the cake John always buy one, with one analysed as a complementiser, illustrated by Bao]] Singlish grammar is the set of structural rules Singlish follows, including the structure of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. It is influenced by the grammar of Malay and the Chinese languages. Some features of Singlish grammar include topic-prominence, where sentences begin with a known referent of the conversation, omission of the word be, reduplication of words, and discourse particles such as ah, lah, and what. Discourse particles are a distinguishing feature of Singlish, which impart pragmatic but not semantic information. According to Smakman and Wagenaar, lah and ah are used the most. The earliest particles, ah, lah, and what, were acquired from Hokkien and Bazaar Malay, while a later set of particles, lor, hor, leh, meh and mah, were acquired mostly from Cantonese.

Vocabulary

on 5 October 1980, featuring various Singlish loanwords.]] Much of Singlish vocabulary is derived from British English, in addition to loanwords from Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese and Tamil. Malay and Hokkien contributed the most loanwords to Singlish. Of the Chinese varieties, Mandarin is a newer influence on Singlish compared to Hokkien and Cantonese, which have had a longer history and greater influence. The composition is described as a "fair representation" of languages spoken in Singapore, except the Indian languages, by Tan Ying-Ying. It also shares some words with American English such as Scotch tape, compared to British English Sellotape. According to a 2024 study surveying Singaporeans between 16 to 59 years old by Preply, a language-learning company, the most popular terms in Singlish were alamak, an expression of alarm, makan, meaning to eat, and the discourse particles, lah, lor, leh, and meh. During borrowing, words of English origin sometime take on the alternative senses of their Chinese counterparts, resulting in an extension in meanings. For example, send can be used to mean 'accompany someone', as in "Let me send you to the airport", possibly under the influence of Hokkien ( ) or Cantonese ( ). The lexis of Singlish is very similar to Manglish, although there are some differences in the frequency of usage. Manglish receives more influence from Malay, such as the greater use of the suffix -kan to gain clarification. On the other hand, Singlish receives more influence from Chinese languages, such as the greater use of Cantonese lor to express obviousness and resignation. This is due to the geographically close locations of Singapore and Malaysia, shared culture, and shared history. In the 20th century, older expressions such as angkat and samseng, which come from Bazaar Malay and Hokkien respectively, saw less use, while words like slay and cooked became more prevalent, creating a generational difference between younger and older people in understanding each other's Singlish. The features from the contact languages that initially formed Singlish decreased, but the distinctiveness of Singlish increased. This was due to a shift from Bazaar Malay and Hokkien as more widely-spoken languages to English, with Hokkien diminishing due to the Speak Mandarin Campaign and Bazaar Malay losing its role as a lingua franca. According to Tan Ying Ying, a linguist from Nanyang Technological University, it reflected a change adapting to a different social context.

See also

List of Singapore abbreviations Sound correspondences between English accents Chinese Pidgin English, another contact language historically spoken in Singapore

References

Further reading

Brown, Adam (1999). Singapore English in a Nutshell: An Alphabetical Description of its Features. Singapore: Federal Publications. . Crewe, William (ed. 1977) The English Language in Singapore. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press. Deterding, David (2007). Singapore English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. . Deterding, David, Brown, Adam and Low Ee Ling (eds. 2005) English in Singapore: Phonetic Research on a Corpus. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia). . Deterding, David, Low Ee Ling and Brown, Adam (eds. 2003) English in Singapore: Research on Grammar. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia). . Deterding, David and Hvitfeldt, Robert (1994) 'The Features of Singapore English Pronunciation: Implications for Teachers', Teaching and Learning, 15 (1), 98–107. (on-line version) Deterding, David and Poedjosoedarmo, Gloria (2001) The Grammar of English: Morphology and Syntax for English Teachers in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Prentice Hall. (Chapter 19: Singapore English). . Foley, Joseph (ed. 1988) New Englishes: the Case of Singapore, Singapore: Singapore University Press. Foley, J. A., T. Kandiah, Bao Zhiming, A.F. Gupta, L. Alsagoff, Ho Chee Lick, L. Wee, I. S. Talib and W. Bokhorst-Heng (eds. 1998) English in New Cultural Contexts: Reflections from Singapore. Singapore: Singapore Institute of Management/Oxford University Press. . Gopinathan, S., Pakir, Anne, Ho Wah Kam and Saravanan, Vanithamani (eds. 1998) Language, Society and Education in Singapore (2nd edition), Singapore: Times Academic Press. Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1992) 'Contact features of Singapore Colloquial English'. In Kingsley Bolton and Helen Kwok (eds.) Sociolinguistics Today: International Perspectives, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 323–45. Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1994). The Step-Tongue: Children's English in Singapore. Clevedon, UK: Multimedia Matters. . Ho, Mian Lian and Platt, John Talbot (1993). Dynamics of a contact continuum: Singapore English. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. . Lim, Lisa (ed. 2004). Singapore English: a grammatical description. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins. . Low, Ee Ling and Brown, Adam (2005) English in Singapore: An Introduction. Singapore: McGraw-Hill. Melcher, A. (2003). Unlearning Singlish: 400 Singlish-isms to avoid. Singapore: Andrew Melcher Pte. Ltd. Newbrook, Mark (1987). Aspects of the syntax of educated Singaporean English: attitudes, beliefs, and usage. Frankfurt am Main; New York: P. Lang. . Ooi, Vincent B. Y. (ed. 2001) Evolving Identities: the English Language in Singapore. Singapore: Times Academic. . Pakir, Anne (1991). "The range and depth of English-knowing bilinguals in Singapore". World Englishes, 10(2), 167–179. Platt, John Talbot and Weber, Heidi (1980). English in Singapore: status, features, functions. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. . Shelley, R., Beng, K.-S., & Takut bin Salah. (2000). Sounds and sins of Singlish, and other nonsense. Kuala Lumpur: Times Books International. Tongue, R. K. (1979) The English of Singapore and Malaysia (2nd edition). Singapore: Eastern Universities Press. VJ Times Editorial Team. (2000). Singlish to English: basic grammar guide. Singapore: VJ Times. Wee, Lionel (2004) 'Singapore English: Phonology'. In Edgar W. Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie and Clive Upton (eds.) A Handbook of Varieties of English. Volume 1: Phonology, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1017–33. Wee, Lionel (2004) 'Singapore English: morphology and syntax'. In Bernd Kortmann, Kate Burridge, Rajend Mesthrie, Edgar W. Schneider and Clive Upton (eds.) A Handbook of Varieties of English. Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1058–72. Wong, J. O. (2001). The natural semantic metalanguage approach to the universal syntax of the Singlish existential primitive. CAS research paper series, no. 30. Singapore: Centre for Advanced Studies, National University of Singapore.

External links

The Coxford Singlish Dictionary launched in 2002 by Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen (discontinued) A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English launched in 2004 by Jack Lee (discontinued) The Chimbridge Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English launched in 2024 by Daniel Goh An Annotated Bibliography of Singapore English up to 2007 by David Deterding The NIE Corpus of Spoken Singapore English launched in 2001 by the National Institute of Education (NIE) The Lim Siew Hwee Corpus of Informal Singapore Speech launched in 2005 by NIE

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