17 Facts About Singlish

Singlish is an English-based creole language spoken in Singapore.

Singlish arose out of a situation of prolonged language contact between speakers of many different languages in Singapore, including Hokkien, Malay, Teochew, Cantonese and Tamil.

Singlish originated with the arrival of the British and the establishment of English-medium education in Singapore.

Singlish evolved mainly among the working classes who learned elements of English without formal schooling, mixing in elements of their native languages.

The uniqueness of Singlish has been studied by linguistics experts beyond Singapore.

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Infocomm Media Development Authority's free-to-air TV code states that the use of Singlish is only permitted in interviews, "where the interviewee speaks only Singlish, " but the interviewer must refrain from using it.

Singlish is sometimes used by ordinary people in street interviews broadcast on TV and radio on a daily basis, as well as occasionally in newspapers.

In many white-collar workplaces, Singlish is avoided in formal contexts, especially at job interviews, meetings with clients, presentations or meetings, where Standard English is preferred.

Nevertheless, selected Singlish phrases are sometimes injected into discussions to build rapport or for a humorous effect, especially when the audience consists mainly of locals.

For many students, using Singlish is inevitable when interacting with their peers, siblings, parents and elders.

In recent times, Singlish is considered by linguists to be an independent language with its own systematic grammar.

Several Singlish words had previously made it into the OED's online version, which launched in March 2000.

Singlish is semi-tonal as words of Sinitic origin generally retain their original tones in Singlish.

One of the most prominent and noticeable features of Singlish is its unique intonation pattern, which is quite unlike non-creole varieties of English.

Frequent use of already in Singlish is probably a direct influence of the Hokkien liao particle.

However, Singlish itself takes influence only from the general expression of the term without any negative implication, and non-Malay speakers pronounce it either as a nasal sia or simply siah:.

Much of Singlish vocabulary is derived from British English, in addition to many loanwords from Sinitic languages, Malay and Tamil.