By Georgia Ong (26S03O) and Tok Kai Xue (26A01B)

Photographs courtesy of RIAC

You’re overseas in another touristy area when a voice rings out: “Walao eh! Why the queue so long sia?” 

All Singaporeans have experienced this exact moment—finding out another Singaporean is abroad with you through their colloquial accent. 

Singapore English. The language we speak on the daily, the sounds we hear all around us. Ringing in our ears, the sounds of Singapore are the pieces of our past, present and future. We, as products of our history, have been woven together by generations before us; our forefathers who found their way to our shores in search of better lives, our grandparents who learnt a tongue unfamiliar to them, and our parents who watched the languages they once grew up with fade away with time. 

This is our lingua franca: one uniquely developed for us, Singaporeans; one that we have the power to influence. Where did Singapore English come from? How has Singapore English evolved? What makes Singapore English such a powerful tool—not just as a symbol for national identity, but as the very foundation of the Singaporean experience? 

This year’s ELL Symposium—hosted by Raffles Institution for the first time in 9 years—sought to explore how Singapore English serves as a cornerstone for our Singaporean identity. “Voicing the Nation: English in Singapore”, set the stage for two linguists, Dr Geraldine Kwek and Dr Mark Fifer Seilhamer, both armed with a vast array of research experience, to delve deep into the nuances of Singapore English. 

The speakers talking before the official start of the ELL Symposium

Singlish and Singapore English are not the same. It is important to stress that Singapore English (SgE) is much more than just Singlish, a distinct variety of non-standard English spoken in Singapore. Rather, it is the way we communicate with each other as Singaporeans, the way we lay our shared experiences upon a familiar background, an intricate web woven from many tongues. As Dr Geraldine Kwek very aptly put it: 

Dr Kwek was the first speaker of the symposium. An assistant professor in the English Language and Literature department at NTU-NIE, she spoke on the topic of “Features of Singapore English: On Variation & Change”. 

Dr Kwek engaging with the crowd 

Polling the crowd about how they’d describe SgE, a few notable words came up—“Colonial”, “Unique”, “Identity”, “English”. Dr Kwek stressed the multiple dimensions that make SgE a core part of our identity—mainly, the people and their experiences. 

These factors trickled down to form the various varieties of SgE that make up our common tongue across the ages, influencing our pronunciation, word formation (morphology, for anyone interested in in-depth linguistics), and choice of words. 

Dr Kwek sectioned her argument by playing various audio clips of speakers from 3 different age groups—Generation 1: Grandparents (Aged 67 to 83), Generation 2: Parents (Aged 40 to 51), Generation 3: Children (Aged 11 to 20). All hailing from varying ethnicities and backgrounds, they read the exact same passage, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. Murmurs echoed throughout the audience; the distinctive accents and voices made the speakers’ identities apparent. 

Dr Kwek used various linguistic models to further emphasise how SgE has changed over time. Zooming in on linguistic models that explore how SgE fits within global English and its evolution over time, a few salient points came into focus. 

First, the change in SgE’s relevance as a language in Singapore, going from a New English to one considered a national language. Having origins from a colonialist history, SgE is an amalgamation of Malay, Chinese, and Indian dialects, all coming together in a melting pot of cultural and ethnic diversity. This was its birth as a New English — an English that would gradually become a quintessential marker of our identity. 

Next, there was a rather fascinating list of the current and emergent features of SgE—vowel lengths were more prominent in younger speakers, taps & trills were being lost, rhoticity was becoming more intense, and an internationally-common lexicon was being used. 

SgE remained unique across individuals and groups, but there were many more factors influencing SgE variation such as age, social circles, media influences, government stances and linguistic beliefs.  

Dr Kwek made use of how Singlish was used in the media to prove her point. Showing us a video of a comedy Singlish rap song in 1991, she contrasted this with how Singlish was used in McDonald’s advertisements in 2016 and 2021, helping to set the stage for the second speaker. Additionally, she noted that SgE is moving towards a more internationally-common lexicon, showing even more advertisements from McDonald’s and Scoot which featured popular terms today like “vibe”, “drip” and “IYKYK”. 

To our surprise, Dr Kwek continued by bringing out a final set of audio clips—Children/Teens (Aged 8 to 16). “They are the voices of our future,” Dr Kwek echoed, using this as a directive to further explore where SgE would be headed in the future. She challenged the audience to rethink pre-existing linguistic models used to describe SgE, emphasising that we not only need to understand what constitutes SgE, but also how it affects us, as well as the wider world that encompasses it. “Where do you stand in Singapore English? What is it to you?” she posed to the audience. 

The audience, filled with teachers and students — the voices of our future. 

Perhaps SgE is about agency—who gets to define it, who gets to speak it, and whose voices are heard. We, the future of the nation, yield that power to shape it.

Dr Kwek concluded the talk with an important note—language is alive. As speakers, we will determine how SgE will continue to grow and intertwine with the people and experiences around us. 

After a short intermission, the session continued with the second presentation, “Singapore Language Policy and the Evolution of a Singapore National Identity” by Dr Mark Fifer Seilhamer. 

Dr Seilhamer addressing the audience  

Dr Seilhamer began his presentation with a refreshing personal story. With palpable energy and a touch of nostalgia, he traced back his journey with Singlish to 2003, where he was still a budding student at the University of Hawaii. 

As part of a sociolinguistics assignment about World English, Dr Seilhamer ended up choosing Singlish for his scope of study. “I immediately found it immensely appealing”, he remarked, “not just Singlish though—I found the whole Singapore sociolinguistics situation fascinating.” 

What became the centrepiece for Dr Seilhamer’s entire presentation was Singapore’s Language Policy—what made it so successful? How was Singlish—an unintended, yet organic, consequence of these policies—born as a result? And most importantly, what made it such an iconic marker of our national identity?

Dr Seilhamer began examining these various assets of Singapore’s linguistic landscape through ideas of language ideology—the assumptions that societies make about language— and how Singapore used these assumptions to shape their language policies in uniquely successful ways.

Singapore, as Dr Seilhamer noted, had emerged to become one of rare cases of successful language management. After its independence in 1965, easing ethnic tensions became a priority to ensure collective national unity. However, the idea of using a single language to represent the cultural identities of all Singaporeans—each from vastly different ethnic backgrounds—seemed impossible.

Singapore’s solution, crafted largely by Lee Kuan Yew, was a pragmatic one: English became a neutral language used for inter-ethnic and international communication, while the 3 official ‘mother-tongue’ languages (Chinese, Malay, and Tamil) served as tools for maintaining cultural identity. 

This policy was further legitimised by Singapore’s ‘statal narrative’—the country’s heavy reliance on its people placed a country-wide expectation that necessitated the proficient use of the English language, allowing it to gain linguistic capital that enabled the city-state to survive and thrive. 

This formed Singapore’s “English-knowing bilingualism”, where Singaporeans became bilingual in the English Language and their mother tongue. Gradually, intended goals such as declining mother tongue usage and uptake of English were observed amongst Singaporeans, but, alas, as with all great designs, success came not without its unintended side effects.

One such consequence was Singlish.

Born out of Singapore’s English-knowing bilingualism policy, Singlish was a “sociolinguistically natural consequence of the widespread confident adoption of English.” As English and other native languages gradually started to overlap in day-to-day conversations, perhaps it was inevitable that Singlish would eventually hold a commonplace in our everyday tongues. A completely organic phenomenon, it had powered its way into becoming a vital marker of Singapore’s identity. 

Identity is constructed in interaction, and Singlish is a key element in our daily interactions.   

This went against the original plan—Singlish had no place in Singapore’s language policy. A language deemed unsuitable for international communication, it simply could not fit into Singapore’s “functional polarization of language” (which was the foundation of Singapore’s language policy).

As a result, the government vilified the language. From the launching of the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) in 2000, to the banning of media, such as the film trailer for Singapore Dreaming, that was deemed to have “excessive use of Singlish”, the Singapore government seemed to strictly oppose Singlish—until the 2010s, when their stance started shifting. 

 An advertisement for the Singaporean film “Singapore Dreaming”.

The SGEM changed its focus from suppressing Singlish, to equipping people with the ability to “code-switch from one language to another easily”. Singlish started being celebrated, and was even acknowledged at the SG50 celebrations. Governmental leaders, such as Lee Hsien Loong, supported and recognised Singlish’s importance in forming our identity. 

Additionally, something significant for us students was the change in official attitudes, as MOE declared that use of Singlish in reported speech would be accepted for written assignments.

Dr Seilhamer concluded his sharing by emphasising that Singlish is a form of soft power — Singlish has helped project a highly marketable image of cultural vibrancy for Singapore, countering her previous reputation as being sterile and lacking personality. 

Claiming it as a form of “language chutzpah”—a Yiddish term meaning shameless audacity—he highlighted how Singaporeans’ unabashed infusion of their daily speech with many Singlish particles (such as “ya”, “lor”, “huh”, and “la”), has turned into a countrywide scene of shared experiences, reinforcing a sense of national and cultural unity.  

Overall, this year’s ELL symposium beautifully illustrated the nuances and the intricate web of various factors that has made Singlish such a treasured symbol of our national identity. In our day-to-day life, we often overlook how the words we use to communicate with others can have a long-lasting effect on society and cultural dynamics—and Singlish, with its blend of languages and histories, powerfully embodies this idea.

After all, language is forever alive, and it is this living essence of our own native tongues that allows us to flourish as people, crafting a society that is uniquely made by us, for us.