1 English in Singapore

Singapore has four official languages – English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. These four official languages collectively reflect the multiracial make-up of Singapore society. Three of them individually represent the three dominant ethnic or racial groups living in Singapore – Chinese, Malays and Indians. This ensures that all the dominant racial groups feel represented. Among the four official languages, Malay is the national language; it is the language of the national anthem and the national pledge. This language, in particular, reflects Singapore’s cultural history as an island first inhabited by Malayspeaking people. Mandarin officially represents the Chinese population in Singapore and is fairly commonly used among those Chinese Singaporeans who have limited access to English. However, the choice of Mandarin to represent the Chinese population in Singapore, which constitutes the most dominant racial group, is an interesting one. In the sixties and even the seventies, Mandarin was not the dominant Chinese language in Singapore. Not many people in those days spoke Mandarin as their native tongue. This is because most of the Chinese people in Singapore were (and still are) ethnically Southern Chinese and spoke Southern Chinese languages, including Fujian (or Hokkien, as it is known locally), Cantonese and Teochew, as their home languages, and although all Chinese languages to a large extent share the same written form, they are mostly mutually unintelligible. This means that Southern-Chinese-speaking Singaporeans have had to learn