On a cold, wintry Osaka night a few years ago, my family was waiting in line outside a famed restaurant, chatting over a subject too insignificant to remember, when a slight tap on my mother’s shoulder drew our attention to a middle-aged lady. Suddenly aware that loud conversations in public were considered acts of paramount rudeness in Japan, we immediately ceased our incessant yakking and looked at her with what we hoped were apologetic gazes.
‘Oh no – it’s just – are you from Singapore?’ Mildly thrown off by her question – a far cry from the admonishment we were expecting, a sheepish grin stole across each of our faces, accompanied by abashed laughter and vigorous nodding. It didn’t take much for us to realise what had given us away. Our accent, so unlike the twangy drawl of the Americans or the clipped precision of the English, had called out to our fellow compatriot in a foreign land like a siren blaring through the air. Sharp and unmistakable to many a familiar ear, Singlish is a crucial aspect of life in Singapore, and in many ways one we wield with pride. The typical Singaporean’s speech (and by that, I mean from snatches of dialogue you’d overhear in FairPrice) is tinged with recognisable influences from a predominantly Chinese population. Though lacking aspirated ‘t’ and ‘th’ sounds, these are instead replaced with hard and soft variations of ‘d’ – phonetic consonants found across various – while tonality is varied to a high degree. Nevertheless, despite having adopted its lilt from Chinese dialects, it is shaped just as strongly by the intonation of Malay and Indian languages, becoming lively and animated when heard in conversation. Perhaps most discernible of all, however, is the influence of Hokkien on colloquial speech. Hokkien, with its nasality that ends mostly in a downward inflection, is often perceived by the untrained ear as a rude and confrontational mixture of jabs – occasionally even mistakenly identified as an invitation for a brawl. But to a local, it is expressive, explosive, and exceedingly emotion laden. Even out of earshot of another countryman, the sonority of its familiar inflection rings damnnnn clear and true, piercing through the dim hubbub of indistinguishable murmurs. Nonetheless, distinctive though it may be, the local lingo is understood only by a select 5.9 million people and mastered by an even smaller number. It is, as I like to call it, a language of short-cuts (see: ‘cutting corners’). Hopeful ang moh pai’s attempting a transition to the privileged handful spend decades perfecting the art of losing the non-essential – a complex operation involving the identification of words that rarely value-add to one’s intended meaning, followed by the gradual process of learning to extricate them from everyday speech. Sticklers for the Queen’s English might dub the practice as lazy or imprecise, but I choose to believe in the phrase ‘high-speed, maximum efficiency’, which reflects the way of life so many of us have become accustomed to here. Too laborious to pronounce everything you’d like to say? No problem, cut the consonants. Too time-consuming to say a full sentence? Go ahead, purge the pronoun. Too burdensome to use the correct tense… What do present-perfect-past-progressive even mean anyway? Confusing sia. In this way, we convey the largest amount of intended meaning in the smallest time-frame possible, resulting in the machine-gun fire that so many of us have become accustomed to producing and decoding. But its reflection of Singaporean life is evident through more than just speedy discourse – the very language used is a rojak of slangs and abbreviations borrowed from various cultures (and often, subsequently butchered), to form a new means of communication that is entirely and uniquely ours. In this manner, the frequent hybridisation of English, Hokkien, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil unearths our nation’s humble beginnings as a land of immigrants. Years ago, our forefathers, empty-handed and barely aware of what lay before them, docked at our unassuming banks from faraway shores to build the bustling civilisation we know today, bringing with them their individual languages and dialects. Just over two centuries later, our diverse melting pot of different ethnic communities has come together as a society to develop a shared lingo for every member of the country – regardless of race, language or religion. It is to their gift of multiculturalism that we present our tribute of Singlish, honoured with pride through daily conversations, spoken with love to the ones we are closest to and preserved with dignity for generations to come. And yet, the colloquial vernacular is more than a just simple combination of words. As with all other languages, it is rich, complex, and ever-changing. While many of its words are variations of vocabulary from other dialects, over the years it has developed discourse of its own, influenced heavily by tone, delivery and expressive in its own right. Just like English has its 5W1H – ‘questions whose answers are considered basic in information gathering or problem solving’ (Wikipedia, 2021), Singlish has its 4L2M – ‘suffixes whose uses are considered essential in information provision or problem identification’ (Every Singaporean Ever, 2021). The similar sounding lah, leh, lor, liao, meh, and mah are in fact capable of giving the most basic of words vastly dissimilar connotations when employed, as evidenced by the legendary ‘Can [suffix]’ test. Unique to Singlish, these particles provide blindingly clear nuances to the well-trained listener. When read with each suffix and the appropriate inflection in turn, the phrase conveys certainty, soft protestation, acceptance, completion, doubt, and assertion respectively. Consequently, those well-versed in the practice of interpreting such particles are miraculously able to grasp the speaker’s intended meaning within a split-second and reply in yet another. Though, that being said, Singlish has even more than meets the eye. When a change in inflection is exercised, the phrase’s connotation becomes – alas, once again! – completely different. Ya lor. Liddat also can. But for all its convolutions and intricacy, the language remains a vital component of Singapore’s heritage, where it should continue to flourish for all the years to come. For the inhabitants of our sunny island, a good command of Singlish enables us to communicate across any and all groups in society. With an ability to transcend generational, social and language barriers, it unites us all under a singular flag, while preserving in each of us a reminder of our cultural roots and origins. It is the song of the streets, the rhapsody of the river, and the poetry of the people. Though grossly imperfect and highly unintelligible to the model English speaker, the local lingo often stirs in one a feeling of warm familiarity, in a country where everyone is your uncle or auntie, kor kor or jie jie, di di or mei mei. The sound of a fellow local is often what I miss the most when travelling overseas. Despite being dictionary-precise and perfect, the impeccability of spoken English in foreign countries is deeply alienating and unsettling, as I yearn for the rapid-fire rattle that has become second nature to me. But in a few months down the road, when, in a far-off wintry land, the faint melody of an irritable ‘Wah, damn cold sia!’ is carried to me on a chill gust of wind, its sting will become nothing but a cool embrace, its bite naught but a tender kiss. And amidst the barren landscape I will smile, for I know it is the sound of my city calling me home. - Ashley
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