Multilingual Singapore
This volume brings together researchers whose rich insights make for a comprehensive and upto-date account of Singapore’s rich linguistic diversity. Applying a combination of empirical,
theoretical, and descriptive approaches, the authors investigate not only official languages such as
English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil, but also minority languages such as the Chinese
vernaculars and South Asian and Austronesian languages. The chapters in this volume trace the
historical development, contemporary status, and functions of these languages, as well as
potential scenarios for the future. Exploring the tension between language policies and linguistic
realities in Singapore, these contributions capture the shifting educational, political, and societal
priorities over time.
Ritu Jain is a lecturer at the Language and Communication Centre at Nanyang Technological
University. Her research interests lie in the areas of language policy and planning, and language
and identity. In her work, she has examined the role of language education policy in the
maintenance and promotion of minority and heritage languages, and the implications this has for
language maintenance and shift. She is currently exploring the interplay of language and identity
among the Indian language communities of Singapore.
Routledge Multilingual Asia Series
Series Editor: Kingsley Bolton
Stockholm University, Sweden
This series focuses on the sociolinguistic dynamics of multilingual societies within South Asia,
Southeast Asia, and East Asia, and provides a forum for frontline empirical research on the
dynamics of multilingualism in the Asian region. The series includes areal studies dealing with
multilingualism in particular polities or regions, and also tackles such pan-Asian issues such as
the dynamics of multilingualism in urban Asian societies, multilingualism in Asian education,
English as a lingua franca between Asian speakers, and the learning and teaching of Asian
languages across the region. Micro-studies of language contact and variation are a regular feature
of the series, as well as titles dealing with multilingual media and linguistic landscapes. Although
the orientation of the series is broadly sociolinguistic, the series also welcomes contributions that
offer cognitive or psycholinguistic perspectives where such issues are central to the
understanding of contemporary multilingualism in the Asian context.
Multilingual Global Cities
Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai
Edited by Peter Siemund and Jakob R. E. Leimgruber
Multilingual Singapore
Language policies and linguistic realities
Edited by Ritu Jain
Multilingual Singapore
Language policies and linguistic realities
Edited by Ritu Jain
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Foreword
Series editor’s preface
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
1
Multilingual Singapore: Language policies, challenges, and responses
Ritu Jain
2
The fetishization of official languages
Lionel Wee
3
Singapore English, language mixing, and vernacular speech
Kingsley Bolton and Werner Botha
4
Spoken Tamil in Singapore
Helen Dominic and Lavanya Balachandran
5
The Indian languages of the South Asian speech community in Singapore
Ritu Jain
6
The changing status of Malayalam in Singapore
Anitha Devi Pillai and Rani Rubdy
7
Singapore’s other Austronesian languages
Geoffrey Benjamin
8
Baba Malay
Anne Pakir
9
Pronouncing the Malay identity: Sebutan Johor-Riau and Sebutan Baku
Mukhlis Abu Bakar and Lionel Wee
10
The curious case of Mandarin Chinese in Singapore
Ng Bee Chin and Francesco Cavallaro
11
Chinese dialects in Singapore: Context and situation
Goh Hock Huan and Lim Tai Wei
12
Unpacking ‘multilingual’: Filipinos in Singapore
Ruanni Tupas
13
Towards a liquid-multilingual Singapore? An outsider’s view
Li Wei
Index
Figures
3.1
3.2
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
6.1
6.2
6.3
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
10.1
10.2
10.3
12.1
12.2
12.3
First language learnt as a child (N=1037)
Language(s) usually spoken at home (N=1037)
Responses for ‘usually speak or use’ for each specific variety across the two
immigration waves
Frequency of Tamil usage across the two immigration waves
Responses for awareness of Singaporean Tamil
Responses for awareness of Indian Tamil
Responses for awareness of Literary Tamil
Responses of attitudes to the ‘purity’ trait
Population of Malayalees in Singapore from 1911 to 2015
Malayalam class photo at Sree Narayana Mission (circa 1950s). (Reproduced
with permission from B. Aravindakshan Pillai)
Onopaharam magazines. (Reproduced with permission from the Singapore
Malayalee Association)
The Austronesian family (Source: Language Gulper website, with the
permission of Alejandro Gutman. Redrawn by Lee Li Kheng.)
The western sphere of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. (Source: Wikipedia
Commons, after Smith (2017). Redrawn by Lee Li Kheng.)
Malayic languages. (Source: Bellwood (1993))
Some non-standardised Malay varieties. (Source: Adelaar (2005, p. 203))
Orang Seletar settlement on the north coast of Singapore, 1984 (photos by the
author)
Orang Suku Laut from the Riau Islands (Indonesia)
visiting Pulau Seking (offshore Singapore), 1979 (photos by the author)
Dialect groups in Singapore in 1990 and 2000 by population and percentages
(Lee, n.d.)
Home language use in Singapore 1980-2015 (Cavallaro & Ng, 2020;
Department of Statistics, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2015, 2018; Kuo, 1980; Lau, 1993)
English as the home language of Chinese Singaporeans 2005-2015 by age
(Department of Statistics, 2005, 2010, 2015)
An English-dominated sign at Lucky Plaza, Singapore
A market English sign at Lucky Plaza, Singapore
A Taglish sign at Lucky Plaza, Singapore
Tables
3.1
3.2
3.3
4.1
4.2
4.3
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
6.1
7.1
7.2
7.3
8.1
8.2
9.1
11.1
11.2
11.3
11.4
11.5
11.6
11.7
11.8
Self-report of bilingualism
Self-report of proficiency in English
Respondents’ self-reported language mixing practices
Comments on Singaporean Tamil
Comments on Indian Tamil
Comments on Literary Tamil
Indians in Malaya/Singapore by specific community, census of 1947
Census data on Indians by ethnic group, 1957-2010
Predominant household languages by ethnic groups 1980-2010
Number of sites for community language classes
Student enrolment for Non-Tamil Indian Languages: 2010-2018
Population of Malayalees and status of Malayalam in Singapore (1911 to 2015)
Austronesian-linked ethnicities of Singapore, translated and re-tabulated from
Leclerc & Jean (2019)
Austronesian languages spoken in Singapore, 1911. (Modified from Tan, 2014,
p. 20)
Changes in Singapore-‘Malay’ sub-ethnicities, based on Roksana (2015) and
Hidayah (2017)
Resident population aged 5 years and over by language most frequently spoken
at home
The Language Endangerment Index with reference to Baba Malay
Major features of standard pronunciations in Malay
Age and dialect groups distribution
Attitudes to the use of dialects
Attitudes towards dialect as a form of identity
Attitudes towards the functions of dialects
Responses to social stereotypes concerning dialect use
Frequency of dialect use in various domains
Frequency of dialect use with family members and others
Reasons for using dialects
Foreword
When Ritu came to me in 2018 with the plan of organizing a workshop on the theme of
‘Language diversity in Singapore’, I could immediately see what an excellent idea it was. Later,
when she showed me the list of distinguished speakers and exciting topics, I was convinced that
she had an exceptional book in the making. There has been no shortage of studies of
Singaporean multilingualism in the past, but, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, it
is clear that a serious update is sorely missing. I am therefore delighted to see the papers of the
workshop coming together so nicely to provide a comprehensive and in-depth treatment of the
subject matter. The present volume, wide-ranging as it is in its representation of the community’s
array of languages (historically as well as in contemporary society), contains nuanced accounts of
languages going well beyond the ‘official languages’ to include not only Singlish, Hokkien,
Teochew, and Cantonese, but also Baba Malay, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, and
more. The issues that drive the lively discussions across the different chapters subsume not just
nation-building and bilingual education, but also the evolution of the community’s venerable
cultural traditions and the transformation of its demographic and social structures. As my friend
Li Wei rightly points out in his ‘coda’, Singapore’s rich linguistic and cultural diversity is
challenging and enlightening at the same time. And it is this very special quality of Singaporean
interculturalism that will repay continued efforts to deepen our understanding of this fascinating
field.
Kang Kwong Luke
President's Chair in Linguistics
School of Social Sciences
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore, November 2020
Series editor’s preface
The second volume in Routledge’s new series on Multilingual Asia is an important contribution to
the series. Unlike the first volume, which researched various aspects of multilingualism in
multiple contexts worldwide, this volume focuses on multilingual research in a single setting, that
of the island city state of Singapore, whose language policies and practices have long attracted
interest from frontline researchers in the fields of applied linguistics, education, sociolinguistics,
and a range of related disciplines. This current collection of articles is arguably the most
comprehensive and up-to-date study of multilingualism in Singapore society published in recent
years. The volume not only deals with such major languages of the community as Mandarin,
Malay, Tamil, and English, but also provides coverage of the numerous minority languages, that
have often been ignored in previous studies. These include Chinese dialects such as Hokkien,
Teochew, and Cantonese; South Asian languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam,
Punjabi, and Urdu; as well as varieties of Malay and other Austronesian languages. The title for
this volume aptly captures the tension between language policies and linguistic realities, which
characterize many of the issues discussed in individual chapters, including the somewhat
conflicted status of colloquial Singapore English or ‘Singlish’. Dr Ritu Jain is to be commended
for having produced an authoritative and innovative volume, which is likely to remain a key
reference work for many years to come.
Kingsley Bolton
Stockholm, November 2020
Acknowledgements
Putting this volume together has been both rewarding and challenging in equal measure. It has
been the realisation of a long-held dream to offer an updated account of Singapore’s rich
multilingualism that has increased manifold in complexity in recent decades. At the same time,
the limited scholarship in some areas of linguistic heterogeneity has proved to be a significant
difficulty in realising this dream. I am therefore deeply grateful to the various contributors who
have trusted me with their work, as well as for their professionalism and patience in
accommodating my requests.
I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the reviewers who have lent their expertise in
scrutinising the manuscripts. For their feedback and constructive comments, often on more than
one chapter, I’d like to thank: Beatrice Lorente, Francis Hult, James McLellan, Joanna Rose
McFarland, Lim Ni Eng, Liu Yanhua, Luke Lu, Mark Fifer Seilhamer, Nala Lee, Ng Bee Chin,
Peter Teo, Phyllis Chew, Rajesh Rai, Rani Rubdy, Rebecca Starr, Sujata Kathpalia, Stefanie Pillai,
Susana Eisenchlas, Tan Ying Ying, Tej Bhatia, Tong King Lee, and Uma Ganesan. A special
thanks to Bee for her unstinting help, expertise, and counsel through the various stages of the
volume and much more. Most of all, I would like to thank the very patient and generous Rita
Elaine Silver for reading and responding to multiple manuscripts, for her constant
encouragement, and frequent hospitality.
I am grateful to NTU’s Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences for the workshop grant
that has ultimately led to this volume. I would like to thank Francis Hult and Li Wei for their
critical insights during the workshop. I am also indebted to KK Luke for his interest and support
for the project. I would also like to thank the series editor, Kingsley Bolton, for his gracious
support towards the volume and for his confidence in my abilities.
I would also like to thank Liz Lanza and Unn Royneland at Multiling, the University of Oslo,
for hosting me in the summer of 2019. The time and space, and the valuable comments and
suggestion from helpful colleagues and friends, allowed me to complete the bulk of my chapters
and more.
This volume would not have been possible without the support of the very capable research
assistants, Charlotte Choo and Ling Cher Keane, whose behind the scenes support has allowed
me to focus on the more macros tasks. Thanks also to the Routledge editorial team, Katie Peace
and Jacy Hui for the extensions and support that they’ve generously provided.
Finally, I thank our readers for joining the conversation initiated by the contributors and hope
you find the process as rewarding as we did.
Contributors
Mukhlis Abu Bakar is Associate Professor at the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic
Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He
teaches in the area of Malay linguistics, literacy education, discourse and bilingualism. His
research interests lie in the fields of bilingualism, biliteracy, and literacy learning, and span the
domains of home, school and faith settings. He is currently an Associate Editor of Asia Pacific
Journal of Education. His recent book, Rethinking madrasah education in a globalised world (edited),
was published by Routledge in 2018.
Lavanya Balachandran is Lecturer at the College of Alice & Peter Tan, National University of
Singapore. A qualitative sociologist, she draws on ethnographic approaches to examine issues
of social mobility and social inequality in Singapore in topics such as family, deviance, race
and ethnicity and social networks and has published in these areas in peer-reviewed journals.
Geoffrey Benjamin is Senior Research Fellow in Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at NTU.
He was previously Associate Professor in the Division of Sociology, NTU, and has held
positions in Sociology at the former University of Singapore and the National University of
Singapore, and in Prehistory & Anthropology at the Australian National University. Since
completing his PhD thesis in Social Anthropology at Cambridge University in 1967, he has
continued to research in the fields of religion, social organisation, language (including
Austronesian and Austroasiatic linguistics) and music, with special attention to the Malay
world and Southeast Asia.
Kingsley Bolton is Professor Emeritus at Stockholm University. He has published widely on
language and globalization, sociolinguistics, and world Englishes. He is Co-Editor (with
Daniel R. Davis) of the journal World Englishes. He is also Series Editor for the new Routledge
book series, Multilingual Asia.
Werner Botha is Senior Lecturer at Flinders University, Adelaide. His academic interests include
the use of English in Asian higher education, educational linguistics, multilingualism, and
language variation, with particular reference to the Asian region.
Francesco Cavallaro is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore. His research interests are in sociolinguistics and the
social aspects of bilingualism, especially of minority groups in multilingual contexts. He has
published on language maintenance and shift, overaccommodation, the Italian community in
Australia, language attitudes in Singapore, and on minority groups in Southeast Asia. He is the
author of the book Transgenerational language shift: From Sicilian and Italian to Australian English.
Helen Dominic is a doctoral candidate of sociolinguistics at Georgetown University. She
studies dialect variation in the Tamil diaspora and investigates the language and identitybuilding practices of marginalised multilingual communities with regard to mobility and
access.
Goh Hock Huan is Research Scientist in the Office of Education Research, National Institute
of Education, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). His academic interests include
Chinese language education in multilingual context, child Mandarin competence, curriculum
evaluation, and corpus-based application development. He has compiled and co-compiled a
few frequency dictionaries of Singapore Chinese and published a book on Mandarin
competence of Singaporean Chinese preschoolers.
Ritu Jain is a lecturer at the Language and Communication Centre, NTU. Her research interest
lies in the area of language policy and planning. In her work, Ritu has examined the role of
the language education policy in the promotion and maintenance of minority and heritage
languages and implications to language maintenance and shift. In her current Tier 1 research
project, Ritu is studying the shift to English among the Indian language communities of
Singapore.
Li Wei is Chair of Applied Linguistics and Director of the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics
at UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK. His main research interests
are in the broad field of bilingualism and multilingualism. He is Principal Editor of the
International Journal of Bilingualism (Sage) and Applied Linguistics Review (De Gruyter). His book
with Ofelia Garcia, Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education (2014), won the British
Association of Applied Linguistics 2015 Book Prize in 2015, and his edited volume with
Vivian Cook, The Cambridge handbook of linguistic multi-competence (2016), was shortlisted for the
2017 BAAL Book Prize. He is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK, and Fellow of
the Royal Society of Arts, UK.
Lim Tai Wei is Associate Professor and Regional Advisor at Singapore University of Social
Sciences and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute at National
University of Singapore. He works on Overseas Chinese and Contemporary China issues as
an area studies expert and East Asian historian.
Ng Bee Chin works in the area of bilingualism and multilingualism with a focus on the impact
of language contact on individuals and the community they live in. Her research approach is
to explore both cognitive and social aspects of language use. Currently, she is working on
language and emotion in multilinguals, language attitudes, identity and social categorisation
and communicative aspects of aging. She is currently the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies
in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore.
Anne Pakir (NUS) works in the fields of applied linguistics, Asian Englishes, language planning
and policy, and world Englishes. Her most recent publication is a co-edited book, World
Englishes: Rethinking paradigms (Low and Pakir, Routledge, 2018). Anne was President of the
Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics (SAAL, 1997-2004), President of the
International Association for World Englishes (IAWE, 1998-2000), and a member of the
TOEFL Board (2004-2009). She was conferred the Inaugural SAAL Mentoring Medal of
Honour (2015) and an honorary lifelong membership of the International Association for
Applied Linguistics (at AILA 2017).
Anitha Devi Pillai (PhD) is an applied linguist and teacher educator at the National Institute of
Education, Nanyang Technological University where she teaches courses on literacy practices,
writing pedagogy and writing skills. She won a National Heritage Board, Singapore grant in
2013 to study the literacy practices and ethnic heritage of the Singapore Malayalee community
and subsequently was the first author of From Kerala to Singapore: Voices from the Singapore
Malayalee community (Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2017).
Rani Rubdy has served as Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang
Technological University, and as Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore. She
has published widely on the sociolinguistics of English as a global language and language
policy. Books co-edited by her include English in the world: Global rules, global roles (Continuum,
2006); Language as commodity: Global structures, local marketplace (Continuum, 2008); The global-local
interface: Exploring language and identity (Multilingual Matters, 2014) and Conflict, exclusion and
dissent in the linguistic landscape (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
Ruanni Tupas is an Assistant Professor and the Programme Leader of the MA in Applied
Linguistics, English Language and Literature Group, National Institute of Education. He is
editor of Unequal Englishes: The politics of Englishes today (Palgrave, 2015), co-editor (with P.
Sercombe) of Language, education and nation-building: Assimilation and shift in Southeast Asia
(Palgrave, 2014), and co-editor (with Bunce, Phillipson & Rapatahana) of Why English?:
Confronting the hydra (Multilingual Matters, 2016). His recent publications have appeared in the
Journal of Sociolinguistics, Language and Education, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development,
RELC Journal, and Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.
Lionel Wee is Professor and Provost’s Chair in the Department of English Language &
Literature at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on language policy,
new varieties of English, and general issues in sociolinguistics. His latest book is The Singlish
controversy: Language, culture and identity in a globalizing world (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
He currently has two research projects ongoing – one is concerned with the study of affect in
linguistic landscapes, and another critiques the systems view of language, arguing in favor of
an assemblage-theoretic approach.