A Note on Singlish
In Caroline Bergvall’s Middling English, she calls writers to meddle with English. By this, she asks the writer to ‘provoke the naturalised edges and bounds of language use and rules.’ (Bergvall, 2011). However, I believe that the idea of meddling should not be restricted to this purpose alone. While ordinary people seldom meddle to experiment, meddling is often performed through interaction between foreign language speakers. Meddling utilizes elements of each language to reach the most effective communication. One meddles out of necessity to strip down language to a core meaning. And through meddling, language becomes more efficient; it evolves, it melds.
In the 16th century, Britain began its empire. Her ships left home ports to sow her colonies throughout the known world (Britannica, n.d.). Each vessel brought along with it English culture and English language. As Latin spread with Rome, so did the English with Britain. One such destination for these ships was Singapore. The Island was officially claimed as a colony of the empire in 1819, and with it arrived English (Leinbach et al., n.d.). With language came England traditions, policy, architecture, etc. Having visited many times, it is inherently clear how influenced the Island is by British culture. However, Singapore is not Britain. Nor is it particularly close to other former British colonies, and is even further removed geographically from the British archipelago. Due to its location, Singapore itself is a melting pot of languages. Tamil, Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay, Mandarin, and Hainanese, to name a few (Wong, 2015). “English will eventually break and evolve into separate languages.”, writes Bergvall, “The geo-political and complex trans-English realities of many post-colonial realities of many post-colonial nations are already exerting lasting pressure.” (Bergvall, 2011). Or crudely, English will evolve in a landscape with receding British influence and increasing diversity of language and culture. In Singapore, the evolution process of the English language has already begun in a language titled Singlish.
Singlish, I
Singlish falls under the official title of a Creole-English language (Nosowitz, 2018). This is to say, English became integrated into the surrounding languages after the Nation’s independence in 1965 and the subsequent adoption of English as the language of instruction. New words, grammar, and syntax were all added to English until it became a new language spoken by the inhabitants without official integration. It is spoken when you buy food and coffee and talk to friends and family. It is a Singaporean language and is tied to Singaporean identity.
Yet what is clear is that the governing bodies in Singapore have actively tried to discourage its use. The Speak Good English Movement started in 2000 and aimed to “encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood” (Sim, 2015). The government fears that ‘improper’ English will negatively affect the nation's economic development. This likely stems from the perception that the language is nothing more than broken English. Sentences such as ‘go right at traffic light’ and ‘You walk so slow’ may sound to an English speaker like incorrect grammar, but these sentences follow Singlish’s set grammatical system (Yeo, 2010). In the 14th Century, Chaucer chose to write in a ‘Southern English idiom’ that was starting to ‘de-frenchify’ and ‘de-latinate’; his choices reflected the language's versatility. He used a ‘mashup’ of the influences on English to push a more effective language, and his decision helped the English language evolve (Bergvall, 2011). Singlish itself is an undeniably effective and efficient language. It meddles with English, melding languages. Singlish removes certain grammatical features in favour of Hokkien and Malay grammar, adds words from different languages, and even makes more efficient words of English itself. The word ‘gostan’, meaning reverse, comes from the nautical term ‘go astern’. To lim kopi is to have coffee, derived from the Hokkien word meaning to drink, lim, and the Malay word for coffee, kopi (Wong, 2015). These modifications to English are effective and, as Benjamin (1996) writes, have a distinct way of meaning that goes beyond the communicative ability of English alone, speaking with further clarity and effectiveness. My mum has been calling me kaypoh and bodoh for as long as I remember, and their way of meaning surpasses that conveyed in the translation. The process of meddling has created a language that matches the efficient culture of the island nation itself. And much as the government wants to see it gone, Singlish is here to stay.
Singlish, II
But Singlish is more than a Creole-English language. Singlish represents connection and communication. In many ways, Singlish is translation, but it is also something more. For mine, the heart of Singlish is the human interconnection between myself and my gong-gong, those frequent, short conversations in which I attempted to talk to him using English, and he attempted the same using Hokkien; watching the body language and reading the tone of each other to exchange new year’s greetings or to invite to eat. Using the few phrases we each knew of each other's tongue to ‘converse’, often with a family member to aid the translation.
“Ni hao, uhm, gong hat fat choy Gong-gong! It’s nice to see you”.
“Gong hat fat choy! Xie Xie, you so tall now, eat lah!”.
When I was younger, I used to loathe these translated conversations. They were uncomfortable and unfamiliar. I would regret my inability to speak his language and his inability to speak mine. I would have loved nothing more than to have open and easy communication between us instead of this accented, broken speech. As Bal (2007) writes, the accent is ‘the trace… of the language the subject cannot speak…. a violently proposed incapacitation’. We would go from talking fluently and melodiously in our own languages to the shell of that. Now, I understand that this communication was at the same time, beautiful and necessary. Our translated conversations involved meddling in our own languages to strip away the parts of our language the other wouldn’t understand to reach common ground and understand each other.
Translated, bare-bones conversations such as mine with my gong-gong were likely not far off the original beginnings of Singlish itself, which first emerged as a ‘pidgin’ language, a language formed in the bazaar, the markets (Channel NewsAsia, 2022). A necessary way for parties with foreign languages to communicate with each other in the spirit of trade, business and connection. As Bal writes, ‘Nothing… promises the possibility of translation.’ Singlish is proof that communication between languages can require more than translation. Given the time and space to meddle freely, rather than one dominating the other, languages meld to become the most effective form of communication. No longer a translated conversation but a common ground on which all parties can stand and communicate free from bias.
To meddle is to talk, laugh, understand, communicate. While a writer can experiment with meddling in language, the most effective meddling takes place in search of the common ground; where the way of meaning is preserved and the speakers find equilibrium. It embraces the meld from which English evolves, from which Singlish is born.
Reference List
Bal, M. (2007). Translating Translation. Journal Of Visual Culture, 6(1), 109-124. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412907075072
Benjamin, W. (1996). The Task of the Translator. In M. Bullock &
J. W. Michael (Eds.), Walter Benjamin: selected writings. Vol.1, 1913-1926 (5th ed., pp. 254-263). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Bergvall, C. (2011). Middling English. J. Hansard Gallery.
Britannica. (n.d.). British Empire. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Empire
Channel NewsAsia. (2022). How Singlish Went From 'Cannot Make It' To National Hero | Singlish: Why We Talk Like That? - Part 1 [Video]. Retrieved 30 September 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gamPZMj2po4&t=2367s.
Leinbach, T. R., Ho, R., Kennard, A., Winstedt, R. O, The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannia (n.d.). Singapore. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Singapore
Nosowitz, D. (2018). The Government Campaign to Get Rid of Singapore’s Unofficial Language. Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 30 September 2022, from https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/singlish-singapore-government-campaign.
Sim, C. (2015). Speak Good English Movement. In Singapore Infopedia. National Library Board. Retrieved from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_575_2004-12-23.html
Wong, T. (2015). The rise of Singlish. BBC News. Retrieved 30 September 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33809914.
Yeo, T. (2010). Singlish. In Singapore Infopedia. National Library Board. Retrieved from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1745_2010-12-29.html.