Singlish (a portmanteau of Singapore and English), formally known as Colloquial Singaporean English (CSE) or Singapore Colloquial English (SCE), is an English-based contact language originating in Singapore, and an informal register of Singapore English used between Singaporeans in colloquial contexts.
It linguistically resembles a creole, but its status as a creole is academically disputed. Singlish arose out of contact between speakers of different languages, mainly comprising different English varieties, different Malay varieties such as Baba Malay and Bazaar Malay, and different Chinese varieties such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Mandarin, and Teochew. Singlish and Standard Singapore English were modelled by academics as part of a creole continuum from 1975 to 1989, but were treated distinctly from 1990 as diglossia, with speakers employing code-switching. As opposed to the standard variety, Singlish is mostly used in informal situations. Driven by a shared history and close geography, Manglish of Malaysia closely mirrors Singlish, though there are subtle differences in vocabulary between the two.
The term Singlish first appeared in newspapers and academic discourse in 1975. Singlish was initially perceived as a threat by the government; Singlish advertisements were banned from 1993, multiple political leaders spoke out against it such as by Lee Kuan Yew in 1999, and the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) was launched to discourage Singlish in 2000. From the 2010s, Singlish became more accepted; SGEM adjusted their goal to differentiate English and Singlish, Singlish advertisements reappeared, and government organisations such as the Singapore Tourism Board used Singlish. According to Mie Hiramoto, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS), this shift in stance was driven by a surge in patriotism sparked by the 50th National Day celebrations and the death of Lee Kuan Yew in 2015. Ng E-Ching, an English lecturer at NUS, said that this trend coincided with a growing sense of pride in Singaporean identity. Since the 2010s, it has garnered greater international attention and is frequently used by foreign artists and celebrities during local concerts or visits to embrace the local culture.
The pronunciation of Singlish is influenced by the race of the speaker and formality context. It is syllable-timed and contains tonal words. The grammar of Singlish includes topic-prominence, omission of the word be, reduplication of words, and discourse particles, which is a distinguishing feature of Singlish, such as ah, lah, and what. The vocabulary of Singlish is based on British English, with most loanwords from Malay and Hokkien, and an increasing influence from Mandarin. The Oxford English Dictionary has added Singlish words, such as lah in its debut in 2000, kiasu in 2007, and kaypoh in 2026.
Classification
Nomenclature The term Singaporean English is used extremely rarely, compared to Singlish and Singapore English, as it has pejorative connotations showing something "typical" of a Singaporean, according to Tan Ying-Ying. In literature, distinctions are made between higher and lower registers of the language, but the names used to refer to them varies by scholar, which is summarised in a table below. +Higher registerLower registerStandard Singapore English (SSE)Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) or Singapore Colloquial English (SCE)Singapore EnglishSinglishInternational Singapore EnglishLocal Singapore English
Contrasting against standard English Creole continuum
From 1975 to 1989, following John Platt's studies, scholars made no distinction between Singapore English and Singlish, explaining differences with a creole continuum, focusing on class and education differences.
In the model, Singlish and English in Singapore exist along a creole continuum, ranging from standard English with local pronunciation on one end, to the most colloquial registers of Singlish on the other. The acrolect is very similar to standard English as spoken in other English-speaking countries, with some differences in pronunciation, while basilectal speech is characteristic of less educated working-class Singaporeans, and a product of imperfect learning. Intermediate lects are named the mesolect.
According to Tan Ying-Ying, it is an outdated misconception, inappropriately tying class and education to the variety spoken. According to Tan Siew Imm, Singapore English was negatively considered as erroneous and non-standard by scholars during this period, and views changed starting from the 1980s, recognizing it as a local variety of English. Leimgruber writes that the model falsely assumes that all Singaporeans can speak Singlish, and fails to account for existing attitudes contrasting two forms of English, such as in the Speak Good English Movement.
Diglossia
From 1990, following Anthea Fraser Gupta's studies, scholars made a distinction between the two varieties, explaining differences with diglossia between two varieties, focusing on the conscious choice of style by speakers.
Gupta differentiates the two varieties, by observing features of Singlish grammar, such as the existence of discourse particles, verb groups without subjects, conditional clauses without a subordinating conjunction, and omission of be, and features of standard English, such as subject-auxiliary inversion in interrogatives, use of inflexions for nouns and verbs, and "complex" verb groups involving modal auxiliaries.
Lubna Alsagoff, however, describes the diglossia model being too narrowly categorised, and says that Singlish and standard English are points of reference of a "variational space" of language, with speakers style-shifting depending on the speech situation. Leimgruber writes that it is not compatible with the traditional understanding of diglossia put forward by Charles A. Ferguson, where the low variety is native for the community regardless of social status, and no code-switching to the high variety occurs as the varieties are restricted to their own domains. Leimgruber agreed with the diglossia model, evidencing two distinct varieties with statistical differences in the usage of discourse particles and existential clauses.
Status as a creole Following David DeCamp's research on pidgins and creoles in 1971, scholars described English in Singapore as a pidgin. Kenneth Ong of the Nanyang Technological University wrote that Singlish originated from an English-based pidgin. David Yoong, a linguist from La Trobe University, wrote that Singlish is an English-based creole in 2009. Writers from news outlets such as The New York Times, The Straits Times, Time Out, South China Morning Post, and AsiaOne, have written that Singlish is a creole.
In 1995, Jacques et al. described Singlish as an "extended pidgin", which resembles a creole and was only beginning to gain native speakers then. According to John Platt, Singlish is a "creoloid", stating that it had a similar structure to creoles, being used as a lingua franca inter-ethnically and natively, but did not develop from a pidgin. Ansaldo says that the term "creoloid" is controversial as it is not a "developed" terminology, and is not structurally definable. Bao Zhiming writes that these views were influenced by research on pidgins and creoles at the time.
According to Bao Zhiming, Singlish is not a creole due to the lack of a pidgin predecessor and English having been introduced through education. According to David Bloom, English in Singapore cannot be described with a creole continuum, because the oldest variety of English spoken was a standard form.
Ansaldo writes that ideas from creolisation may be used to describe how different languages played a role in the formation of English in Singapore, but should not be treated to narrowly describe Singlish as being a creole. Gupta uses terminology from creology, citing its usefulness outside of its classification, which she abstains from. Ansaldo writes that the labelling of Singlish as a creole or a "new variety of English" does not have linguistic implications, and instead has more sociohistorical and political implications. Alsagoff and Jakob Leimgruber said that its classification of a pidgin, creole or "New English" was not an interesting question.
Schneider's dynamic model
In Schneider's dynamic model, by 2007, Singapore reached the fourth stage of "endonormative stabilization" out of five stages in English language evolution, due to a general acceptance of speaking, an expression of pride, and representativeness of a national identity. In 2010, Bokhorst-Heng et al. agreed with the classification, citing the increased confidence and sense of ownership in the youths over Singlish and English in Singapore. In 2015, Tan Siew Imm agreed with the classification, citing the increasing body of research of English in Singapore, and an increased acceptability of "high variety" usage in official contexts except news and scripted dialogue, despite attempts to discourage linguistic features local to Singapore.
Bao Zhiming writes that while Schneider's dynamic model provides a new perspective of New Englishes, it ignores pidgins and creoles despite being well known in contact linguistics, saying that New Englishes are distinct from English-lexified pidgins and creoles. History
Developmental origin Before the arrival of the British, Baba Malay, a creole from Malay and Hokkien, was spoken by wealthy Peranakans, and Bazaar Malay, a pidginpredominantly from Malay and Hokkien, was spoken interethnically. English was also present, likely brought over from Malacca according to Ansaldo.
By the 1830s, British people arrived and the English language education was established in Singapore, initially dominated by Baba Malay and Kristang-speaking students, both of which are Malay-based contact languages, and later dominated by the Chinese population by 1921, who spoke non-Mandarin varieties. After girls started to gain access to English-language education, English became increasingly used as a native language, starting from around the 1930s. Education taught in English gradually increased, overtaking education in Chinese in 1955, and by 1984, all education in Singapore was taught in English, with the exception of foreign community schools. English was prioritised by the government for economic development, and had greater prestige. In 1994, Singlish was being pioneered by children, according to Gupta.
The schools were initially dominated by European students and teachers, who taught in various varieties of Eurasian English including British English, which likely formed the basis of Singapore English after going through dialect levelling, according to Tan Ying-Ying. Locally educated teachers started taking over, after the establishment of the schools, which account for the large influence of Malay and non-Mandarin varieties' influence on Singlish according to Rebecca Starr, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Over the twentieth century, the Peranakans increasingly used English at home, which mixed with Baba Malay. A vernacular version of Malay, based on Bazaar Malay or Baba Malay, was used extensively during conversations in English school. Through education under the bilingual policy, most Chinese Singaporeans focused on and spoke English instead of Mandarin, which Jock Onn Wong described as a "pragmatic" decision to enable race-agnostic communication.
The development of Singlish was also accelerated by National Service, which created rapport and was a common language when some could not understand English. Its ethnic neutrality, lack of mutual intelligibility between Chinese varieties, and the bilingual policy also accelerated its development; Schneider says that the bilingual policy contributed the most to its development.