Singapore English (SgE, SE, en-SG) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Singapore. In Singapore, English is spoken in two main forms: Singapore Standard English, which is grammatically similar to British English, and Singapore Colloquial Englishbetter known as Singlishthe colloquial register of English spoken between Singaporeans. Many Singaporeans use a combination of both forms in daily speech, and may switch between forms where necessary.
In 2020, nearly half of Singaporeans of Chinese descent reported English as their main language at home, while only a third spoke Mandarin. The remaining spoke various varieties of Chinese such as Hokkien, Cantonese or Teochew. Most Singaporeans of Indian descent speak either English or a South Asian language. Many Malay Singaporeans use Malay as the lingua franca among the ethnic groups of the Malay world, while Eurasians and other mixed-race Singaporeans are usually monolingual in English.
English is the medium of communication and instruction among students from preschool to university in Singapore. Many families use two or three languages on a regular basis, and English is often one of them. The level of fluency in English among residents in Singapore also varies greatly from person to person, depending on their educational background, but English in general is nevertheless understood, spoken and written as the main language throughout the country.
Classification of Singapore English
Singapore English can be classified into Singapore Standard English (SSE) and Singapore Colloquial English (SCE), also known as Singlish. The language consists of three sociolects: acrolect, mesolect, and basilect. Standard Singapore English is regarded as both the acrolect and mesolect, while Singlish is regarded as the basilect. The acrolect does not exhibit substantial differences from Standard British English (SBE); however, there may be features of pronunciation indicating that the speaker is Singaporean, the use of a full vowel in unstressed syllables and a relatively monophthongal realisation of the vowel. The mesolect exhibits grammatical features distinct from SBE: Question tenses in an indirect form; e.g. "May I ask where is the toilet?" Indefinite article deletion (copula absence); e.g. "May I apply for car licence?" (Instead of saying "a" car licence) Lack of marking in verb forms (regularisation); e.g. "He always go to the shopping centre." The basilect (Singlish) exhibits the following grammatical features: Generalised "is it" question tag; e.g. "You coming today, is it?" Consistent copula deletion; e.g. "My handwriting no good lah." Use of particles like ah; lah, e.g. "Wait ah; hurry up lah, I need to go now!"
Singaporeans vary their language according to social situations (Pakir 1991) and attitudes that they want to convey (Poedjosoedarmo 1993). Better educated Singaporeans with a "higher" standard of English tend to speak "Standard" Singapore English (the acrolect), whereas those who are less-educated or whose first language is not English tend to speak Singlish (the basilect). Gupta (1994) said that most Singaporean speakers systematically alternate between colloquial and formal language depending on the formality of the situation.
Standard Singapore English Standard Singapore English, also called Singapore Standard English, is the standard form of English used in Singapore. It generally resembles British English and is often used in more formal settings such as the workplace or when communicating with people of higher authority such as teachers, bosses and government officials. Singapore English acts as the "bridge" among different ethnic groups in Singapore. Standard Singapore English retains British spelling and grammar.
History The British established a trading post on the island of Singapore in 1819, and the population grew rapidly thereafter, attracting many immigrants from Chinese provinces and from India. The roots of Standard Singapore English derive from nearly a century and a half of British control. Its local character seems to have developed early in the English-medium schools of the 19th and early-20th centuries, where the teachers often came from India and Ceylon, as well as from various parts of Europe and from the United States of America. By 1900 Eurasians and other locals were employed as teachers. Apart from a period of Japanese occupation (1942–1945), Singapore remained a British colony until 1963, when it joined the Malaysian federation, but this proved a short-lived alliance, largely due to ethnic rivalries. Since its expulsion from the Federation in 1965, Singapore has operated as an independent city-state. English served as the administrative language of the British colonial government, and when Singapore gained self-government in 1959 and independence in 1965, the Singaporean government decided to keep English as the main language to maximise economic prosperity. The use of English as the nation's first language serves to bridge the gap between the diverse ethnic groups in Singapore; English operates as the lingua franca of the nation. The use of English as a global language for commerce, technology and science has also helped to expedite Singapore's development and integration into the global economy. Public schools use English as the main language of instruction, although students are also required to receive part of their instruction in their mother tongue; placement in such courses is based on ethnicity and not without controversy. The standard Singaporean accent used to be officially RP. However, in recent decades, a standard Singaporean accent, quite independent of any external standard, including RP, started to emerge. A 2003 study by the National Institute of Education in Singapore suggests that a standard Singaporean pronunciation is emerging and is on the cusp of being standardised. Singaporean accents can be said to be largely non-rhotic.
In 2023, opposition leader Pritam Singh advocated for English proficiency testing for immigrants seeking Singaporean citizenship. Polling data of native-born Singaporeans show broad support for the proposal.
Singapore's Speak Good English Movement The wide use of Singlish led the government to launch the Speak Good English Movement in Singapore in 2000 in an attempt to replace Singlish with Standard English. This movement was made to show the need for Singaporeans to speak Standard English. Nowadays, all children in schools are being taught Standard English with one of the other official languages (Chinese, Malay, Tamil) being taught as a second language. In Singapore, English is a "working language" that serves the economy and development and is associated with the broader global community. Meanwhile, the rest are "mother tongues" that are associated with the country's culture. Speaking Standard English also helps Singaporeans communicate and express themselves in their everyday life. In 2014, the Singaporean government made an announcement entitled "Speak Good English Movement brings fun back to Grammar and good English", where the strategies that would be used to promote their program in the following years were explained. Specifically, the government would release a series of videos demystifying the difficulty and dullness of the grammatical rules of the English language. These videos provide a more humorous approach to learning basic grammar rules. Singaporeans will now be able to practise the grammatical rules in both written and spoken English thanks to a more interactive approach.
Malay, Indian, and Chinese influences Although Standard Singapore English (SSE) is mainly influenced by British English and, recently, American English, there are other languages that also contribute to its use on a regular basis. The majority of Singaporeans speak more than one language, with many speaking three to four. Most Singaporean children are brought up bilingual. They are introduced to Malay, Chinese, Tamil, or Singapore Colloquial English (Singlish) as their native languages, depending on their families' ethnic backgrounds and/or socioeconomic status. They also acquire those languages from interacting with friends in school and other places. Naturally, the presence of other languages in Singapore has influenced Singapore English, something particularly apparent in Singlish.
Both Singapore English and Singapore colloquial English are used with multiple accents. Because Singaporeans speak different ethnic mother tongues, they exhibit ethnic-specific features in their speech such that their ethnicity can be readily identified from their speech alone. The strength of one's ethnic mother tongue-accented English accent depends on factors like formalityDeterding, D. & Poedjosoedarmo, G. (2000). To what extent can the ethnic group of young Singaporeans be identified from their speech? In A. Brown, D. Deterding, & E. L. Low (Eds.). The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation, (pp. 1–9). Singapore: SAAL. and their language dominance. Words from Malay, Chinese, and Tamil are also borrowed, if not code-switched, into Singapore English. For example, the Malay words "makan" (to eat), "habis" (finished), and the Hokkien word "kiasu" () are constantly used, having been adopted into the lexicon, to the point that Singaporeans are not necessarily aware of which language those words are from. The nativisation process has progressed so far that the word "kiasu" has been used in the Singapore press since 2000 without being italicised, and went onto claim international recognition, being admitted to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2007.
Overview of Singaporean accents
Singaporean English accents are based on the sound systems of standard non-rhotic Southern British English accents, as is often the case with dialects of English spoken in Commonwealth nations aside from Canada. Like many of these dialects, the vowels in and are distinct in Singapore English (i.e., there is no father–bother merger), and the word plant is generally pronounced with the vowel , rather than the vowel . Broadly speaking, Singaporean and Malaysian English accents share a number of similarities, in terms of intonation, vowel realisation and non-rhoticity.
As English becomes more often used as a day-to-day language in Singapore, mass adoption of local norms have led to the formation of a standard, endonormative Singaporean accent with characteristics primarily driven by conventions and language change within the country. Nowadays, the accents of many Singaporeans reflect a compromise between local characteristics and standard language given that English has been institutionalised in the country for decades. Accents vary significantly, depending on age, upbringing and the race or heritage language of the speaker. Chinese, Malay and Indians have identifiable and distinctive ethnic accents that may be more or less pronounced depending on the speaker.
Rhoticity
Singapore English is predominantly non-rhotic, like Australian and Nigerian accents (and most postcolonial dialects of English), so most speakers will leave out the r sound in words like far. Though rare, studies suggest that final r sounds are more likely to be realised by younger speakers and women among Chinese and Indian Singaporeans, and that this tendency is more common in content words than in function words, and in reading than in conversation. Tan Ying Ying of the Nanyang Technological University says that the increased exposure to American media is a possible cause for the change, but Rebecca Starr of the National University of Singapore says that the reduced exposure to British English is a likelier cause.