This information about Singapore English was written by:
Anthea Fraser Gupta ,
School of English,
University of Leeds.
Ever since Sir Stamford Raffles claimed the island of Singapore for the East India Company in 1819, English has had a place in Singapore. As more and more of its people experienced learning English at school, English became widely spoken, alongside Singapore's many other languages. Since Singapore became an independent Republic in 1965, the use of English has increased still further, and since 1987 all Singaporean children have their education through the medium of English (they must also study another language at school). For many Singaporeans, English is the main language. Many families speak English at home and it is one of the the first languages learnt by about half of the current pre-school children.
Nearly everyone in Singapore speaks more than one language, with many people speaking three or four. Most children grow up bilingual from infancy and learn more languages as they grow up. Naturally the presence of other languages (especially various varieties of Malay and of Chinese) has influenced the English of Singapore. The influence is especially apparent in a kind of English that is used informally, which is popularly called Singlish. Singlish is a badge of identity for many Singaporeans, and, as you can see from Talkingcock.com, there are some websites that are written in it. Many bloggers use a good deal of Singlish in their writing too. As is the case with many contact varieties, however, Singapore English is often seen as wrong. In 1999 an official campaign began to encourage Singaporeans to use Standard English rather than Singlish.
Since the 1960s linguists and sociologists have studied the features and the functions of English in Singapore from a number of perspectives. Those who would like to know about studies of Singapore English should look at our annotated list of the major works on Singapore English. You might also like to look at the articles which I wrote on Singapore English for Speech Therapists, which will give you some idea what Singapore English is like.
There is also plenty of creative work in English by Singaporeans. There is lots of information about Singapore literature at the Postcolonial Literature site maintained by George Landow.
The Language Varieties Network, maintained at Hawaii University by Jeff Siegel and Ermile Hargrave, includes a section on Singapore English written by me.
The LINGUIST List ........ The starting point for anything about language, with many links to virtual libraries, names of linguists, discussion, etc.
Talkingcock.com........... Satire about Singapore. Lots of it written in Singlish, and includes the Coxford Singlish dictionary! Remember that this is humour!
soc.culture.singapore ........ newgroup discussion. mostly about current issues in Singapore. You sometimes see Singlish in the postings, but it's mostly rather serious.
Lonely Planet -- Destination Singapore ...... Tourist information on Singapore
Singapore Infomap ....... The official entrance to Singapore, with masses of information about Singapore, links to all its schools, postcards to send, virtual tours etc etc.
The Straits Times. Singapore's premier English language newspaper.
Contemporary Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature in English ...... This site, maintained by George Landow, has a whole section on Singapore, with information on demography as well as on literature.
Language Varieties Network, maintained by Jeff Siegel and Ermile Hargrave.
Last updated 20 August 2004.
This page was created by Anthea Fraser Gupta. You can contact me at: