Malaysians/Singaporeans and English

(This is in response to mvrdrk's post in another thread) Indeed, because there often are so many dialects among the Chinese in these areas, and also because of the diversity of the people who live together in more or less harmonious relationships (if one takes the politics out of the relationships which most do quite readily), English becomes the lingua franca even among kinship relationships or even among husbands and wives.

Perhaps because of our colonial past, English is deemed the language to use in most commonplace communication, but then it is English with our special blend of Chinese/Malay idioms and accents, also known as "Manglish" (Malaysian English) or "Singlish" (Singaporean version).

An excellent sample of this form of colorfulspeak is Hwee Hwee Tan's Foreign Bodies which is an excellent story laced with "Singlish". Her next book is as good but it is hard to get in the USA. I had mine ordered from the UK a couple of years ago, but you can purchase it from Amazon. Mammon Inc. may have a greater appeal to North American readers because one of its setting is New York City itself, although the characters travel widely from Oxford to Singapore to Europe (just like the author herself did).

Thanks for the pointer to Hwee Hwee Tan! It's very interesting.

Pretty much everyone I know these days speaks either Mandarin or Cantonese. More and more, even the Cantonese speakers understand Mandarin. I think all the various dialects in China will be gone in another generation, with only vestigal regional pronunciation differences left. Only the foreign pockets will still keep some of those dialects alive. It's good for the country, but sad at the same time.

>2 mvrdrk: I don't think the so-called dialects will be gone anytime soon. People speak Mandarin at school and their local language at home and on the streets. The local language is alive and well. The Fogies in the Ancient China group don't call Chinese, dialects, but a group of related languages.

People speak Mandarin at school and their local language at home and on the streets. True.

The kids in elementary school now probably speak Mandarin with their peers and the local language to everyone else. But note, all TV and radio is in Mandarin. Popular culture is in Mandarin (and Cantonese, Cantonese will be slower to go than the other dialect/languages).

Those kids will probably continue to speak the local language to their parents as they get older, but they will probably speak Mandarin to their kids. Their kids will speak Mandarin and understand the local language but not speak it.

So maybe I'm being a pessimist and it'll take two or three generations for the dialects/languages to be truly gone, but it's going to happen. Technology makes it happen faster.

Postscript: There was some rumors last year or the year before of making Mandarin the required language of commerce in Shanghai. Mandarin speakers were complaining that the Shanghainese shopkeepers were deliberately using Shanghainese to Mandarin only customers. I don't think it went anywhere, but the issue is going to have to be addressed sooner or later.

The Singaporean government probably tried to do just that - make Mandarin the officially spoken language and banning the dialects. They started this campaign in the seventies, and I am not sure if they were that successful as Fujian and Cantonese continue to be the language of the traders, but among the younger set, the literati, probably some inroads were made to streamline their language.

BTW, last semester, 3 of my four children signed up for Mandarin language (hanyu) classes along with my wife and I at the local community college! The professor was from Beijing and in one of the Classes told us that the "southerners" (I guess that include folks in Hong Kong and Taiwan) do not speak pure Chinese, and that the purest form of the Chinese language and culture comes from the North!

I guess that comment might start a storm of sorts in another context!

>4 mvrdrk: A related question I've been thinking about. Why is that with the BBC Radios so prevalent in England, the "accents" vary so widely?

Also, Taiwan has had technology, but they still stick to their Fujianese? Just curious. Out of stubborness, partly, because they want to remain distinct from the Mainlanders' Mandarin.

Mvrdrk, have you read/heard about the disappearance of "dialects" somewhere? Or is this a private concern? Just wondering :)

>5 thebloke:

If Singapore started in the '70s, you won't see the results for another 30-50 years or so, is my guess. It really does take generations to make a change like this. (Turkey is an example of a government enforced language shift, for better or worse.)

Beijing-ers can be so stuck up. My Beijing raised and educated grandmother always did lament our terrible American and Shanghainese accented Mandarin. It's why I've always prefered the term putonghwa for what everyone uses these days.

>6 belleyang: Oh definitely a private woe! LOL!

Do you know there is an ongoing effort in England to preserve some of the old regional languages? These are not mere dialects and accents, though they may not classify to a linguist as a full fledged language separate from English. They are being lost at a very rapid pace since the advent of radio and TV.

Yah, thinking more about it, what you say makes sense.

>5 thebloke: Nearly forgot to say, everything I've been able to find indicates that some form of spoken Cantonese is much closer to classical Chinese as we typically see in poetry and other writings. To say that the Chinese language and culture comes from the North shows a shocking regionalism and lack of knowledge of Chinese history.

>6 belleyang: Regarding Taiwan. Mandarin, or putonghwa, was the official language of the country, at least thru the 1980s. The government has funded lots of Chinese language schools in the USA for overseas Chinese for decades. I think the switch happened with the change in politics. Are they using fujianese? Is that the same as minnanyu? Or is it hakka?

There's been a resurgence of Japanese in Taiwan, too, which I think is a good thing. It's a small enough country that multilingualism is a good thing. (Not that it isn't a good thing for residents of a large country, just less urgent.)

Hi, Minnan is Fujianese or Taiwanese. Hakka is Hakka. Yes, confusing.