Meaning of Singapore English | Babel Free

Definitions

A localised variety of English found in Singapore, made up of two varieties: high (Singapore Standard English) and low (Singapore Colloquial English, Singlish).

Examples

“A retired British civil servant and an Oxford graduate at that, vigorously advocates that Singaporeans should speak Singapore English.”

“This question has aroused considerable interest since the publication of Stephen Snow Menneer’s article on Singapore English in the January issue of the NYLTI (National Youth Leadership Training Institute) Journal.”

“I have always been of the opinion that anybody, particularly expatriates, who subscribe to the “Singapore English” idea is a saboteur, and should not be entrusted with the teaching of the language to our students.”

“Dr Chua says that by the 21st Century, Singapore English will be qualitatively different but will retain its basic character.”

“More recently, in the past five years, there has been the effort to collect, computerise, and analyse a million-word corpus of both written and spoken Singapore English.”

“In the following paragraphs the term Singapore Colloquial English refers to the very informal variety used in some situations by native or proficient speakers of Singapore English, who choose this variety as an alternative to Standard English and often mix it with Standard English (or with other languages).”

“If I could nominate a “dialect of the 21st Century,” I would probably go with Singapore English, a native English dialect spectrum spoken in a region with few competitors (for nearly 1/3 of Singaporeans, English is the primary language spoken at home).”

“As the number of native speakers of Singapore English and Mandarin increases, the colonial-era ideology of English vis-à-vis the languages of the immigrants needs to be re-examined.”

CEFR level