Written by Anthea Fraser Gupta
Modern Singapore is traditionally dated from 1819, which was when Sir Stamford Raffles claimed the island of Singapore for the East India Company, with the intention of creating a trading post for Britain in a strategis place. This 'founding' of modern Singapore took place against a background of multiethnic trade going back many centuries. The Malay peninsula was an important crossroads in trade from East Asia to India and points westward, as the pattern of winds and the lay of the land created a natural meeting point.
The region had a history of Indian and Thai influence and rule, but by the time of European involvement (from this sixteenth century) the area consisted of a series of rather cosmopolitan Malay sultanates, which were Muslim, but with distinctive cultural practices that reflected the centuries of contact with other nations, especially with India. Many Chinese had also settled in the region, to foster their trading interests, and there were links of all sorts around the whole of Asia.
Singapore, a trading post at the southern tip of the Malay peninsula, was multicultural from the start. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to seek a share in the riches of the Malay peninsula, and after their defeat in Malacca in 1641 the Dutch dominated. After the British came on the scene in the eighteenth century, there was a jostling of power between British and the Dutch which continued until the middle of the twentieth century. Negotiations took place involving the colonial powers and the local rulers of the various Malay sultanates.
Over the nineteenth century the East India Company extended its influence, and gradually the British colonial government took over the areas which had been controlled by the East India Company, including Singapore. Singapore (with Penang and Malacca) was one of the Straits Settlements. For many years ruled from Calcutta, the capital of British India, it later was directly ruled from London.
During the years of British rule, Singapore grew massively in size. In pre-colonial times, Malays were the largest ethnic group. But the British encouraged immigration. While many people came to Singapore from other British colonies, especially from India and Ceylon, and others came into Singapore from neighbouring areas, the largest group of immigrants were from Southern parts of China. The population of Singapore is now approximately 77% Chinese, 14% Malay, and 8% Indian (Singapore Census 2000, see Statistics Singapore). There has also been a small scattering of other ethnic groups including Europeans of various sorts, Japanese, Arabs, and Jews.
Even during the colonial period the numbers of British people in Singapore were very small compared to the three major ethnicities. Singapore has always had many ethnic groups, and a dazzling range of languages. It is extremely rare for a person to be monolingual -- most people are bilingual from infancy and it is common for people to know and use four or five languages in their daily life. All these languages have influenced each other.
Singapore English has its origins in the schools of colonial Singapore. In the nineteenth century very few children went to school at all, and even fewer were educated in English. The local lingua franca was a pidginised variety of Malay, called Pasar Melayu, or Bazaar Malay. This can still be heard in the region, especially from older people. The people who spoke English and sent their children to English medium schools were mainly the Europeans, the Eurasians (people of mixed racial ancestry), some of the small minorities, such as the Jews, some of the Indians and Ceylonese, and also a group of Chinese people usually called the Straits Chinese, who had ancestors of long residence in the region, and who spoke a variety of Malay usually called Baba Malay which was influenced by Hokkien Chinese and by Bazaar Malay.
The fact that all these children would have known Malay probably explains why most of the loan words in Singapore Colloquial English are from Malay. The largest group of teachers were Eurasians, and there were also many teachers from Ceylon and India. European teachers were never more than a quarter of the total teaching staff in a school, and they usually taught the senior classes. These Europeans may have been from Britain (which at that time included Ireland) but were also from the USA, Belgium and France. The children in these schools would have been exposed to many varieties of English.
In the first twenty years of the twentieth century, English medium education became popular for all groups. Girls started going to school in larger numbers too. By the 1950s nearly all children went to school, and the majority were educated in English. By the 1980s. all education was in the medium of English (with children learning another language alongside English). Singapore English probably grew out of the English of the playground of these children of various linguistic backgrounds who were learning English at school. 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. 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. Well over half of the population born since 1965 are native speakers of English, and the proportion of native speakers of English is still rising.
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 the kind of English that is used informally, which is popularly called Singlish, but which is called Singapore Colloquial English or Colloquial Singapore English in most academic writing.
Singlish is a badge of identity for many Singaporeans, and, as you can see from the satirical website, Talkingcock, there are some websites that are written in it. Many Singaporeans move smoothly between Singapore Colloquial English and Standard English. As most Singaporeans use a lot of Singapore Colloquial English to their children, children tend to speak Singapore Colloquial English before they speak Standard English. It is still the case in Singapore that the younger you are and the richer your family is, the more likely you are to have English (and that usually means Singapore Colloquial English) as your native language. But Standard English is used in formal contexts, as it is all over the English-using world. Take a look at Singapore's leading English newspaper, The Straits Times.
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 my 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. David Deterding maintains a full scholarly bibliography of academic work on Singapore English.
There is also plenty of creative work in English by Singaporeans and you can find lots of information about Singapore literature at the Contemporary and Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature in English site maintained by George Landow.
