Language, identity, and the fear of loss, especially among Singapore’s Chinese
Language is once again a major issue in the city-state. English’s progress risks weakening other languages, starting with Chinese, the largest mother tongue group. Policies to promote bilingualism are not working. About 61 per cent of parents under 35 mainly use English at home with their children.
Singapore (AsiaNews) – In Singapore, the language issue is front-page news once again. While English is progressing as the primary language of education, work and business, many fear linguistic uniformity, greater inequality, and language loss by the country’s different ethnic groups. This is especially true for Singapore’s Chinese community, which constitutes the majority of the population.
Faced with this situation, community initiatives have multiplied over the years to promote bilingualism from an early age, starting with the use of different languages in the family.
However, even though the constitution recognises Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil for Singapore’s Chinese, Malay and Indian communities, linguistic diversity is waning.
Critics blame, among other reasons, the failure of the authorities to protect this diversity and the education system, centred on economic development and international openness.
English has been taught for decades and the younger generations, like elsewhere, find it a vital tool for communication at home and abroad.
A 2020 study by the Institute of Policy Studies on race, religion and language in Singapore found that 61 per cent of parents under 35 predominantly use English at home with their children compared to 45 per cent for parents over 50.
This reinforces the use of English, especially since more and more people within the Chinese and Indian communities feel it as their own language. This is even truer for mixed families who are more likely to use English at home to facilitate communication. Conversely, the situation is different in the Malay community (14 per cent of the population) since their language is seen as crucial element of their identity.
More broadly, using English at home can reflects a pragmatic attitude as some native speakers may lack confidence in using their mother tongue.
For many children, their mother tongue is seen just one of many subjects in their 12-year formal education. “Without real motivation, practice and regular use, the knowledge of the mother tongue developed in school books is obviously limited,” said Prof Susan Xu Yun, head of the Translation and Interpretation Programme at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS).
Should the teaching of mother tongues no longer be compulsory, their use in private and public would inevitably decline, elevating Singaporean English to the status of the national language.
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