56-463: Singlish (a portmanteau of Singapore and English ), formally known as Colloquial Singaporean English , is an English-based creole language originating in Singapore. Singlish arose out of a situation of prolonged language contact between speakers of many different Asian languages in Singapore, such as Malay , Cantonese , Hokkien , Mandarin , Teochew , and Tamil . The term Singlish
112-413: A blend —also known as a blend word , lexical blend , or portmanteau —is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. English examples include smog , coined by blending smoke and fog , as well as motel , from motor ( motorist ) and hotel . A blend is similar to a contraction . On the one hand, mainstream blends tend to be formed at
168-623: A dialect or language is "better" or "worse" than its counterparts, when dialects and languages are assessed "on purely linguistic grounds, all languages—and all dialects—have equal merit". In addition, there have been recent surges in the interest of Singlish internationally, sparking several national conversations. In 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added 19 new "Singapore English" items such as " hawker centre ", "shiok", and "sabo" to both its online and printed versions. Several Singlish words were previously included in
224-487: A few other Singlish books including Coxford Singlish Dictionary (2002) by Colin Goh , An Essential Guide to Singlish (2003) by Miel and The Three Little Pigs Lah (2013) by Casey Chen, and Spiaking Singlish: A companion to how Singaporeans Communicate (2017) by Gwee Li Sui . In recent times, Singlish is considered by linguists to be an independent language with its own systematic grammar. Linguists from universities around
280-535: A form suitable for carrying on horseback; (now esp.) one in the form of a stiff leather case hinged at the back to open into two equal parts". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language ( AHD ), the etymology of the word is the French porte-manteau , from porter , "to carry", and manteau , "cloak" (from Old French mantel , from Latin mantellum ). According to
336-405: A group of people to express thoughts and ideas. Due to its origins, Singlish shares many similarities with other English-based creole languages . As with many other creole languages, it is sometimes incorrectly perceived to be a "broken" form of the lexifier language - in this case, English. Due in part to this perception of Singlish as "broken English", the use of Singlish is greatly frowned on by
392-427: A kind of bath), the attributive blends of English are mostly head-final and mostly endocentric . As an example of an exocentric attributive blend, Fruitopia may metaphorically take the buyer to a fruity utopia (and not a utopian fruit); however, it is not a utopia but a drink. Coordinate blends (also called associative or portmanteau blends) combine two words having equal status, and have two heads. Thus brunch
448-622: A mere splinter or leftover word fragment. For instance, starfish is a compound, not a blend, of star and fish , as it includes both words in full. However, if it were called a " stish " or a " starsh ", it would be a blend. Furthermore, when blends are formed by shortening established compounds or phrases, they can be considered clipped compounds , such as romcom for romantic comedy . Blends of two or more words may be classified from each of three viewpoints: morphotactic, morphonological, and morphosemantic. Blends may be classified morphotactically into two kinds: total and partial . In
504-401: A particular historical moment followed by a rapid rise in popularity. Contractions, on the other hand, are formed by the gradual drifting together of words over time due to them commonly appearing together in sequence, such as do not naturally becoming don't (phonologically, / d uː n ɒ t / becoming / d oʊ n t / ). A blend also differs from a compound , which fully preserves
560-429: A process known as creolization . Through this process of creolization, Singlish became a fully-formed, stabilized and independent creole language , acquiring a more robust vocabulary and more complex grammar, with fixed phonology , syntax , morphology , and syntactic embedding . Like all languages, Singlish and other creole languages show consistent internal logic and grammatical complexity, and are used naturally by
616-426: A result, Singlish has acquired some unique features, especially at the basilectal level. Singlish is topic-prominent , like Chinese and Malay . This means that Singlish sentences often begin with a topic (or a known reference of the conversation), followed by a comment (or new information). This contrasts with Standard English, which is subject-prominent and thus the semantic relationship between topic and comment
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#1732783525310672-418: A speaker of Standard English , and so called PRO-drop utterances may be regarded as a diagnostic feature of Singlish. For example: Nouns are optionally marked for plurality . Articles are also optional. For example: It is more common to mark the plural in the presence of a modifier that implies plurality, such as many or four . Many nouns which seem logically to refer to a countable item are used in
728-486: A total blend, each of the words creating the blend is reduced to a mere splinter. Some linguists limit blends to these (perhaps with additional conditions): for example, Ingo Plag considers "proper blends" to be total blends that semantically are coordinate, the remainder being "shortened compounds". Commonly for English blends, the beginning of one word is followed by the end of another: Much less commonly in English,
784-477: Is a Japanese blend that has entered the English language. The Vietnamese language also encourages blend words formed from Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary . For example, the term Việt Cộng is derived from the first syllables of "Việt Nam" (Vietnam) and "Cộng sản" (communist). Many corporate brand names , trademarks, and initiatives, as well as names of corporations and organizations themselves, are blends. For example, Wiktionary , one of Misplaced Pages 's sister projects,
840-496: Is a blend of wiki and dictionary . The word portmanteau was introduced in this sense by Lewis Carroll in the book Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of unusual words used in " Jabberwocky ". Slithy means "slimy and lithe" and mimsy means "miserable and flimsy". Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the practice of combining words in various ways, comparing it to
896-421: Is a punctual verb), and it tends to be unmarked if the verb in question represents an action that goes on for an extended period: There seems also to be a tendency to avoid use of the past tense to refer to someone who is still alive: Note in the final example that although the speaker is narrating a story, they probably use the present tense in the belief that the tour guide is probably still alive. Instead of
952-422: Is also common for the present participle of the verb to be used without the copula: The zero copula is also found, although less frequently, as an equative between two nouns, or as a locative : In general, the zero copula is found more frequently after nouns and pronouns (except I , he , and she ), and much less after a clause (what I think is...) or a demonstrative (this is...). Past tense marking
1008-440: Is both phonological and orthographic, but with no other shortening: The overlap may be both phonological and orthographic, and with some additional shortening to at least one of the ingredients: Such an overlap may be discontinuous: These are also termed imperfect blends. It can occur with three components: The phonological overlap need not also be orthographic: If the phonological but non-orthographic overlap encompasses
1064-460: Is generally no distinction between the non-close front monophthongs, so pet and pat are pronounced the same /pɛt/ . At the acrolectal level, the merged vowel phonemes are distinguished to some extent. These speakers may make a distinction between the tense vowels /i, u/ ( FLEECE, GOOSE ) and the lax vowels /ɪ, ʊ/ ( KIT, FOOT ) respectively. Some speakers introduce elements from American English , such as pre-consonantal [ɹ] (pronouncing
1120-699: Is neither a breakfasty lunch nor a lunchtime breakfast but instead some hybrid of breakfast and lunch; Oxbridge is equally Oxford and Cambridge universities. This too parallels (conventional, non-blend) compounds: an actor–director is equally an actor and a director. Two kinds of coordinate blends are particularly conspicuous: those that combine (near‑) synonyms: and those that combine (near‑) opposites: Blending can also apply to roots rather than words, for instance in Israeli Hebrew : "There are two possible etymological analyses for Israeli Hebrew כספר kaspár 'bank clerk, teller'. The first
1176-406: Is not as important there. In Singlish, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and even entire subject-verb-object phrases can all serve as the topic: The above constructions can be translated analogously into Malay and Chinese , with little change to the word order. The topic can be omitted when the context is clear, or shared between clauses. This results in constructions that appear to be missing a subject to
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#17327835253101232-473: Is optional in Singlish. Marking of the past tense occurs most often in irregular verbs , as well as verbs where the past tense suffix is pronounced /ɪd/ . For example: Due to consonant cluster simplification, the past tense is most often unmarked when it is pronounced as /t/ or /d/ at the end of a consonant cluster : The past tense is more likely to be marked if the verb describes an isolated event (it
1288-491: Is sometimes used by ordinary people in street interviews broadcast on TV and radio on a daily basis, as well as occasionally in newspapers. Although Singlish is officially discouraged in Singaporean schools , in practice, there is often some level of code-switching present in the classroom. This is rather inevitable given that Singlish is the home language of many students, and many teachers themselves are comfortable with
1344-405: Is that it consists of (Hebrew>) Israeli כסף késef 'money' and the ( International /Hebrew>) Israeli agentive suffix ר- -ár . The second is that it is a quasi- portmanteau word which blends כסף késef 'money' and (Hebrew>) Israeli ספר √spr 'count'. Israeli Hebrew כספר kaspár started as a brand name but soon entered the common language. Even if the second analysis is the correct one,
1400-426: Is used without restriction. For many students, using Singlish is inevitable when interacting with their peers, siblings, parents and elders. Singapore humour writer Sylvia Toh Paik Choo was the first to put a spelling and a punctuation to Singlish in her books Eh Goondu (1982) and Lagi Goondu (1986), which are essentially a glossary of Singlish, which she terms 'Pasar Patois'. This is later followed by publishing of
1456-533: The OED Online , the etymology of the word is the "officer who carries the mantle of a person in a high position (1507 in Middle French), case or bag for carrying clothing (1547), clothes rack (1640)". In modern French, a porte-manteau is a clothes valet , a coat-tree or similar article of furniture for hanging up jackets, hats, umbrellas and the like. An occasional synonym for "portmanteau word"
1512-432: The stems of the original words. The British lecturer Valerie Adams's 1973 Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation explains that "In words such as motel ..., hotel is represented by various shorter substitutes – ‑otel ... – which I shall call splinters. Words containing splinters I shall call blends". Thus, at least one of the parts of a blend, strictly speaking, is not a complete morpheme , but instead
1568-436: The "r" in bi r d , po r t , etc.). This is caused by the popularity of American TV programming. Current estimates are that about 20 per cent of university undergraduates sometimes use this American-style pre-consonantal [ɹ] when reading a passage. Vowel comparison between Singlish and English diaphonemic system : Singlish is partially tonal, as words of Sinitic origin generally retain their original tones in Singlish. On
1624-426: The -t drops out from negative forms, and -n may also drop out after nasalising the previous vowel. This makes nasalisation the only mark of the negative. Another effect of this is that in the verb can , its positive and negative forms are distinguished only by the vowel (aside from stress ): Also, never is used as a negative past tense marker, and does not have to carry the English meaning. In this construction,
1680-468: The OED's online version, including "lah" and "kiasu". Reactions were generally positive for this part of Singaporean identity to be recognized on a global level, and Singlish has been commonly associated with the country and is considered a unique aspect of Singaporean culture. Singlish and English in Singapore exist along a creole continuum , ranging from standard English with local pronunciation on one end, to
1736-656: The OED's online version, which launched in March 2000. Words such as lah and sinseh were already included in OED's debut, while kiasu made it into the online list in March 2007. Local celebrities were generally pleased for this Singaporean identity to be recognized on a global level. Singlish pronunciation , while built on a base of British English , is heavily influenced by Malay, Hokkien and Cantonese. There are variations within Singlish, both geographically and ethnically. Chinese, Native Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and other ethnic groups in Singapore all have distinct accents, and
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1792-409: The accentedness depends on factors such as formality of the context and language dominance of the speaker. The consonants in Singlish are given below: Broadly speaking, there is a one-to-many mapping of Singlish vowel phonemes to British Received Pronunciation vowel phonemes, with a few exceptions (as discussed below, with regard to egg and peg ). The following describes a typical system. There
1848-502: The beginning of one word may be followed by the beginning of another: Some linguists do not regard beginning+beginning concatenations as blends, instead calling them complex clippings, clipping compounds or clipped compounds . Unusually in English, the end of one word may be followed by the end of another: A splinter of one word may replace part of another, as in three coined by Lewis Carroll in " Jabberwocky ": They are sometimes termed intercalative blends; these words are among
1904-457: The continuum. In addition, as many Singaporeans are also speakers of Chinese languages , Malay , or Indian languages such as Tamil and Hindi , code-switching between English and other languages also occurs dynamically. Each of the following means the same thing, but the basilectal and mesolectal versions incorporate some colloquial additions for illustrative purposes. The Infocomm Media Development Authority 's free-to-air TV code states that
1960-599: The final syllable ר- -ár apparently facilitated nativization since it was regarded as the Hebrew suffix ר- -år (probably of Persian pedigree), which usually refers to craftsmen and professionals, for instance as in Mendele Mocher Sforim 's coinage סמרטוטר smartutár 'rag-dealer'." Blending may occur with an error in lexical selection , the process by which a speaker uses his semantic knowledge to choose words. Lewis Carroll's explanation, which gave rise to
2016-508: The government. In 2000, the government launched the Speak Good English Movement to eradicate Singlish, although more recent Speak Good English campaigns are conducted with tacit acceptance of Singlish as valid for informal usage. Several current and former Singaporean prime ministers have publicly spoken out against Singlish. However, the prevailing view among contemporary linguists is that, regardless of perceptions that
2072-403: The ingredients is the head and the other is attributive. A porta-light is a portable light, not a 'light-emitting' or light portability; light is the head. A snobject is a snobbery-satisfying object and not an objective or other kind of snob; object is the head. As is also true for (conventional, non-blend) attributive compounds (among which bathroom , for example, is a kind of room, not
2128-559: The main pitch excursion later in an utterance than ethnically Chinese and Indian Singaporeans. Generally, these pronunciation patterns are thought to have increased the clarity of Singlish communications between pidgin-level speakers in often noisy environments, and these features were retained in creolisation. The grammar of Singlish has been heavily influenced by other languages in the region, such as Malay and Chinese , with some structures being identical to ones in Chinese varieties. As
2184-495: The morphemes or phonemes stay in the same position within the syllable. Some languages, like Japanese , encourage the shortening and merging of borrowed foreign words (as in gairaigo ), because they are long or difficult to pronounce in the target language. For example, karaoke , a combination of the Japanese word kara (meaning empty ) and the clipped form oke of the English loanword "orchestra" (J. ōkesutora , オーケストラ ),
2240-548: The most colloquial registers of Singlish on the other. After Singapore's independence in 1965, and successive "Speak Mandarin" campaigns , a subtle language shift among the post-1965 generation became more and more evident as Malay idiomatic expressions were, and continued to be, displaced by idioms borrowed from Chinese spoken varieties, such as Hokkien . The continuum runs through the following varieties: Since many Singaporeans can speak Standard English in addition to Singlish, code-switching can occur very frequently along
2296-402: The negated verb is never put into the past-tense form: In addition to the usual way of forming yes–no questions , Singlish uses two more constructions: In a construction similar (but not identical) to Chinese A-not-A, or not is appended to the end of sentences to form yes/no questions. Or not cannot be used with sentences already in the negative: Portmanteau In linguistics ,
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2352-495: The original "portmanteaus" for which this meaning of the word was created. In a partial blend, one entire word is concatenated with a splinter from another. Some linguists do not recognize these as blends. An entire word may be followed by a splinter: A splinter may be followed by an entire word: An entire word may replace part of another: These have also been called sandwich words, and classed among intercalative blends. (When two words are combined in their entirety,
2408-436: The other hand, original English words as well as words of Malay and Tamil origin are non-tonal. One of the most prominent and noticeable features of Singlish is its unique intonation pattern, which is quite unlike non-creole varieties of English. For example: Overall, the differences between the different ethnic communities in Singapore are most evident in the patterns of intonation, so for example Malay Singaporeans often have
2464-510: The past tense, the completion of an action or a change of state can be expressed by adding already or liao [ljau˩] to the end of the sentence, analogous to the Chinese 了 ( le , Pe̍h-ōe-jī : liáu ). This is not the same as the past tense, as it does not cover past habitual or continuous occurrences. Instead, already and liao are markers of perfective and inchoative aspect , and can refer to real or hypothetical events in
2520-573: The past, present or future. The frequent use of already (pronounced more like "oreddy" and sometimes spelt that way) in Singlish is probably a direct influence of the Hokkien liao particle. For example: Some examples of the direct use of liao : Negation works in general like English, with not added after to be , to have , or modals , and don't before all other verbs. Contractions ( can't , shouldn't ) are used alongside their uncontracted forms. However, due to final cluster simplification,
2576-486: The plural, including furniture and clothing . Examples of this usage from corpus recordings are: The copula , which is the verb to be in most varieties of English, is treated somewhat differently in Singlish: The copula is generally not used with adjectives or adjective phrases: Sometimes, an adverb such as very occurs, and this is reminiscent of Chinese usage of 很 ( hěn ) or 好 ( hǎo ): It
2632-453: The result is considered a compound word rather than a blend. For example, bagpipe is a compound, not a blend, of bag and pipe. ) Morphologically, blends fall into two kinds: overlapping and non-overlapping . Overlapping blends are those for which the ingredients' consonants, vowels or even syllables overlap to some extent. The overlap can be of different kinds. These are also called haplologic blends. There may be an overlap that
2688-484: The then-common type of luggage , which opens into two equal parts: You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word. In his introduction to his 1876 poem The Hunting of the Snark , Carroll again uses portmanteau when discussing lexical selection: Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take
2744-462: The two words "fuming" and "furious". Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first … if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious". In then-contemporary English, a portmanteau was a suitcase that opened into two equal sections. According to the OED Online , a portmanteau is a "case or bag for carrying clothing and other belongings when travelling; (originally) one of
2800-406: The use of 'portmanteau' for such combinations, was: Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words ... you will say "frumious." The errors are based on similarity of meanings, rather than phonological similarities, and
2856-420: The use of Singlish is only permitted in interviews, "where the interviewee speaks only Singlish," but the interviewer must refrain from using it. Despite this, in recent years the use of Singlish on television and radio has proliferated as localised Singlish continues to be popular among Singaporeans, especially in the 2 popular Singaporean local sitcoms Under One Roof and Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd . Singlish
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#17327835253102912-509: The variety. In many white-collar workplaces, Singlish is avoided in formal contexts, especially at job interviews, meetings with clients, presentations or meetings, where Standard English is preferred. Nevertheless, selected Singlish phrases are sometimes injected into discussions to build rapport or for a humorous effect, especially when the audience consists mainly of locals. In informal settings, such as during conversation with friends, or transactions in kopitiams and shopping malls, Singlish
2968-542: The whole of the shorter ingredient, as in then the effect depends on orthography alone. (They are also called orthographic blends. ) An orthographic overlap need not also be phonological: For some linguists, an overlap is a condition for a blend. Non-overlapping blends (also called substitution blends) have no overlap, whether phonological or orthographic: Morphosemantically, blends fall into two kinds: attributive and coordinate . Attributive blends (also called syntactic or telescope blends) are those in which one of
3024-417: The working classes who learned elements of English without formal schooling, mixing in elements of their native languages. After some time, this new pidgin language, now combined with substantial influences from Peranakan , southern varieties of Chinese , Malay , and Tamil , became the primary language of the streets. As Singlish grew in popularity, children began to acquire Singlish as their native language,
3080-450: The world have referred to local productions to demonstrate to students how Singlish has become a unique language variety. There have been recent surges in interest in Singlish usage, sparking national conversations. In 2016, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) announced that it has added 19 new "Singapore English" items such as ang moh , shiok and sabo in both its online and printed versions. Several Singlish words had previously made it into
3136-511: Was first recorded in the early 1970s. Singlish originated with the arrival of the British and the establishment of English language education in Singapore. Elements of English quickly filtered out of schools and onto the streets, resulting in the development of a pidgin language spoken by non-native speakers as a lingua franca used for communication between speakers of the many different languages used in Singapore. Singlish evolved mainly among
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