107-667: The Special Operations Task Force ( SOTF , Chinese : 特别行动特遣部队 , Malay : Pasukan Petugas Operasi Khas ) is a special operations command of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) responsible for conducting special operations . The SOTF is composed of only highly-trained regular servicemen from the Army 's Special Operations Force (SOF) under the Commandos formation and, the Navy 's Special Warfare Group (SWG) under
214-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
321-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
428-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
535-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
642-498: A back compartment to carry equipment. In 2009, the SPF introduced Forward Command Vehicles. These were replaced in 2017 by Division Command Vehicles with greater mobility designed to enhance command, control and coordination. In addition, the SPF introduced new unmanned aerial vehicles with red and blue siren lights, a searchlight, a high-definition camera and an audio warning system. The UAVs are controlled by two-man teams (consisting of
749-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
856-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
963-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
1070-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
1177-418: A much more complete, coherent and integrated way." In addition, Colonel Lam commented on the 2008 Mumbai attacks "where terrorists are getting smarter as well. They are getting more organised—they learnt from what the special and security forces are doing." The SOTF saw its inaugural monograph Key Perspectives on Special Forces (2009) published in the same year the integrated unit was formed. The monograph
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#17327907141321284-612: A pilot and a safety officer) and are designed to conduct search and rescue operations, attending public order incidents, traffic management, hostage situations and crowd monitoring. Police from the Community Policing Units may also patrol in residential neighbourhoods on bicycles. At the 2007 Singapore National Day Parade , the Singapore Police Force unveiled a Tenix S600 APC ( Armored Personnel Carrier ) had been purchased for its operations for
1391-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
1498-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
1605-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
1712-480: A small police department. As the department took form, Bernard became in charge of a writer, one jailor , one jemadar ( sergeant ) and eight peada (constables) by May 1820. Raffles approved these arrangements by August 1820 and cemented the formal establishment of a police force in Singapore. Manpower constraints meant that the men had to perform a wide range of roles, and required the help of headmen among
1819-424: A statement that SOTF operators "are not losing our individual identities as Divers and Commandos, but gaining a valuable partner in each other's skill sets." Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by
1926-477: A swift-response reserve unit. Subsequent expansion of this NS scheme, along with changing security needs and requirements and the trend in outsourcing key-installation protection (such as to the various local auxiliary police forces) has expanded the role of police national servicemen to more varied functions, which may range from mainstream administration and operations (such as the role of Staff Assistants (SAs) based in offices), to basic police investigation (like
2033-717: A twin block occupied by the MHA. Situated within the headquarters are the Police Heritage Centre (PHC), which is open to the public and showcases the SPF's history through its various exhibits and multimedia displays. As of 2023, the SPF has a strength of approximately 10,706 personnel: 10,400 sworn officers and 1,100 civilian staff. The SPF has generally been credited as being the forefront in keeping crime in Singapore low, as well as being relatively transparent in its policing. Accordingly, Singapore has been considered as being one of least corrupt and safest countries in
2140-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
2247-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
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#17327907141322354-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
2461-488: Is a military command rather than an actual unit, combining the Commandos formation's Special Operations Force (SOF) and the Navy's Naval Diving Unit (NDU)—both of which are well-established units, as an integrated force and operational command. Furthermore, the task force would be able to tackle and adapt to various threats according to the various specialties of Singapore's elite units. The SOTF had recently participated in
2568-552: Is accountable to the Parliament of Singapore . SPF's main geographical area of responsibilities covers the entire country, consisting of five regions which are further divided into 55 planning areas . The organisation has various staff departments with specific focuses. These include the Airport Police Division (APD), which covers policing of Singapore's main civilian airports of Changi and Seletar , or
2675-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
2782-450: Is embroidered above the name tag of the new uniforms and the metallic buttons replaced with concealed plastic buttons for better comfort to allow officers put on the body vests over their uniforms. Riveted buttons are also fixed on the shoulders to allow the attachment of a body worn camera . The following rank structure is used throughout the police force: The rank of corporal (CPL) was abolished in 1972, but reinstated in 1976. In 1997,
2889-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
2996-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
3103-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
3210-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
3317-487: Is the national and principal law enforcement agency responsible for the prevention of crime and law enforcement in the Republic of Singapore . It is the country's lead agency against organised crime; human and weapons trafficking; cyber crime; as well as economic crimes that goes across domestic and international borders, but can be tasked to investigate any crime under the purview of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and
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3424-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
3531-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
3638-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
3745-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
3852-558: Is worn when on the move, while a new dark blue jockey cap with chequered white and dark blue patterns around its circumference is worn when convenient while performing static duty. Members of the Vigilante Corps are also attired by a white short-sleeved top similar in design to the dark blue version for normal officers, gold-coloured buttons and badges, and a dark blue beret in place of the peaked cap . Combat uniforms have also been adopted for specialist units such as those from
3959-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
4066-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
4173-610: The Laju incident of 1974, Singapore's first encounter with international terrorism, demonstrated the need for additionally trained reserve-officers who could be called up at short-notice in the event of a national crisis or a major and serious public emergency. Singapore's full-time National Service policy was thus extended to the Singapore Police Force in 1975, which stemmed from the then-primary aim of guarding and protecting key and vital public installations, such as sensitive ones like power substations and petrochemical industries, and to act as
4280-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
4387-537: The Monadnock PR-21 side-handle baton. Sabre Red pepper spray canisters are exclusively equipped to the officers of Police Coast Guard and Police Tactical Unit . A pair of handcuffs is issued to the officers as restraints. The Taser X26E stun gun was procured in the late 2000s and is part of the officers' equipment, which provides another non-lethal means of subduing suspects. Despite safety concerns due to incidents experienced by foreign police forces,
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4494-467: The NATO phonetic alphabet . Defunct land divisions include: The Singapore Police Force receives the highest budget allocation annually as compared to the various departments of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), typically accounting for about 50% of its annual budget. For the fiscal year of 2013 (for the year beginning 1 April 2013), S$ 3.89 billion was budgeted to the MHA, of which 47.8% or S$ 1.86 billion
4601-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
4708-607: The Naval Diving Unit (NDU). The primary role of SOTF is to combat terrorist threats that would harm Singaporean interests at home and overseas. According to Colonel Benedict Lim, then Assistant Chief of General Staff (Operations), the SOTF is responsible for conducting counter-terrorism operations at the national level. On 30 June 2009, it was officially announced to the media that the Singapore Government
4815-615: The Police Coast Guard (PCG), which protects and enforces areas under Singapore's territorial waters and its ports. Formerly known as the Republic of Singapore Police ( RSP ; Malay : Polis Repablik Singapura ), the SPF is a uniformed organisation. The SPF has declared its mission and vision as to "prevent, deter and detect crime to ensure the safety and security of Singapore". It is Singapore's point of contact for foreign agencies such as Interpol and other international law enforcement agencies. The organisational structure of
4922-744: The Special Operations Command and the Police Coast Guard (PCG), collectively known as the No. 4 uniforms. These involve the replacement of metal buttons with sewn-on plastic ones, the avoidance of all other metallic accruements which are deemed potentially hazardous to the officer or to others and the use of long-sleeved shirts. The SPF introduced new uniforms made of 98% polyester and 2% spandex with better stretchable, perspiration absorption, and faster drying characteristics, as "part of ongoing efforts to improve officers' operational effectiveness and support them in their work". The word "police"
5029-476: The University of Glasgow commented that the monograph "provided the reader a stimulating insight into the working and thought processes that underpin the selection, training, and deployment of these elite troops. Moreover, it is rare for such a collection to be made available from serving and recent members of elite forces, and for that reason, the book is an important contribution to the literature." The SOTF
5136-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
5243-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
5350-794: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Singapore Police Force 1°19′27.56″N 103°50′43.24″E / 1.3243222°N 103.8453444°E / 1.3243222; 103.8453444 The Singapore Police Force ( SPF )
5457-587: The Commandos' Golden Jubilee celebrations, Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen helped commission the new Special Operations Command Centre for the SOTF and the SAF to better execute counter-terrorism operations and it is based at the Commandos' headquarters, Hendon Camp. The SOCC is a joint project between the SAF and the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), being equipped with a C4I system. Every year,
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#17327907141325564-547: The Exercise Northstar VII drills, neutralising several "terrorists" after they have infiltrated Sentosa. On 11 March 2011, Colonel Chiang Hock Woon was appointed to serve as Commander of SOTF, replacing then-Colonel, Brigadier-General Lam Shiu Tong, who will be appointed Commander of 2nd People's Defence Force (2PDF). On 22 January 2016, Colonel Nicholas Ang was appointed to serve as Commander of SOTF, replacing Colonel Simon Lim. On 4 December 2019, during
5671-574: The GCE Ordinary level or a NITEC from the Institute of Technical Education , although those with lower qualifications may still be considered. Those joining the senior police officers require a basic degree from a recognised university. Alternatively, police officers from the junior ranks may also be considered for promotion into the senior ranks. Officers serving in the force as national servicemen are also regularly considered for absorption into
5778-639: The Ground Response Force (GRF) of the SPF's Land Divisions) and front line policing (as seen in the Police Coast Guard), alongside their regular counterparts. Formed in 1946, The Volunteer Special Constabulary (VSC) is an important component of the Singapore Police Force, contributing more than fifty years of volunteer service to the nation. The VSC is composed of volunteers from all walks of life in Singapore, from businessmen to blue-collar executives to even bus captains, bonded with
5885-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
5992-497: The Police (Special Constabulary) Regulations (Chapter 235, Section 85). SPF HQ spokesperson routinely issues official statements stating that its officers are not only expected to uphold the law, but also to maintain the highest standards of conduct and integrity. The spokesperson added that SPF deals severely with officers who break the law, including charging them in court. Also, SPF usually commence disciplinary proceedings against
6099-568: The SOTF participate in counter-terrorism exercises led by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) in order to validate their operational response to any large-scale terrorist attacks or when there is a heightened security threat to Singapore. The following units are to be placed under command of SOTF: The SOTF includes personnel from the Navy and Air Force, who are in charge of mobilising resources for SOTF missions based on their service-specific knowledge. Colonel Tan Tai Tiong said in
6206-546: The SPF is split between staff and line functions, which is roughly modelled after the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). The SPF currently consists of sixteen staff departments, four specialist staff departments, eighteen specialist and line units as well as seven land divisions. Its headquarters are located at one of the blocks of the New Phoenix Park building in the Novena district, which is located directly adjacent to
6313-832: The Singapore Statutes. The disciplinary offences can be found in its schedule. Misfeasance and malfeasance such as blue wall of silence , conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline , corruption , misconduct and malicious prosecution are referred to the Internal Affairs Office (IAO). The Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) can be consulted to advise the police on its disciplinary proceedings. Police officers can whistleblow their colleagues' official misconducts and wrongdoings by filing official police reports themselves to officially open investigation papers against other officers. Full-time police national servicemen are also subjected to
6420-777: The Special Operations Command, and in NDP 2015 , the Achleitner HMV Survivor and the Gurkha MPV by Terradyne Armored Vehicles Inc was unveiled. The various specialist units may also make use of other specialised equipment specific to their scope of duty Other vehicles used by the various units include: Police officers are governed by the Police Force Act (Chapter 235) and its Police Regulations (Chapter 235, Section 28 and 117) of
6527-546: The acquisition of new patrol craft for the Police Coast Guard and the installation of police cameras at more HDB blocks and multi-storey car parks. As of 31 March 2023 , the total strength of the force stands at 43,600. Manpower trends in recent years are as follows: Regulars, or uniformed, full-time officers, constitute about 20% of the police's total workforce and number approximately 9,000 in strength. Basic entry requirements for police officers include normal fitness levels, good eyesight, and at least five passes in
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#17327907141326634-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
6741-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
6848-576: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
6955-663: The ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of
7062-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
7169-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
7276-618: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
7383-586: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
7490-528: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
7597-571: The location of all rank devices was shifted from the sleeves to the shoulder epaulets except for the Gurkha Contingent. Also in the same year, the station inspector rank insignia was changed from collar pips to a coat of arms of Singapore with upward-pointing chevrons above and an arc below, a design similar to that of the warrant officers of the Singapore Armed Forces , while the rank of senior station inspector (SSI)
7704-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
7811-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
7918-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
8025-596: The new Police Cantonment Complex in the year 2000. Civilian staff in the Police Force are deployed in areas such as technology, logistics, human resource, and administrative and financial services as well as investigation, planning and intelligence. The civilian staff schemes fall under the general civil service schemes managed by the Public Service Division. These schemes include: The civilisation of non-core police functions has accelerated over
8132-544: The officers involved, and as well as suspend them pending internal investigations . In March 1976, one of Singapore's top prominent senior lawyers, the late Subhas Anandan , was arrested by a corrupt policeman for suspected involvement in a secret society under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act . He was remanded without trial in a prison for a few months. Subhas was exonerated and acquitted in November of
8239-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
8346-673: The pistols as a trial. In 2019, it was announced that the Glock 19 was chosen as a replacement to the Taurus revolver. In addition to the use of the handguns, the police also use the Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun and the Remington 870 shotgun. Extendable batons were initially used by specialist units such as Security Command and Special Operations Command, however, it has since been used by officers from other front-line units, replacing
8453-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
8560-1140: The regular scheme. Basic training for all officers are conducted at the Home Team Academy , under the purview of the Police Training Command. It takes about six months and nine months to train a new police officer and senior police officer respectively. As is the case with many other civil service positions in Singapore, the salaries of police officers are reviewed in accordance to market rates. Salaries are kept competitive as part of anti-corruption measures. Gross starting salaries for police officers may range from S$ 1,820 to S$ 2,480, and that of senior police officers from S$ 3,400 to S$ 4,770, depending on entry qualifications, relevant/useful work experiences and National Service. Police officers commence their careers as Sergeants (Full GCE 'A' level or Diploma holders), while senior police officers start as Inspectors (bachelor's degree). Reviews of an officer's performance for promotion consideration are conducted annually. When full-time National Service (NS)
8667-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
8774-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
8881-449: The retirement of the ranks of staff sergeant, senior station inspector (1) and senior station inspector (2), as well as the abolishment of the separation line between junior officers and senior officers, to unify a unified rank-scheme. In addition, the sergeant rank has three different grades noted by a number from 1 to 3 placed in parentheses and suffixed to the rank abbreviation; namely, SGT(1), SGT(2), and SGT(3). Police officers in
8988-526: The same aspiration to serve the nation by complementing the Singapore Police Force. They are vested with equal powers of a police officer to enforce law and order in Singapore. VSC Officers don the same police uniform and patrol the streets, participate in anti-drug operations and sometimes even high-speed sea chases. Previously headquartered at the Eu Tong Sen Street Police Station and Toa Payoh Police Station , it relocated to
9095-511: The same year, following an investigation probe by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau . On 10 July 2013, ex-policeman Senior Staff Sergeant Iskandar Rahmat — a 14-year veteran award-winning investigation officer — killed a car workshop owner and the man's son, and has since been on the death row from 2017 onward, after failing in his appeal and president clemency against the death sentence. The case
9202-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
9309-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
9416-513: The sole policing force in Singapore after its independence. The country has one of the lowest murder rates in the world, as well as the lowest firearm-related death rates. The major crimes that tend to affect the Singaporean populace in the 21st century are usually cybercrimes , such as scams that are often based overseas. In 2020, cybercrimes made up almost half of all crimes in Singapore. Land divisions are given designations according to
9523-399: The standard blue uniform (collectively called the No. 3 uniform) was adopted for specialised forces and for all officers in various occasions which calls for more formal or casual attire. The Traffic Police Department adopted a short-sleeved white tunic, dark blue breeches , a black leather Sam Browne belt , and riding boots for its officers performing mobile squad duties. A white crash helmet
9630-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
9737-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
9844-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
9951-471: The various divisions are armed when conducting regular uniformed patrols and plainclothes duties. Officers from different units are issued with different weapons. The five-shot .38 Taurus Model 85 with 3-inch barrel featuring a laser sight by Crimson Trace is the standard issued sidearm of the Singapore Police Force with 10 rounds of ammunition. In 2015, the SPF purchased a number of CZ P-07 semi-automatic pistols. From 2016, selected officers were issued with
10058-494: The various ethnic communities to maintain orderliness on the streets. Many laws that were enacted during this time remains in force today. These include the passing of Singapore's first arms law in March 1823, which heavily restricts the right to bear arms. Nearly two centuries later, these anti-arms laws continue to be strictly enforced, resulting in a society relatively free from firearms-related criminal offences. The SPF remains
10165-736: The weapon was deemed suitable for use by trained personnel, and was rolled out across other NPCs. In 2018, the Taser X26E was replaced with the X26P model. Land division officers typically patrol and respond to calls in vehicles known as the Fast Response Car (FRC). Car models that have been used by the SPF include the Subaru Impreza TS 1.6. In 2005, the SPF introduced the new Fast Response Vehicle (FRV), consisting of modified Toyota Hi-Lux sport utility vehicles with
10272-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
10379-970: The world. The SPF also works closely with the Internal Security Department (ISD) and the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB). As of 2022, the current Minister of Home Affairs is K Shanmugam , while the current commissioner of the SPF is Hoong Wee Teck. The Singapore Police Force was founded in 1820, starting with just 11 men under the command of Francis James Bernard , the son-in-law of William Farquhar . With no background nor knowledge on policing, Bernard had to work from scratch, as well as occasionally turning to Farquhar for help. In addition, he held multiple roles as magistrate , chief jailer, harbour master, marine storekeeper, as well as personal assistants to Farquhar. Farquhar informed Raffles that he had provisionally introduced licences for opium and alcohol sales that would raise $ 650 per month, with $ 300 of this sum being used to run
10486-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
10593-453: The years in order to free up additional manpower for redeployment into Police Divisions. Other changes include the deployment of contract staff through organisations such as Ministry of Finance 's VITAL.org for administrative staff and partners such as ST Engineering and Cyber Security Agency for technical support. Dark blue is the organisational colour of the Singapore Police Force and has remained so continuously since 1969. Derivatives of
10700-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
10807-632: Was allocated for the Police Programme. Actual expenses in the 2013 fiscal year were S$ 2.04 billion, of which S$ 1.88 billion was spent on operating expenditure (against the budgeted S$ 1.79 billion) and S$ 159.1 million on development expenditure (budgeted at $ 71.83 million). Manpower costs amounting to S$ 1.16 billion continue to dominate the SPF's expenditure, accounting for 61.7% of its operating expenditure and 56.9% of total expenditure in FY2013. The latest budget for fiscal year 2015, S$ 2.47 billion
10914-645: Was allocated to the Police Programme, or 49.5% of MHA's total budget of S$ 5 billion (the Ministry of Defence , in comparison, received a S$ 13.12 billion budget allocation). This includes S$ 2.26 billion for Operating Expenditure and $ 210.93 million for Development Expenditure. The main Development Expenditures expected in FY2015 included the construction of new buildings such as the Woodlands Police Divisional HQ as well as
11021-451: Was also introduced. In 1998, the senior station inspector (2) (SSI(2)) rank was introduced, and changes were made to the SI, SSI, and SSI(2) rank designs. The rank of lance corporal was abolished in 2002. In 2006, the Gurkha Contingent adopted embroidered ranks as part of an overhaul of its combat dress, but are worn on the right chest pocket. In July 2016, a revamped rank overhaul was done with
11128-586: Was edited and developed by Captain Kwong Weng Yap, a Commando officer who served as the head of its leadership development. The monograph was published by Pointer , the journal of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). The publication introduces the first comprehensive monograph involving Singapore’s special forces from the Army and Navy; it offers a critical examination of the history, evolution and theory of special forces . Professor Denis Fischbacher-Smith of
11235-413: Was first introduced in Singapore in 1967, it was initially solely aimed and geared towards the building-up of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). Meanwhile, in Singapore Police Force, NS was not extended to that of compulsory full-time service, with police NS being only part-time, unlike that of the SAF. There was little urgency and pressure for the police force to increase its overall manpower-strength until
11342-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
11449-750: Was planning to create the Special Operations Task Force (SOTF) to counter all terrorist threats from land, sea and air. According to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean , the unit's establishment was needed because Singapore is not "dealing only with people with guns. They may be dealing with people who have very powerful explosives and various kinds of other substances, chemical, radiological and so on, so you need to develop capabilities to deal with these things. You have to deal with them at sea, at shore, buildings, aeroplanes, ships, coastlines and so on, so you do need to bring together these capabilities, develop them in
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