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91-722: The Speak Mandarin Campaign ( SMC ; Chinese : 讲华语运动 ; pinyin : Jiǎng Huáyǔ Yùndòng ) is an initiative by the Government of Singapore to encourage the Chinese Singaporean population to speak Standard Mandarin Chinese , one of the four official languages of Singapore . Launched on 7 September 1979 by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and organised by the Promote Mandarin Council ,

182-472: A 2013 Chinese-language book published by the Hainan Culture and Heritage Centre, Mah refuted rumours that he had to step down because he had seemingly been blamed for growing public unhappiness over sky-rocketing property prices, claiming that he stepped down to make way for younger, talented people to take over. Throughout his political career, Mah had also held other positions, including chairman of

273-446: A 24-hour basis every day. Peak-hour calls averaged about 40,000. "A need for common language between different ethnic Singaporeans or effective communication of thoughts" and to "preserve cultural roots by learning written Chinese and speaking Mandarin, since culture is transmitted through written words", were some highlights of the campaign launching speeches in 1983. 讲华语？ 没问题！ Speak Mandarin? No problem! The official speech during

364-508: A Chinese faculty and even collaborates with Confucius Institute to help train teachers with regards to Chinese language, to improve the standard of Chinese education in Singapore and in order to influence people with regards to the use of Chinese. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew , a native English speaker who had learned Mandarin later in life, expressed his concern about the declining proficiency of Mandarin among younger Singaporeans. In

455-490: A Chinese newspaper into a bilingual newspaper and the circulation rate hit 300,000. Education is one of the most effective ways to promote use of Mandarin. In 2004, Singapore government specially set up a committee to review methods for teaching Chinese courses, whereby creative Chinese writing courses were set up in schools in 2005, as a way to intrigue and engage students in learning Chinese. Also, other education organizations such as Nanyang Technological University has set up

546-483: A campaign to promote Mandarin as a common language among the Chinese Singaporean population, and to discourage use of other Chinese varieties. Launched in 1979 by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew , the campaign aimed to simplify the language environment for Chinese Singaporeans , improve communication between them, and create a Mandarin-speaking environment conducive to the successful implementation of

637-464: A common language and, at the same time, reducing language barriers between the different groups. This is important in the unification of all Chinese in Singapore, especially after independence . To meet the demands of globalisation and other economic challenges as a young nation, the government began to place greater emphasis on English. As a result, many English-educated Chinese Singaporeans began to lose their Mandarin or Chinese language skills. During

728-434: A conversion table. While exercising such derivation, the following rules should be observed: Sample Derivations : The Series One List of Variant Characters reduces the number of total standard characters. First, amongst each set of variant characters sharing identical pronunciation and meaning, one character (usually the simplest in form) is elevated to the standard character set, and the rest are made obsolete. Then amongst

819-681: A learning environment for their children, to get to know Chinese via culture and knowledge, instead of seeing it as a tool to venture into the China market. In the following year, the SMC started a series of promotions on "The Chinese Challenge", where it moved to a wider audience and became more general. The main purpose of "The Chinese Challenge", which is an online contest, is to provide an interactive platform, to encourage Singaporeans and even Permanent Residents to enjoy and improve their Mandarin and deepen their knowledge of Chinese culture, through experiencing

910-414: A lifestyle-oriented approach, revolving around movies, music and metaphors, extending the theme of " 华语 COOL ". Some examples of resources of the movies, music and metaphors include: The theme song for the campaign for that year is 我想听你说 (wǒ xiǎng tīng nǐ shuō) by Singaporean singer, Joi Chua . Some of the other partners include ComfortDelGro , Lianhe Zaobao, Mediacorp TV , STOMP, Tong Shui Café and

1001-610: A newly coined phono-semantic compound : Removing radicals Only retaining single radicals Replacing with ancient forms or variants : Adopting ancient vulgar variants : Readopting abandoned phonetic-loan characters : Copying and modifying another traditional character : Based on 132 characters and 14 components listed in Chart 2 of the Complete List , the 1,753 derived characters found in Chart 3 can be created by systematically simplifying components using Chart 2 as

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1092-686: A parliamentary speech, he said: "Singaporeans must learn to juggle English and Mandarin". Therefore, he launched a television program, 华语! , in January 2005, in an attempt to attract young viewers to learn Mandarin. Following this, in June 2005, Lee published a book, Keeping My Mandarin Alive , documenting his decades of effort to master Mandarin—a language which he had to re-learn due to disuse: "...because I don't use it so much, therefore it gets disused and there's language loss. Then I have to revive it. It's

1183-536: A period of 12 months, starting from 5 November 2007, the campaign featured a series of fun and engaging programmes and activities by its partners. Key strands of SMC 07/08 are Sports, Culture and The Arts, Design and Lifestyle. During the official launch of the campaign on 5 November 2007, Mr. Lee Swee Say, Minister in Prime Minister's office, announced the partnership between the SMC and various sports organizations. The sports partners for 2007's campaign include

1274-414: A practice which has always been present as a part of the Chinese writing system. The official name tends to refer to the specific, systematic set published by the Chinese government, which includes not only simplifications of individual characters, but also a substantial reduction in the total number of characters through the merger of formerly distinct forms. According to Chinese palaeographer Qiu Xigui ,

1365-492: A second language in Singapore". Some critics include that the Mandarin education system's goal of promoting cultural identity has left many younger generations of Mandarin speakers unable to communicate with their dialect-speaking grandparents. They have compared the policy to that of Russification and intentional language elimination . The reduction in the number of Chinese dialect speakers in Singapore has raised concerns on

1456-404: A single standardized character, usually the simplest among all variants in form. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification and are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. The Chinese government has never officially announced the completion of the simplification process after the bulk of characters were introduced by the 1960s. In the wake of

1547-575: A terrible problem because learning it in adult life, it hasn't got the same roots in your memory." In the same year 2005, the campaign started to rebrand Chinese by using local artists and cool leisure activities, hence the birth of the slogan "Mandarin [is] Cool!". The success of the campaign was evident 20 years from the launch of the campaign. The campaign has significantly reduced the number of non-Mandarin speakers in Singapore. The use of other varieties at home dropped from 81.4% in 1980 to 19.2% in 2010. Meanwhile, households that claimed to use Mandarin as

1638-483: Is The Straits Times . For instance, as part of the campaign to promote greater use for Chinese, the English newspaper would publish daily Mandarin vocabulary lessons in order to help Singaporeans improve their standard for Mandarin. Other ways of encouraging people to learn Chinese is to sign up for speak Mandarin courses, listen to Chinese music, explore online resources and download audio lessons, which can be found in

1729-468: Is a "stepmother tongue" and "dialect is the real mother tongue". Furthermore, in 2009, in spite of the ongoing 华文？ 谁怕谁 (Be heard in Chinese) movement, Lee admitted that the teaching of Mandarin Chinese in schools went the "wrong way" and that due to his insistence on bilingualism, "successive generations of students paid a heavy price". In June 2010, Lee also said that "Mandarin is important but it remains

1820-440: Is actually more complex than eliminated ones. An example is the character 搾 which is eliminated in favor of the variant form 榨 . The 扌   'HAND' with three strokes on the left of the eliminated 搾 is now seen as more complex, appearing as the ⽊   'TREE' radical 木 , with four strokes, in the chosen variant 榨 . Not all characters standardised in the simplified set consist of fewer strokes. For instance,

1911-498: Is composed, arranged and produced by Iskandar Ismail and performed by Singaporean artiste, Tay Kewei. The Speak Mandarin Campaign is a year-round campaign, which uses publicity and activities in the community to create awareness and to facilitate the learning of Mandarin. Every year, the Speak Mandarin Campaign will collaborate with different partners to reach out to a wider scope of audience. For instance, in 2005,

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2002-454: Is derived. Merging homophonous characters: Adapting cursive shapes ( 草書楷化 ): Replacing a component with a simple arbitrary symbol (such as 又 and 乂 ): Omitting entire components : Omitting components, then applying further alterations : Structural changes that preserve the basic shape Replacing the phonetic component of phono-semantic compounds : Replacing an uncommon phonetic component : Replacing entirely with

2093-510: Is not something only the Chinese people can acquire. The video shows foreign children talking about either Chinese myths or other Chinese related culture. The Promote Mandarin Council is trying to alert Singaporeans to embrace Singaporean heritage and pass it on to the next generation. The purpose of these "Be heard in Chinese" videos was not to mock Singaporeans, who are born Chinese but cannot speak Chinese. Instead, it reminded parents to create

2184-813: Is now discouraged. A State Language Commission official cited "oversimplification" as the reason for restoring some characters. The language authority declared an open comment period until 31 August 2009, for feedback from the public. In 2013, the List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters was published as a revision of the 1988 lists; it included a total of 8105 characters. It included 45 newly recognized standard characters that were previously considered variant forms, as well as official approval of 226 characters that had been simplified by analogy and had seen wide use but were not explicitly given in previous lists or documents. Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification , eventually arriving at

2275-472: Is to promote Singaporeans to hold on to their "roots", knowing their own culture well. For each SMC, a slogan was created and a different segment of the Chinese community was targeted. 华人讲华语，合情又合理 (Mandarin's In, Dialects Out) In 1983, the promotion of Mandarin moved to markets and food centres, closer to the heartlands. Between 1983 and 1987, Telecoms also offered 'Dial for Mandarin Lessons' services on

2366-547: Is used instead of 叠 in regions using traditional characters. The Chinese government stated that it wished to keep Chinese orthography stable. The Chart of Generally Utilized Characters of Modern Chinese was published in 1988 and included 7000 simplified and unsimplified characters. Of these, half were also included in the revised List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese , which specified 2500 common characters and 1000 less common characters. In 2009,

2457-473: The ⼓   ' WRAP ' radical used in the traditional character 沒 is simplified to ⼏   ' TABLE ' to form the simplified character 没 . By systematically simplifying radicals, large swaths of the character set are altered. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms that embody graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. In addition, variant characters with identical pronunciation and meaning were reduced to

2548-673: The 1988 general election , Mah joined a three-member PAP team contesting in Tampines Group Representation Constituency (GRC) and they won with 61% of the vote, so Mah became a Member of Parliament representing the Tampines East ward of Tampines GRC. Since then, he and the PAP team in Tampines GRC had won the subsequent five general elections ( 1991 , 1997 , 2001 , 2006 and 2011 ) against

2639-598: The 1991 Singaporean general election , the People's Action Party (PAP) won a lower majority than usual, in part because of opposition parties' exploitation of the linguistic anxieties of working-class, dialect-speaking Chinese Singaporeans. Those Singaporeans clung onto their dialect as part of an identity , refusing to register their children in schools with Mandarin names. As a result, the PAP government switched its focus away from dialects, towards encouraging English-speaking and educated Chinese to speak more Mandarin. In 1994,

2730-577: The 2015 general election . After retiring from politics in 2015, Mah was appointed as an independent director and non-executive chairman of Global Yellow Pages in September 2011. In November 2018, Mah joined Singapore-based fintech firm HydraX as an adviser and director, in addition to serving as chairman of GlobalCities Sustainable Investment. He stepped down as non-executive chairman of Global Yellow Pages in 2020 and has been non-executive deputy chairman and non-independent director since then. Mah

2821-499: The Cultural Revolution , a second round of simplified characters was promulgated in 1977—largely composed of entirely new variants intended to artificially lower the stroke count, in contrast to the first round—but was massively unpopular and never saw consistent use. The second round of simplifications was ultimately retracted officially in 1986, well after they had largely ceased to be used due to their unpopularity and

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2912-614: The Malays and Tamils , have argued that the effort placed into promoting Mandarin weakens the role of English as Singapore's lingua franca and threatens to marginalize Singapore's minorities. Dialects such as Hokkien, along with Malay have served as a language for the Straits Chinese, or Peranakan . In the Singaporean and Malaysian version of Hokkien, one cannot deny the plethora of Malay loan words, and vice versa. During

3003-554: The Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) the character meaning 'bright' was written as either 明 or 朙 —with either 日 'Sun' or 囧 'window' on the left, with the 月 'Moon' component on the right. Li Si ( d.  208 BC ), the Chancellor of Qin, attempted to universalize the Qin small seal script across China following the wars that had politically unified the country for

3094-750: The Singapore Sports Council (SSC), the Football Association of Singapore , the S-League , and The Cage. The Straits Times and STOMP! also launched a new initiative, 'On Your Marc, Get Set, Go!' following The Straits Times ' correspondent Marc Lim on his Mandarin-learning journey as he picks up pointers from national athletes. Going for a fresher look, the SMC's promotional materials, from outdoor advertisements to posters and collateral, are designed with an edgy, vibrant and contemporary feel. Activists are also featured in

3185-427: The iTunes Store . Android mobile phone users can also download the iHuayu ( i华语 ) application on Google Play . Also introduced is a new song – Shuo ( Chinese : 说 ; pinyin : shuō ; lit. 'speak [as in 'speak a language']') – as part of the initiatives for 2012. The song encourages listeners to speak more and to use the language, as it gets easier with use. Shuo

3276-531: The states of ancient China , with his chief chronicler having "[written] fifteen chapters describing" what is referred to as the " big seal script ". The traditional narrative, as also attested in the Shuowen Jiezi dictionary ( c.  100 AD ), is that the Qin small seal script that would later be imposed across China was originally derived from the Zhou big seal script with few modifications. However,

3367-571: The "Dot" stroke : The traditional components ⺥ and 爫 become ⺈ : The traditional component 奐 becomes 奂 : Mah Bow Tan Mah attended St. Michael's School and St. Joseph's Institution before graduating from the University of New South Wales in 1971 with a Bachelor of Engineering with first class honours degree in industrial engineering under the President's Scholarship and Colombo Plan Scholarship. Mah also won

3458-469: The 1919 May Fourth Movement —many anti-imperialist intellectuals throughout China began to see the country's writing system as a serious impediment to its modernization. In 1916, a multi-part English-language article entitled "The Problem of the Chinese Language" co-authored by the Chinese linguist Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982) and poet Hu Shih (1891–1962) has been identified as a turning point in

3549-406: The 1960s, Bazaar Lingua was a confluence of Malay, Hokkien, Tamil, English and other dialects. Some have expressed concern that requirements of Mandarin fluency or literacy could be used to discriminate against non-Chinese minorities. Current employment laws prohibit racial discrimination, but employers often circumvent this by requiring applicants to be bilingual in English and Mandarin. The move by

3640-482: The 1986 General List of Simplified Chinese Characters , hereafter the General List . All characters simplified this way are enumerated in Chart 1 and Chart 2 in the 1986 Complete List . Characters in both charts are structurally simplified based on similar set of principles. They are separated into two charts to clearly mark those in Chart 2 as 'usable as simplified character components', based on which Chart 3

3731-520: The 1986 mainland China revisions. Unlike in mainland China, Singapore parents have the option of registering their children's names in traditional characters. Malaysia also promulgated a set of simplified characters in 1981, though completely identical to the mainland Chinese set. They are used in Chinese-language schools. All characters simplified this way are enumerated in Charts 1 and 2 of

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3822-470: The Chinese government published a major revision to the list which included a total of 8300 characters. No new simplifications were introduced. In addition, slight modifications to the orthography of 44 characters to fit traditional calligraphic rules were initially proposed, but were not implemented due to negative public response. Also, the practice of unrestricted simplification of rare and archaic characters by analogy using simplified radicals or components

3913-751: The Government plan was to boost Mandarin lessons, by making them more fun and engaging through the use of digital media. New initiatives, such as the Theme Song Contest and Short Video Clip Competition, were introduced and targeted at youths and students. Newly appointed Chairman of the Promote Mandarin Council, Mr Seow Choke Meng, extended his invitation for all to support the Promote Mandarin Council in its efforts to promote Mandarin, and urged all Chinese Singaporeans to leverage on their foundation, and use Mandarin frequently to keep

4004-517: The House in Parliament from 2002 to 2007, and Leader of the House from 2007 to 2011. On 20 May 2011, Mah said at a Building and Construction Authority event that he accepted responsibility over public unhappiness due to a sharp increase in housing prices over the previous years. He stepped down from his Cabinet position of Minister for National Development after the 2011 general election . In

4095-615: The Ministry of Education to standardise Hanyu Pinyin names for schoolchildren also received widespread backlash among polarised parents. The Speak Mandarin Campaign is one of the four official language campaigns in Singapore, the other three being the Speak Good English Movement , Bulan Bahasa (Malay Language Month) and the Tamil Language Festival. Each of the language campaigns are overseen by

4186-546: The People's Republic, the idea of a mass simplification of character forms first gained traction in China during the early 20th century. In 1909, the educator and linguist Lufei Kui formally proposed the use of simplified characters in education for the first time. Over the following years—marked by the 1911 Xinhai Revolution that toppled the Qing dynasty , followed by growing social and political discontent that further erupted into

4277-401: The Promote Mandarin Council is now encouraging Chinese Singaporeans to go beyond just seeing Mandarin as "hip" or "cool", but also to deepen their knowledge of the rich heritage." 2006's theme of the campaign is " 华语 COOL ", with the goals of making people deepen their appreciation of the Chinese heritage and to be able to communicate in "cool" Mandarin in addition to English. The Campaign uses

4368-474: The SAF Music & Drama Company. To promote Mandarin as an enjoyable, fun and living language via popular lifestyle activities, to show how Chinese Singaporeans can embrace Mandarin in their daily lives, was the aim of SMC in 2007/ 08. The tagline is ' 讲华语, 你肯吗? ' ( Speak Mandarin – Are You Game? ). SMC also retains its " 华语 COOL! " branding which is now familiar and popular among Chinese Singaporeans. For

4459-473: The SMC has been an annual event promoting the use of Mandarin. In 1966, the Singapore Government implemented a policy of bilingual education, where Singaporean students learn both English and their designated mother tongue, which was Mandarin for all Chinese Singaporeans by default. The Goh Report , an evaluation of Singapore's education system by Goh Keng Swee , showed that less than 40% of

4550-426: The SMC specifically targeted English-educated business professionals and working adults. It promoted the use of Mandarin, to keep their "links" to cultural roots, so as to better appreciate the "heritage and value" and, most importantly, complement the economical aspects as China began to rise in the business sector. In 2010, through The Chinese Challenge, the SMC moved towards a cultural aspect, whereby its main focus

4641-607: The University Medal for being the top student in engineering. He subsequently went on to complete a Master of Engineering degree in operations research at the University of New South Wales in 1973 and received an honorary doctorate from the university in 2001. After completing his university education, Mah worked in the Singapore Bus Service from 1973 to 1983 and became its general manager. He

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4732-425: The bilingual education programme. The initial goal of the campaign was for all young Chinese to stop speaking topolects in five years, and to establish Mandarin as the language of choice in public places within 10 years. According to the government, for the bilingual policy to be effective, Mandarin should be spoken at home and should serve as the lingua franca among Chinese Singaporeans. They argued that Mandarin

4823-583: The board of directors of NTUC Comfort from 1983 to 1986; chairman of the National Productivity Board, National Productivity Council and Skills Redevelopment Fund Advisory Council; chairman of the board of governors of the Singapore Institute of Labour Studies from 1990 to 2002; and president of the Football Association of Singapore from 1999 to 2004. Mah announced his retirement from politics on 23 August 2015 just before

4914-444: The body of epigraphic evidence comparing the character forms used by scribes gives no indication of any real consolidation in character forms prior to the founding of the Qin. The Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) that inherited the Qin administration coincided with the perfection of clerical script through the process of libian . Eastward spread of Western learning Though most closely associated with

5005-447: The broadest trend in the evolution of Chinese characters over their history has been simplification, both in graphical shape ( 字形 ; zìxíng ), the "external appearances of individual graphs", and in graphical form ( 字体 ; 字體 ; zìtǐ ), "overall changes in the distinguishing features of graphic[al] shape and calligraphic style, [...] in most cases refer[ring] to rather obvious and rather substantial changes". The initiatives following

5096-407: The chosen variants, those that appear in the "Complete List of Simplified Characters" are also simplified in character structure accordingly. Some examples follow: Sample reduction of equivalent variants : Ancient variants with simple structure are preferred : Simpler vulgar forms are also chosen : The chosen variant was already simplified in Chart 1 : In some instances, the chosen variant

5187-595: The confusion they caused. In August 2009, China began collecting public comments for a revised list of simplified characters; the resulting List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters lists 8,105 characters, including a few revised forms, and was implemented for official use by China's State Council on 5 June 2013. In Chinese, simplified characters are referred to by their official name 简化字 ; jiǎnhuàzì , or colloquially as 简体字 ; jiǎntǐzì . The latter term refers broadly to all character variants featuring simplifications of character form or structure,

5278-656: The country. In 1935, the first official list of simplified forms was published, consisting of 324 characters collated by Peking University professor Qian Xuantong . However, fierce opposition within the KMT resulted in the list being rescinded in 1936. Work throughout the 1950s resulted in the 1956 promulgation of the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme , a draft of 515 simplified characters and 54 simplified components, whose simplifications would be present in most compound characters. Over

5369-468: The dominant language at home increased from 10.2% in 1980 to 47% in 2010. The Speak Mandarin Campaign has come under criticism from several fronts. Dialect speakers have complained that their children have to study two foreign languages – English and Mandarin. This is contrasted to a possible alternative policy of English and their native language. Lee Kuan Yew himself recognized this and acknowledged that for many Chinese Singaporeans, Mandarin

5460-447: The economic problems in China during that time. Lu Xun , one of the most prominent Chinese authors of the 20th century, stated that "if Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die" ( 漢字不滅，中國必亡 ). During the 1930s and 1940s, discussions regarding simplification took place within the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party. Many members of the Chinese intelligentsia maintained that simplification would increase literacy rates throughout

5551-491: The editor in The Straits Times Forum, he highlighted the importance of English and Mandarin over dialects and spoke of how speaking dialects ultimately "interferes with the learning of Mandarin and English". He added that "it would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin." Non-Chinese language communities, principally

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5642-433: The finest in Chinese culture and language. Therefore, it is not to just asking people to learn Chinese, but also to create an environment that allows them to learn Chinese effectively. In addition, in order to attract more youths towards speaking and knowing Chinese, in 2010 "The Chinese Challenge" added a student category, to reach out to more youths. 华文华语，多用就可以 (Mandarin. It Gets Better With Use) For 2011's campaign,

5733-621: The first time with some of Singapore's 'edgy' designers, to create an exciting initiative to promote SMC 07/08. Theatre Practice also continued to make Chinese Theatre accessible to Singaporeans who are interested in Chinese Theatre and culture, thus, opening the doors to SMC's target audience. 华文？ 谁怕谁 (Be heard in Chinese) The 2009 SMC started with a series of videos on foreign children speaking correctly pronounced and fluent Chinese, showed that anyone can learn Chinese, that it

5824-512: The first time. Li prescribed the 朙 form of the word for 'bright', but some scribes ignored this and continued to write the character as 明 . However, the increased usage of 朙 was followed by proliferation of a third variant: 眀 , with 目 'eye' on the left—likely derived as a contraction of 朙 . Ultimately, 明 became the character's standard form. The Book of Han (111 AD) describes an earlier attempt made by King Xuan of Zhou ( d.  782 BC ) to unify character forms across

5915-475: The following decade, the Script Reform Committee deliberated on characters in the 1956 scheme, collecting public input regarding the recognizability of variants, and often approving forms in small batches. Parallel to simplification, there were also initiatives aimed at eliminating the use of characters entirely and replacing them with pinyin as an official Chinese alphabet, but this possibility

6006-430: The founding of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) to universalize the use of their small seal script across the recently conquered parts of the empire is generally seen as being the first real attempt at script reform in Chinese history. Before the 20th century, variation in character shape on the part of scribes, which would continue with the later invention of woodblock printing , was ubiquitous. For example, prior to

6097-617: The governing People's Action Party (PAP) in Potong Pasir Single Member Constituency (SMC) against Chiam See Tong of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party . He lost to Chiam, who won with 60.28% of the vote. Lee Kuan Yew , the PAP's leader, was thought to have played a role in Mah's electoral defeat, having been seen as being unnecessarily dismissive in comparing Chiam's average GCE Ordinary Level results to Mah's stellar academic achievements. During

6188-556: The history of the Chinese script—as it was one of the first clear calls for China to move away from the use of characters entirely. Instead, Chao proposed that the language be written with an alphabet, which he saw as more logical and efficient. The alphabetization and simplification campaigns would exist alongside one another among the Republican intelligentsia for the next several decades. Recent commentators have echoed some contemporary claims that Chinese characters were blamed for

6279-501: The issues of preservation of these dialects. In March 2009, when The Straits Times ran an article by Dr. Ng Bee Chin, who was quoted as saying that "40 years ago, we were even more multilingual.... All it takes is one generation for a language to die." The article soon caught the attention of Mr Chee Hong Tat , the Principal Private Secretary of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew . In the letter from Mr Chee to

6370-415: The language alive in our community. In 2012, to celebrate the 33rd year of promoting Mandarin in Singapore, the Promote Mandarin Council introduced a brand new initiative- the iHuayu iPhone app (released on 24 July 2012). iHuayu offers 50,000 bilingual business and Singapore-related terms frequently used in the media, accompanied with sample sentences and scenarios. The app can be purchased for free from

6461-571: The launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign 2000 was given by Mr. Mah Bow Tan , Minister for National Development. In the speech, he gave credits to the SMC, for successfully establishing Mandarin as a principal language of communication amongst Singaporean Chinese, but says that a higher standard of spoken Mandarin needs to be achieved. Having a good command of Mandarin exposes people to culture and heritage, as well as facilitating dealings with Asia 's potential economy powerhouse, China . The community and schools have new roles to play to increase and improve

6552-533: The mainland has been encouraged by the Chinese government since the 1950s. They are the official forms used in mainland China and Singapore , while traditional characters are officially used in Hong Kong , Macau , and Taiwan . Simplification of a component—either a character or a sub-component called a radical —usually involves either a reduction in its total number of strokes , or an apparent streamlining of which strokes are chosen in what places—for example,

6643-501: The official website of Speak Mandarin Campaign. Besides, in 2005, there were publications of CD-ROMs and tapes on Mandarin lessons, handbooks of English-Chinese terms as well as telephone Mandarin lessons to help people to learn Mandarin. Notably, in 2006, my Paper which was published by the Singapore Press Holdings became the first free Chinese newspaper to be given out in Singapore. In 2008, my Paper went from being

6734-508: The only Hong Kong TV series shown being dubbed in Mandarin. However, these were hindered by the aggressive expansion of Hong Kong's Cantopop industry into Singapore, although state-owned television tried to simultaneously promote Mandarin by requiring subtitles in the standard language on dialect programming. The government proved more successful in limiting access TV3 from Malaysia, which carried Cantonese programming, by preventing people in government-built housing blocks from installing

6825-469: The opposition Singapore Democratic Alliance and National Solidarity Party . Excluding an uncontested walkover in 1997, Mah and the PAP team in Tampines GRC won with results of between 73.34% (in 2001) and 57.22% (in 2011) of the vote during those five general elections. In 1990, Mah was appointed Minister of State at the Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Communications . A year later, he

6916-512: The partners of Speak Mandarin Campaign, which are the Singapore Zoological Gardens and Singapore Night Safari, started to add Chinese interpretation for signs and directions and even the pamphlet were written in Chinese. By doing so, not only does it help tourists from China, it also helps create a learning environment for local children to learn Chinese. Initially in 1979, where the campaign first started, use of Mandarin

7007-738: The posters, to encourage more Chinese Singaporeans to explore Mandarin together with them. The campaign's theme song " 挑战 (Challenge)" was created by two of the most sought-after talents in Asia's Mandarin Pop scene – Eric Ng (composer) and Xiaohan (lyrics). The song was performed by Ngak, a good example of a predominantly English-speaking Chinese Singaporean. Partners, including Theatre Practice and Funkie Monkies Productions will be tapping on theatre and music, to encourage Chinese Singaporeans to enjoy speaking Mandarin. Partners such as Night and Day – Bar+Gallery+Friends and 77th Street came together for

7098-430: The public and quickly fell out of official use. It was ultimately formally rescinded in 1986. The second-round simplifications were unpopular in large part because most of the forms were completely new, in contrast to the familiar variants comprising the majority of the first round. With the rescission of the second round, work toward further character simplification largely came to an end. In 1986, authorities retracted

7189-629: The respective language councils, with secretariat support from the National Heritage Board of Singapore. Simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized character sets widely used to write the Chinese language , with the other being traditional characters . Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of an initiative by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to promote literacy, and their use in ordinary circumstances on

7280-426: The same set of simplified characters as mainland China. The first round was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 1969, consisting of 498 simplified characters derived from 502 traditional characters. A second round of 2287 simplified characters was promulgated in 1974. The second set contained 49 differences from the mainland China system; these were removed in the final round in 1976. In 1993, Singapore adopted

7371-467: The second round completely, though they had been largely fallen out of use within a year of their initial introduction. That year, the authorities also promulgated a final version of the General List of Simplified Chinese Characters . It was identical to the 1964 list save for 6 changes—including the restoration of 3 characters that had been simplified in the first round: 叠 , 覆 , 像 ; the form 疊

7462-432: The special antennas required to receive the channel. It also prevented local newspapers and magazines from carrying listings for it. In addition, in collaboration with Speak Mandarin Campaign, Golden Village started to show more Chinese movies especially of local production to increase the awareness of speaking Mandarin. The Singaporean state did not prioritize the suppression of the dialects. However, suppression of dialects

7553-401: The student population managed to attain minimum levels of competency in two languages. It was later determined that the learning of Mandarin among Chinese Singaporeans was hindered by home use of native Chinese varieties , such as Hokkien , Teochew , Cantonese and Hakka . Hence, the government decided to rectify problems facing implementation of the bilingual education policy, by launching

7644-833: The traditional character 強 , with 11 strokes is standardised as 强 , with 12 strokes, which is a variant character. Such characters do not constitute simplified characters. The new standardized character forms shown in the Characters for Publishing and revised through the Common Modern Characters list tend to adopt vulgar variant character forms. Since the new forms take vulgar variants, many characters now appear slightly simpler compared to old forms, and as such are often mistaken as structurally simplified characters. Some examples follow: The traditional component 釆 becomes 米 : The traditional component 囚 becomes 日 : The traditional "Break" stroke becomes

7735-482: The use and standards of Mandarin in Singapore. 华语 COOL! (Mandarin [is] COOL!) The official speech during the launch of the campaign was given by Wong Kan Seng , Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs at the official launch. The message for that year was for Chinese Singaporeans to use Mandarin "not in place of, but in addition to English as Mandarin adds so much to our cultural and personal enrichment and business effectiveness. Together with its partners,

7826-464: Was abandoned, confirmed by a speech given by Zhou Enlai in 1958. In 1965, the PRC published the List of Commonly Used Characters for Printing  [ zh ] (hereafter Characters for Printing ), which included standard printed forms for 6196 characters, including all of the forms from the 1956 scheme. A second round of simplified characters was promulgated in 1977, but was poorly received by

7917-592: Was appointed to the Cabinet as Acting Minister for Communications while concurrently holding the post of Minister of State for Trade and Industry. Mah served as Singapore's Minister for Communications from 1991 to 1999. He concurrently served as the Minister for the Environment from 1993 to 1995. He was appointed Minister for National Development in 1999 and served until 2011. He also served as Deputy Leader of

8008-447: Was more economically valuable, and speaking Mandarin would help Chinese Singaporeans retain their heritage, as Mandarin supposedly contains a cultural repository of values and traditions that are identifiable to all Chinese, regardless of topolect group. The focus of SMC began with encouraging more people, especially the young, to speak Mandarin in place of dialects, allowing people from different dialectal groups to communicate better with

8099-483: Was never a major part of the campaign, since the government was tolerant of old peoples' use of dialect, and assumed that young people would have no use for dialects. In fact, the government promoted Cantonese opera as a traditional ethnic performance and sponsored night classes in Cantonese music in government-run community centers. One of the most influential implementations that the Speak Mandarin Campaign has used

8190-458: Was promoted from all public domains; in the early years, there was some selective dialect suppression as well. Government officers including those in hospitals were not allowed to use dialects except to those over 60 years old. People under 40 in the service line were also made to communicate in Mandarin instead of dialects. Attempts to limit the domain of dialects began in the 1980s, with the last Cantonese TV programmes being phased out in 1981, and

8281-475: Was then seconded to Singapore News and Publications to serve as the chief executive officer of the Singapore Monitor newspaper. From 1985 to 1988, he was the group general manager of Singapore Press Holdings , which was formed from the 1984 merger of Singapore News and Publications and two other organisations. Mah entered politics in the 1984 general election when he contested as a candidate of

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