In Praise of the Local Lingo

Since I’ve been in London, I’ve continued to tune in frequently to the mrbrown show. We all know who mr brown is – he was given a slap on the wrists by the government for a podcast he made earlier this year during the Singapore elections, and for a column he contributed later to the Today newspaper.

But let’s be honest as well. Many of his podcasts are hilariously funny, tinged with sartorial wit, and before coming here, I had some nice moments back in the office listening to them along with my colleagues. The quality of his output can vary, with some definitely more pedestrian, but among my favourites are this, this and this.

It’s been fun downloading his podcasts here in London. They remind me, just for a while, of home, and of how people speak at home. And by that, I mean Singlish, of course, which is used liberally throughout the mrbrown show segments. Often, I think the humour, even if it may be slapstick in nature, is achieved mainly through the use of Singlish. And that’s why so many of us enjoy them, because it presents settings and situations to us that we can readily identify with.

I was reminded last night of the bonding effects Singlish has, when I gathered in the Singapore Doctor’s room with two others – one from Singapore and the other from Malaysia – for an extended evening of gentlemanly conversation. Or, to put it more precisely, we had a long talk cock session.

We chatted about various issues – about the pressures we’re facing in school, about the plans we had for the year-end break, about what brought us to London for studies. There was wine and whisky and cheese and crackers. But we chatted exclusively in Singlish – well, Malaysians are equally adept at speaking Singlish – which made the evening all the more comfortable.

For me, at least, it was this use of Singlish that allowed us to relate to each other immediately, enabling us to hit the right nuance, to grasp at the exact connotation, without having to resort to any linguistic exertion. I felt entirely at ease in my identity as someone from Singapore, and happy to be with others from home, who were able to understand me equally easily. And so, there were very few barriers between us. If we had spoken in standard English, it just wouldn't have been natural. Instead, it would have been downright weird.

I know what the official government arguments against Singlish are – that we must make ourselves intelligible to the rest of the world, that many of us are not able to distinguish Singlish from proper English, that English represents the key to success, and so forth. These are valid points.

And indeed, I do realize that the four of us gathered there last evening are fortunate in being able to code switch effortlessly when dealing with non-Singlish speakers, where we revert to standard English. This blog post, too, is composed in standard English, not Singlish. Generally, being in London, we have no problems with communication at all. And we know not everyone might be similarly equipped.

But far beyond its obvious functional and utilitarian purposes, whether here or back home, Singlish serves as a strong marker of identity which distinguishes us from other people in other countries. It confers a sense of who we are and where we’ve come from. It’s not so much that we should celebrate Singlish, or even venerate it. Rather, we should recognize that Singlish represents one of the few organic attributes that makes us Singaporean. It is a living verbal language that symbolizes the people we are.

This isn’t an entirely fresh or new insight. And my aim here isn’t to launch into some sustained defence of Singlish. State sanction against Singlish will persist, and perhaps rightly so. Yet, I think that so long as there are Singaporeans around, I have no concern that Singlish will not continue to flourish. Meanwhile, I'll continue to speak Singlish whenever I'm with other Singaporeans. It's an eminently natural thing to do.