Singlish!

Singlish! That mangled mixture of English spoken in Singapore, part English, part Malay, part Hokkien, part Mandarin - a real mixed salad or "rojak" that befuddles foreigners who come to Singapore. I have no idea why Singaporeans must speak in this horrible manner where it sounds like gibberish.

Don't get me wrong - I can take the "lah!", "meh" or "hor!" as in "Can lah!" or "yah meh?" or "hooooor!" for emphasis, but whole garbled Singlish conversations really get to me. I really apologise that I cannot repeat what I hear in written form because it is so mangled and I have no idea how to write in Singlish.

A few years back my friend John who teaches English to nurses from China used to get me to sit in the class and have conversations with them. The nurses could ask me anything in English and I would answer their queries in my standard English. When the nurses could not understand my replies in standard English, they would go "kwai tien, John, fan yi" or something like "Quick John - translation please!". I would say that we had fun because I could practice my horrendous Mandarin (actually non-exsistent language skills) on them. Whenever they said something that I didn't understand, I would repeat "kwai tien, John, fan yi" to their peals of laughter. Those were hilarious times that I think we enjoyed somehow. I think the nurses benefitted more than I did since I am linguistically illiterate in Mandarin.

These students learnt standard English in China, but when they came to Singapore, they were stumped by the poliferation of Singlist in every strata of the population they met. It is really sad that in Singapore, there are people who are not capable of saying complete sentences in either English or Mandarin. The sentences would go something like this:

Last night, hor, we went makan at East Coast Park. After eat, we go kai kai along the beach and paktor a little. If I were a foreign native English speaker, I would be stumped by this sentence. It's gibberish or I suppose Singlish that I profess not to write.

Many times, I have been ambushed by sales people who insist on coming after me in Singlish or Chinese. When I tell them that I do not understand either, they look stunned - a person with a Chinese face telling them in gramatically correct standard English that she does not understand.

I think Singaporeans will have a better standing in their dealings with foreigners if they tried to speak standard English instead of the garbled rubbish that comes out of their mouths.

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