Singlish

1. Singlish Singlish Singlish Singlish Singlish

2. General Features • One of the official languages and also as a language for national unification since 1965. • Spoken in various domains such as schools and workplaces since 1980. • Linguistically influenced by British English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, Cantonese, Hokkien as well as American English and Australian English.

3. Phonological Features • Final consonants a glottal stop - want  [wanʔ] not  [noʔ] - pork  [porʔ] • Final vowels  long vowels - quality  qualiteeee - shopping  shoppeeeng • Stress shifts towards the end of the word - nOminated  nominAted • [th]  [t] or[d] - thing  [ting]

4. Lexical Features • Loanwords from Hukkien, Kantonese, Malay… - Jalang-Jalang (散歩する) - Tai-Tai (おばさん) - siau (ばか) - Makan (食べる) • Verbs  adjectives, nouns  verbs - “So tiring, lah! I feel so blur(=confused), you know.” • Unique idiomatic forms - “I feel so frus” (frustrated) - “I just go zap this article” (photocopy)

5. Syntactic Features • Omission of the verb ‘to be’ - “I very scared.” • Addition of the verb ‘to be’ as a tense marker - “This house was belong his son.” • Use of “lah”(啦) at the sentence final - “Hurry up lah!” • V(or CAN)-or-not question - Curry gravy, want or not? - Come on Sunday, can or not? • Repetition  emphasis - “Can, can!”

6. Discourse Style • “Have you eaten already?” （你３吃１飯４了嗎：ニーチーファンラマ） • “Walk slowly ho!” （慢４走３：マンツオ）