Singapore has enlisted a drag queen comedian to give its people grammar lessons, as part of a long-running drive to encourage the correct use of English, for fear that weak language skills could dent its reputation as a business hub.
Foreigners visiting the tiny affluent Southeast Asian island occasionally find themselves bemused in conversation with Singaporeans, many of whom speak in a mishmash of broken English, Chinese dialect and Malay, popularly known as Singlish.
Despite a 15-year-long campaign to improve the use of English in the city-state, most of its population of about 5.4 million has stayed resistant to what they see as curbs on an integral element of their culture.
This week the “Speak Good English Movement” launched a campaign to encourage better usage, enlisting comedian Kumar to act as “The Queen of Grammar” in a series of videos berating his subjects’ use of the language.
“We speak English much better than our neighbors, and that’s one reason why people like to come here. But we have become overconfident about our position,” said Adrian Tan, a lawyer and committee member of the Speak Good English Movement.
Singlish evolved from the speech of the diverse ethnic groups that make up modern Singapore and is often seen as a common patois that unites its citizens.
Its best-known uses include tags such as “lah” or “leh” to add emphasis at the end of sentences, while if you wanted to admonish someone for being unreasonable, you would say: “Why you so like that?”
Singlish speakers who featured as main characters in popular television serials in the 1990s, such as Phua Chu Kang or Under One Roof, went on to become national icons.
While Singaporeans in the central business district mostly speak standard English in order to be understood by foreigners, Singlish is still the main dialect in use across the rest of the island, and many nationals object to being told how to speak.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS