There are several ways how the the man on the street is literally converted to think in English, irregardless of ethnic or racial background. The way the environment has taught man how to develop his own language skills becomes so common that Singaporeans only realise the value when they visit other countries like Arab, Thailand, Indonesia, France or Malaysia, where English is not the official language for state administration. Some of the common ways are highlighted below.

Road or street names.

Palembang (no longer found), Bugis, Geylang, Kandahar, Bedok, Serangoon, Toa Payoh or Pasir Ris. You know these names are unique because they cannot be heard anywhere else around the world except in the country you are visiting. To recognize them as street names, the word “road”,“street’, “central’ or “avenue” in English is used together. Hencforth Bugis Street, Kandahar Street, Bedok Road, Serangoon Road, and Pasir Ris Avenue. To name a few. Many locations still retain the Malay names: “Kampong Glam” – Kampong for Village, “Jalan Sultan” – not Sultan Road. History. “Istana Kampong Glam”.

Apartment blocks.

Residential apartments are marked by numbers and for each apartment block, the term ‘Block” is used. This is not the same as the ‘block’ used in American English. In America, block means a cluster of buildings, usually rectangle area, surrounded by many streets. “He lives in the next block” in America means “He lives in one of the buildings across the street ahead or next to this block.” “He lives in the next block.” in Singapore means “He lives in the block of apartments next to this one.” Be careful though, it does not mean that the block numbers are running numbers. So if you giving directions, be sure to qualify that you are not referring to a running number for “next block” but literally meaning ‘the block beside’. This is not Singlish but English.

Here is what Mr Sedlev thinks about Singlish:

“Regarding Singlish… The difference between Singlish and *Standard* English doesn’t exceed the difference between so-called normal Arabic and various dialects. Grammar of textbook Arabic also has nothing in common with the language spoken in the street. However both are regarded as two forms of one tongue. Given that language is nothing more than a tool of communication, it is absolutely acceptable that Singaporeans tend to accommodate foreign grammar to their mother language. At least, they speak for each other and basically not for foreigners.

But I think that those who love to deride Singlish simply don’t understand that it is a result of imposing a foreign language as a state one at national level. People may have different opinions on Singaporean Government policies, but its way of solving the language problem that has reduced inter-ethnic tensions is a good example for some newly independent states in Eastern Europe.”

Public address (P.A.) system in elevators and trains.

The regular announcements on p.a. systems are repetitive, regular and clear. It is one of the best ways to train our ears to listen and learn how words are pronounced because only voices with good diction will be used in p.a. systems. In the elevators, only English is used: “10^th storey”, “Going up.” Or “Going Down”. In trains, there are four different languages used: English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil – uniquely Singapore.

Utility and telephone bills.

The monthly bills every person receives in his letter boxes or mailboxes are written in English. If there were any literature attached like brochures, promotion materials or special offers, it is not uncommon to receive them in different other languages like Mandarin, Tamil or Malay. The ordinary folks who do not know how to pay their bills on the internet, with autoteller machines or giro (automatic debit) can still go to the general post office ( I used to do the same when I was a kid.) and the kind cashier takes cash for payment like the good old days. Many old folks do not read, write or speak English but they can read the fine print at the end the numbers they have to pay. Smart!

Food packagings.

Here’s a slideshow of some the common food items where English words can be found written on the packagings. (At this point, tears are beginning to well up in my eyes thinking how hard it must have been for my mother who had to learn to read English and still managed to put food on the table for over 80 years. So I created this small slide to show you what she might have learned. There must have been hundreds of food items she has picked up at grocery stores and supermarkets in her lifetime. I have only managed to add 6 to this slide.)

How do you think the old man who has been drinking ‘Kopi’ all his life understands how to say ‘coffee’ in English? From condensed milk to fresh coffee beans, words like coffee, noodles, tea, drink, milk, chocolate and bread have become sight words for grocery shoppers who never had a chance in their lifetime to attend English schools, my mum included. She knew exactly what Liption Tea should look like from their yellow carton boxes. After over 80 years, she knows how to read tea as ‘tea’ not ‘teh’, ‘milk’ not ‘susu’. Clever? I call it practical.  Since you need  to eat the food, you will want to know about it, and ultimately you will learn the word.

The ubiquitous television.

Life without a radio at home before the 50s was unexciting without the radio. Now we so many channels on high definition television. It is still The News and commercials that are more commonly translated into different languages. Try changing channels for news on the International F1 Singapore Night Race. You will certainly find it reported in your native language at your home country. If ‘race’ is in English, what would that be in Bahasa Indonesia or Spanish. Look it up here. Download this translator for free on your desktop and try it for a few days.

Numbers.

Numbers are spoken everyday when people look for the bus service number they have to board, the right platform they have to go to board the train, the amount of money they have to pay for their groceries at the cashier’s counter, and the price tags on sales items, to name a few. These numbers may speak to them in their native tongue but ultimately, when they hear it from a third party asking for directions from someone else or the taxi driver tells them how much their fare is, they will have start to learn to say it in English. It is interesting to watch how an old taxi driver turns around and says something like, “You got $2.00 or not? Small change. I don’t have small.” I let you work out what that really means in English. If you understand it at all, what do you think that sentence mean?

Indeed, we can find so many ways to improve our language skills; perhaps we just need be to take a second at our environment and surroundings. Do you want to know how Singapore English really sound like? Watch this video.

If you turn to any page in a Chinese dictionary for names in Mandarin, you may not come across a name like Sugiarto or Gunawan. Honestly, it may not even matter to you now because you will never come across them in your part of the world, say the United States of America or Ghana.

There are many Chinese people around the world that are recognised by their races and faces that they are Chinese. Yet their names certainly do not sound anything Chinese. In fact, you might think they are adopted! For instance, the Chinese surname Lim is spelt as ‘Liem’ amongst Indonesian Chinese. This had been the case for many years when the Dutch administrators had tried using the Dutch spelling and pronunciation conventions to translate Chinese names. So you might have heard of the famous Liem Siew Leong, Liem Siew King and Kwik Kian Gee (Indonesian coordinating minister of economics and finance 1999-2000; minister of national development planning 2001-2004).

Do you know that David Beckham has Chinese characters inscribed on his body?

To be recognised as Chinese and not having a Chinese name can be a big deal for people in Asia. Those in Indonesia had never been allowed to speak, study or even display Chinese characters, cultures or traditions in public or even within their own private dwellings during the dictatorship of ex-president Suharto,. So from this group, emerged generations of Chinese Indonesians, who neither speak nor read Mandarin. To a certain extent, they have become quite creative with their names so it can be spelt and easily pronounced with the English alphabets.

Do you know that David Beckham has Chinese characters inscribed on his body?

It might also interest you that Chinese people who have embraced religions such as Christianity and Islam, have also adopted either Christian and Muslim names. John, Richard, Rickie, Anthony, or Desmond will be followed by the Chinese surnames. Or Mohammad Amin Teo or Azhar Tan. In Singapore, these Muslim converts are registered with the Majlis Ugama Islam and they carry with them an identity card bearing their Muslim names. So don’t be surprised when you meet a Chinese person who introduces himself as Mohammad Hassan or David Setiawan.

Conversely, many non-Chinese who are studying Mandarin, married to Chinese or have interest in learning the language, have the urge or need to translate their names to Chinese writing. At kindergarten, my teacher had already given me a Chinese name which I continued to use for more than 16 years throughout my education. The name was inscribed in awards and certificates wherever it was related to Chinese, like the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Singapore. My Mandarin name was also used in a newspaper article.

It is not as easy to translate names into Chinese names. There are millions of Chinese characters and each has a meaning and meaning is value. If you pick the wrong one, you might end up being mocked and misunderstood. After many years of using the same Chinese name, I realised mine is a funny one. See the first character of my Chinese is ‘Ha’ which literally means laugh. Students started calling me Ha Lao Shi which means Laughing Teacher or Teacher who laughs (like a lot.) It is nice, I get lots of laugh everyday thinking about it. I have started using a different though as they couldn’t pay attention in class everytime they have addressed me. Well these are pre-school kids, and I have lots of fun teaching them.

I missed his birthday on 16th of October 2008. Noah Webster was on born on 16th October 1758, 250 years ago. He had helped changed American language history. This is a post dedicated to this man.

When you first pick up a book, there are a few things you look at. The title, author, picture of the book, and publisher are imprinted on the book. When you pick up a dictionary, you will seldom ask where it comes from. In the bookshop, there are stacks of books on the floor and shelves, but it is impossible to miss out on the ubiquitous dictionary. The dictionary is so thick and heavy, that when stacked together, it is used as a stool for sitting and standing on. It is also used for padding in packing boxes to protect fragile items when we move.

And recently we collected leaves and used the dictionary pages to flatten the leaves against the weight of the pages. Embarrassing but true, we seldom take interest in looking up a word on the dictionary as there is now a more convenient way of spell checks and meaning of words, using spell checker off your desktop word document.

REDUNDANT REFERENCE ITEM: THE DICTIONARY

The internet has made the dictionary a redundant reference item on the bookshelf that we are inclined not to teach children to use them when they need help to understand a word. You see there are a few steps to get to the word you need to look up:

1. the child must know his alphabets and the order of the alphabet. If he is looking up an English word like ‘word’, he must know what letter comes before and after ‘w’, then he has to look up for the letter ‘o’ and so on.

2. then he has to read the entire explanation and with so many illustrations or different ways of using ‘word’, he needs to pick out the best explanation to the context of what he was searching for.

This is so tedious isn’t it? If you compare with using the keyboard to highlight a word and then click on dictionary, of course it will be. On the google browser, when you key in a phrase or word which google cannot read, you may even see suggestions to rephrase or spell you word correctly. Something like this.

If you type ‘chidl’ instead of ‘child’, the browser says, Do you mean this: “child”? Any possible incorrectness in the way words are spelt or phrased are prompted and highlighted before your proceed.

Custom Search

The internet has taken away the pain and stress to spell and look up the dictionary. This is good insofar as the child does not resort to using it to replace the dictionary altogether. As we know the more steps that are involved in performing a task, the greater the interaction with between self, fellow humans and surroudings.

The whole apparatus of the brain, senses and muscles work together in a system of relationship which keeps with himself, fellow humans and surroundings.

Movement as we have discussed previously engages the mental and physical functions such as to raise the conscious awareness of the exercise to imprints that will result in intellectual growth and development. The less we move, the more inclined we are to live reduce like a vegetable, immobile but growing. Read The Vegetable Level in “Life Begins At 40 But Stops If We Stop Growing“.

Source: The Noah Webster House: A Different Angle

On October 16, 2008, America celebrated the birth of a historical figure Noah Webster. “Best known for writing the American Dictionary, but he also advocated for universal education, the abolition of slavery, and national copyright law. He published a groundbreaking work on epidemics, edited dozens of publications, and wrote many influential books.”

So if you have missed his birthday, you can still join other members to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth as one of America’s celebrated language heroes on his official website. Don’t be disappointed though. You will not see the Webster Dictionary the website. You may join as a member and request to be linked to them on their site if you have one yourself.

Walk over Obama and McCain, I don’t see anyone on the debate dicusssing the American language.