Singlish

Summary

Singlish, formally known as Colloquial Singaporean English, is an English-based creole language originating in Singapore. Singlish arose out of a situation of prolonged language contact between speakers of different languages in Singapore, including English, Malay, Cantonese, Hokkien, Mandarin, Teochew, and Tamil. Singlish is spoken alongside Standard Singapore English in a diglossic manner, and represents the colloquial register of English used between locals. As such, Singlish is sometimes not regarded as a separate language from English in Singapore, but rather, a sub-variety of it, forming a lectal continuum with the standard language. Despite this, it is still linguistically an independent creole language. The term Singlish was first recorded in the 1970s, and first appeared in newspapers and academic discourse in 1975. Singlish has similar roots and is highly mutually intelligible with the Manglish spoken in Peninsular Malaysia, although subtle differences do exist. Singlish vocabulary generally contains more words from Chinese languages, while Manglish vocabulary contains more Malay words.