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Apart from the 4 official languages in Singapore, there are languages that are not officially recognised by the Singapore government. These are languages spoken by the various communities in the Singaporean society. Some of these languages include the Chinese languages such as Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese and Cantonese; Malay languages such as Javanese, Madurese and Baba Malay and Indian languages such as Malayalam, Punjabi, Hindustani and Sindhi.

The Singapore government classifies many of these languages as dialects. Applying the linguistic criteria of mutual intelligibility, some of these are separate languages in their own rights. Language policies of the government have resulted in the changes in language attitudes and the subsequent decrease in the number of speakers of these languages.

Demographics and Number of Speakers

Chinese Languages

Hokkien

The first speakers of this language in Singapore were part of the migrants who came to Singapore from the southern provinces of China such as Fujian. The language itself originated in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou in China. Hokkien is now spoken in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. There are 17 015 Hokkien households in Singapore as of 2005. People with Hokkien heritage make up the largest group within the Chinese community in Singapore.

Teochew

21% of the Chinese population in Singapore are of Teochew heritage. They were migrants who came to Singapore and they originated from the eastern provinces of China such as Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang. As of 2005, there are 115, 107 using Teochew as their home language in Singapore.

Hakka

The Hakka people consist of the 7.9% of the Chinese population In Singapore. They originated from the Hakka speaking regions of the North-eastern part of Guangdong. As of 2005, there are 3199 Hakka households in Singapore.

Hainanese

The Hainanese people consist of 7% of the Chinese population in Singapore. They migrated from the Hainan province in China, mostly from the north-eastern part of the Hainan province. As of 2005, there are 3199 Hainanese households in Singapore. As the number of Hainanese speakers is generally small in Singapore, the actual number of speakers are part of the 43 343 people who speak the minority Chinese languages in Singapore.

Cantonese

The Cantonese people make up 15.4% of the Chinese population in Singapore as of 2000. They migrated to Singapore from the southern region of the Guangdong province in China. People with Cantonese heritage make up one of the larger portion of the Chinese people in Singapore with 136, 753 speakers using it as their home language.

Malay Languages

Javanese

The Javanese makes up the second biggest group of the Malay population in Singapore. They migrate to Singapore from Java, Indonesia. The actual number of Javanese people in Singapore is unknown as many of them classify themselves as Malay rather than Javanese. There are about 80 million Javanese speakers worldwide. Javanese is mainly spoken in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Baba Malay

Baba Malay is spoken by the Peranakans who are also known as the Baba-Nyonya people. They migrated to Singapore from Malacca and Penang. They have mixed ancestry of Chinese and Malay and speak a Baba-Malay, which is the Malay language containing many Hokkien words. It is spoken by about 5000 Peranakans in Singapore. The number of Peranakan people is generally small as compared to the other Chinese dialect groups in Singapore. In Singapore, they are classified under the Chinese ethnic group even though they are from two different ethnic groups. The language is dying out as the Peranakan people are expected to assimilate into the Chinese culture with the study of Mandarin Chinese as their mother tongue.

Kristang

According to Voices 2006, Kristang is a creole spoken by Portuguese Eurasians in Singapore and Malay. It developed when Portuguese colonizers incorporated borrowings from Malay, Chinese, Indian and Arab languages. When the British took over Singapore, Kristang declined as the Portuguese Eurasians learnt English instead. Today, it is spoken largely by elderly speakers.

Historical Treatment of the Non-official Languages

See also: Speak Mandarin Campaign

Shortly after independence, there were efforts to unite the Chinese people by making Mandarin Chinese as their common language. This was done primarily through the launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979. The campaign had 3 main objectives: “To simplify the language environment for Chinese Singaporeans, to improve communication and understanding amongst Chinese Singaporeans and to create a Mandarin-speaking environment conducive to the successful implementation of our bilingual education programme” . Hence the campaign worked towards getting Chinese Singaporeans to speak in mandarin instead of their other Chinese languages.

Some of the actions that were undertaken to succeed in these efforts involved removing dialect radio and television broadcast. By the late 1980, it was apparent that in public places, such as restaurants and public transports etc, Mandarin had to some extent replaced the other Chinese languages as the mode of communication.

As such, most Chinese Singaporeans under the age of 40 have a working knowledge of both English and only Mandarin out of the range of Chinese languages spoken in Singapore. However, the vast majority of older Chinese Singaporeans can only speak in the other Chinese languages and have little or no proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. This also means that there is a major communication gap between the two generations of the Chinese population.

Current Situation in Singapore

Language Policy

The sections below will mainly focus on Chinese and Malay non-official languages. Indian languages have received different treatment and so will be discussed in a separate section. As with the sections so far, dialects will be used to refer to these non-official languages for the ease of discussion.

Education Policies

Singapore's education policy has been bilingual since 1966, a year after independence. To facilitate inter-racial communication, everyone had to learn English. Students also learnt a mother tongue, either Mandarin, Malay or Tamil, depending on their race. This was to preserve cultural rootedness. Dialects were not included. Initially, schools used either one of the four official languages as the medium of instruction. However, as English came to be seen as more economically viable , more parents chose to send their children to English schools. Between the early 1960s to late 1970s, students registering for primarily English schools jumped from 50% to 90%. Attendance at Mandarin, Malay and Tamil schools consequently dropped and these schools closed down eventually. In the end, all schools used English as the medium of instruction, with time provided for mother tongue lessons on a weekly basis.

The impact of the bilingual policy differed from students of one racial group to another. For the Chinese, many students found themselves struggling with two foreign languages: English and Mandarin. Even though dialects then were widely spoken at home, with Hokkien being used as the lingua franca, Chinese dialects were excluded from the classroom as it was felt that they would be an "impediment to learning Chinese". Still, dialects persisted for a while and there appeared to be a trend towards English becoming the lingua franca among the Chinese. In response, the Singapore government started the Speak Mandarin Campaign (See above). On 23 November, 1979, the then Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew stated two goals in a televised discussion:"five years for all young Chinese Singaporeans to drop dialects and use Mandarin and 10 years for Mandarin to be established as the language of coffee-shops, hawker centres and shops."

The Mother Tongue a child learns is determined by his/her father's race. For example, a child born to a Hokkien-speaking Chinese father and and Tamil-speaking Indian mother would automatically be assigned to take Mandarin Chinese as the Mother Tongue language.

Today, although English and Mandarin Chinese are now more widely spoken, many students still struggle with learning it and several revisions have been made to the education system to ease their difficulties. These include the now defunct EM3 stream and Chinese B, both in which Mandarin is taught at a lower than mainstream level. Overall, Chinese dialects are on the decline as parents focus on speaking English and/or Mandarin at home to help their children cope better with school requirements. The use of dialects at home have declined as follows:

Language Most Frequently Spoken at Home Among Chinese Resident Population Aged 5 and Over
Home language	1990 ('000)	2000 ('000)	1990 (%)	2000 (%)	Change (%)
Total	1,884.0	2,236.1	100.0	100.0	18.7
English	363.4	533.9	19.3	23.9	46.9
Mandarin	566.2	1,008.5	30.1	45.1	78.1
Chinese Dialects	948.1	685.8	50.3	30.7	-27.7
Others	6.4	7.9	0.3	0.4	23.4

Malay students also found themselves facing similar problems. Students who spoke dialects likewise had to learn a new language. Today, the lack of support in school has led to the decline of dialects. Malay is the lingua franca among the Javanese, Boyanese, other Indonesian groups and some Arabs. It is Malay, and not dialects, which are valued as the means for transmitting familial and religious values. ‘Madrasahs’ or religious schools, mosques and religious classes all employ Malay. However, Malay in turn is facing competition from English.

Media and the Arts

The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) restricts the use of Chinese dialects in the media. The rationale is that Chinese Singaporeans are already burdened with learning English and Mandarin. A greater presence of Chinese dialects in the media will only add to their mental load . However, to especially cater to elders who know only dialect, videos, VCDS, DVDS, paid subscription radio service and pay TV channels are exempt from MICA's restrictions. Two free to air channels, Okto and Channel 8, are also allowed to show dialect operas and arthouse movies with some dialect content respectively . More local films are also made containing, or in dialect since MICA is more lenient in this regard . There are no restrictions on entries for film festivals.

Dialects are not as controlled in traditional arts. As such, they have managed to survive, and even flourish in these areas. In Singapore, types of Chinese opera include Hokkien, Teochew, Hainanese and Cantonese. In the past, this diversity encouraged the translation of scripts for popular stories between dialects. After the implementation of the bilingual policy and Speak Mandarin Campaign, Mandarin subtitles were introduced to help the audience understand. Today, as usage of English rises, some opera troupes not only provide English subtitles but translate the whole opera into English. For these English- Chinese operas, subtitles may be be provided in either Mandarin, dialect or both. In this way, Chinese opera reaches out to as wide an audience as possible despite being dialect- specific .

Chinese clan associations also play a role in maintaining dialects.In the past, they provided support to migrant Chinese, based on the province they came from. Today, they provide a place for people who speak the same dialect to gather and interact. This could help Chinese dialects resist erosion .

The Eurasian Association also holds Kristang classes for anyone interested regardless of age. In this way, it hopes to preserve what it feels is a unique part of the Eurasian heritage. [de Rozario, C. (2008). Kristang: a language, a people. Voices", 29, 4.]

Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce

The Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce used to allocate council members to represent different Chinese dialects. Seats were allocated based on the relative size of each group. For example, the Hokkien bang which was the biggest, had the most seats. However, this practice was abolished in 2010.

Treatment of Indian Languages

The fact that Indian languages receive differing treatment is notable. Even though only Tamil has official status, there have been no attempts to discourage the use or spread of the other Indian languages. With the increase in influx of Indian immigrants who speak Indian languages, the students who come from these families can now offer Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi or Urdu as their Mother-Tongue at the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) and the GCE O, N and A level examinations. Movies in these languages are shown in local theatres, and Hindi movies are quite popular with Indian expatriates of various ethnicities, as well as with the local Malay community. Moreover, there are timeslots in the local Indian TV channel MediaCorp Vasantham for Hindi movies (Bollywood Masti) and movies in Indian languages such as Telugu, Malayalam, Kanada and Punjabi (Indian Panorama).

Ongoing Debates

'Stupid' to advocate the learning of dialects

In March 2009, a newspaper article was published in Singapore broadsheet daily The Straits Times on a Language and Diversity Symposium organised by the Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at Nanyang Technological University. Dr Ng Bee Chin, Acting Head of the Division, was quoted in the article as saying, "Although Singaporeans are still multilingual, 40 years ago, we were even more multilingual. Young children are not speaking some of these languages at all any more. All it takes is one generation for a language to die."

This prompted a reply from Mr Chee Hong Tat, the Principal Private Secretary of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. In a letter to the editor in the Straits Times Forum, he underlined the importance of English and Mandarin over dialects and how using dialects "interferes with the learning of Mandarin and English"; a statement that Lee Kuan Yew later collaborated in a speech at the 30th anniversary of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. Referring to the progress of Singapore's bilingual education policy over the decades, he also commented that "it would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin."

Reaction of netizens

The use of the word 'stupid' in Mr Chee Hong Tat's letter offended many Singaporeans, some of whom were speakers of the said dialects. Online response was mostly negative, with Singaporeans criticising him as being "narrow-minded and short-sighted" and "insensitive" in a furore of blog posts and forum replies. Many pointed out the Singapore government's classification of dialects as differing from a linguistic definition

Attitudes of Singaporeans

Facebook group to support non- official languages Speakers who identify with it Prevalent use of non- official languages in NS for bonding vs Those who feel that it is better to let non- official languages die out (more practical, less messy etc.)