We all know the value of the new.
The new changes our lives;
it engineers progress;
it shapes the future.
But what is the new?
When we first meet the new,
it's always never quite what we expected it to be like.
It feels useless;
it feels threatening;
it feels disruptive to the way we normally run our lives.
It always feels easier, better to do without the new.
Today, I want to talk about the new in language.
Language, by definition, is something old.
The age of language itself secures for it two things:
firstly, a stable community of speakers,
and secondly, a stable, consistent manner of use.
That means the two things being
people who will speak this language together
and people who know what is the vocabulary,
the syntax,
the structures of the language
and know how to communicate with each other.
So today, I want to talk about Singlish, can?
(Laughs)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
[SINGLISH]
Over the years, Singlish ah, has 'kena' a lot of bad press
from the government, from the schools,
from a lot of sectors, you know, who believe in English.
We don't get the sense of what the broader use of Singlish is
other than, you know, you just buy food from the 'kopitiam' or the hawker centre
or trying to find the 'jamban' after that when you 'kena' food poisoning.
(Laughter)
It feels too 'kampung', the use of Singlish.
It seems to be at odds
with our Singaporean pursuit of excellence,
pursuit of economic progress in the international world.
So is Singlish the enemy of English?
Is it the enemy of business English?
But, you see, in this stigmatisation,
what we all fail to notice
is that Singlish may well not be a creature of the old.
What if it's the creature of the new?
Here are three thoughts I want to share with you this evening.
Firstly, Singlish is only as old as the concept of multicultural Singapore.
That means there has been no Singlish
before there was a multicultural Singapore,
and it cannot not exist
as long as we, as Singaporeans, remain multicultural.
There are two fundamental pillars of Singlish.
And this is, firstly, 'kampung' life.
Because in 'kampung' life -
which is village life, when Singapore was not as progressive decades ago -
diverse people would talk across languages.
People from different communities would learn how other people speak
and then communicate with them by means of how he or she knows how to speak.
Secondly, there is commerce.
And commerce is a way in which people from different countries,
different communities outside Singapore
find a way to meet,
to exchange things,
to buy things,
to sell things.
But also, through those,
they achieve a kind of common goal of trying to understand each other.
So people come into contact.
Now, as far as our 'same-same' future is about building some global 'kampung',
or some global village,
Singlish is actually very relevant.
The future, if you stop to think about it,
will actually sound a lot like Singlish rather than English.
[#2 Singlish globalises.]
Secondly, Singlish is a version of a global language.
Speakers of Singlish do this:
they find something in their own stem language
that can overcome its own language barrier.
So what we do
is that in the language that we normally speak,
we move from the inward-looking part
and we move to the borders, to the accessible, outward-looking part,
and there create communication
with other people from a different language sector.
Singlish is therefore very open to the involvement of other languages
and to the developments within languages.
It is more able to do what we call 'potong jalan' ah,
which is 'potong' - 'cut' -
'jalan' means 'walk'.
You 'potong jalan' across distinct grammars and syntaxes.
You create a way where previously there was no way to communicate.
Is this not how English itself developed
and become the global language of our time today?
After all, English has developed for 1,500 years
by absorbing German, Celtic, Latin, French,
and words from different British colonies like Singapore and Malaysia and India.
If you look at how English developed,
it shifts.
It began as Old English,
500 to 1100 AD,
to Middle English,
which was spoken 1100 AD to 1500 AD,
to Early Modern English
during the 17th century to the 19th century,
and arriving at what we get now,
which is English in the 20th century onwards.
In other words, English itself hasn't been stable -
it's also always changing.
Do you know, for example,
that the words 'one', 'two', 'three' in English
came long ago from the German words 'eins', 'zwei', 'drei'?
Did you know, for example,
that less than three lifetimes of Singlish ago,
people were still saying 'thou art' and 'thee'?
Today, we say 'you are' and 'you' and 'I', right?
And also, notice that in Singlish itself,
the words that we have are always changing,
and that is an interesting aspect.
You never expect to see this on a TED stage, ah?
(Laughter)
We have the Malay word 'hentam'.
It became 'hantam' at some stage.
And now we say 'hum-tum', right?
The word is changing.
We say 'puncit' in Malay.
And then at some point we say 'puncik', with a 'K'.
And now we say 'pumchek'.
We say 'ah, but then' a long time ago as a way to show disbelief or - you know.
But now, we say 'arbuthen'.
(Laughter)
And also consider how Singlish is about mixing different words together.
So the word 'buay tahan' -
the phrase 'buay tahan' we use,
which means 'I cannot stand it anymore',
comes from, in part, Hokkien,
in part, Malay.
We have the word 'relak one corner' -
which was what I was doing before this -
(Laughter)
which is one part Malay, one part English.
And then we have 'steady pom pi pi',
which means ah, 'very good ah, excellent',
like a lot of TED speeches so far.
'Steady' is English; 'pom pi pi' is Hokkien.
So, you know, in this, we see that Singlish is evolving,
and that is my third point.
Singlish's evolution actually proves its trend towards a more global form.
Because why?
(Applause)
Singlish is still changing.
And because it's still changing,
it's open to influences from any source it comes into contact with.
A finished language is useless to outsiders.
A finished language has no future
in a multicultural society
because a multicultural language resides between languages.
Singlish's openness and its fluidity is therefore actually its strength.
But yet because of its shifting status,
Singlish lends itself very often to being treated badly
by people who don't understand what it's actually doing.
They think it's teaching our kids bad English;
they think it's doing all sorts of horrible things to people's minds.
It is reflecting and encouraging the psychic interaction among people.
More than we believe, therefore,
Singlish needs our support and our love now.
(Applause)
We have, in Singlish,
a very unique, powerful, and unconscious national invention.
I don't think anyone actually set out to plan this.
It may well prove to be our Singaporean one national resource
in a country that doesn't have any.
(Laughter)
Singlish may well be our great contribution
to the world of inventions and to the world of languages.
It is practical,
it's good-natured,
it's funny,
it's self-deprecating,
it's succinct,
it's futuristic,
it's identity-clarifying,
it's communal,
and, most importantly,
it's people-powered.
With Singlish, if you therefore dare to keep your heart on it -
while, of course, speaking good English -
we can help make ourselves into the hub of how the future speaks.
So I'd like to thank you today.
(Laughs)
As we would say, I hope you enjoy the time here.
And in Singlish, we say 'song bo'?
Audience: 'Song!'
Thank you.
(Applause)