Singaporean Hokkien
Singaporean Hokkien[b] is a local variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively in Singapore. Within Chinese linguistic academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu.[c] It bears similarities with the Amoy[d] spoken in Amoy, now better known as Xiamen, as well as Taiwanese Hokkien which is spoken in Taiwan.[7]
Singaporean Hokkien
1.2 million (2017)[1]
Chinese characters (Traditional or Simplified)
Latin for romanisation (Tâi-lô & Pe̍h-ōe-jī)
None, lingua franca of the Chinese community in Singapore before the 1980s.
None
None
79-AAA-jek
Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-uē
Xīnjiāpō Fújiànhuà
Xīnjiāpō Fújiànhuà
Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-ōe
Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-uē
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gu /
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gí
Xīnjiāpō Mǐnnányǔ
Xīnjiāpō Mǐnnányǔ
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gu /
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gí
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gu /
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gí
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-uē
Xīnjiāpō Mǐnnánhuà
Xīnjiāpō Mǐnnánhuà
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-ōe
Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-uē
Hokkien is the Min Nan pronunciation for the province of Fujian, and is generally the term used by the Chinese in Southeast Asia to refer to the 'Banlam' dialect.[e] Singaporean Hokkien generally views Amoy as its prestige dialect, and its accent is predominantly based on a mixture of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech, with a greater inclination towards the former.
Like many spoken languages in Singapore, Singaporean Hokkien is influenced by other languages or dialects spoken in Singapore. For instance, Singaporean Hokkien is influenced to a certain degree by Teochew, and is sometimes regarded as a combined Hokkien–Teochew speech.[f] In addition, it has many loanwords from Singapore's four official languages of English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil.
Nevertheless, the grammar and tones of Singaporean Hokkien are still largely based on Banlam. When compared to the Taiwanese accent[g] spoken in Tainan and Kaohsiung, the accent and pronunciation of Singaporean Hokkien inclines toward the Quanzhou accent, which is also close to the pronunciation of Taipei and Xiamen, and is less close to that of Tainan, which has a greater inclination towards the Zhangzhou accent.[h]
History[edit]
From the 19th until the early half of the 20th century, there was a large influx of Chinese migrants from southern China into Singapore. This led to Chinese constituting almost 75% of Singapore's population. Of these Chinese, many originated from the regions of Amoy/Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou in Fujian province. They brought Min Nan to Singapore, which was then propagated throughout the Malayan region. As there was no formal Chinese name for Min Nan in the early 20th century, these migrants began to use their place of origin as the name of their speech, and thus called the dialect "Hokkien", referring to Fujian province.
During the 19th century, many traditional private Chinese schools in Singapore (referred to as 私塾仔; su-sio̍k-á) generally used Hokkien to teach Chinese classics and Classical Chinese. However, by the early 20th century, Mandarin began to replace Hokkien as the medium of instructions in Chinese schools after the founding of many Mandarin-medium schools.
During the 1950s and 1960s, many political speeches in Singapore were in Hokkien, in order to reach out to the Chinese community in Singapore. There was also a thriving Hokkien cultural scene that included Hokkien story-telling, opera, and media in Singapore.
After 1979, the Singapore government began to push for the use of Mandarin in Singapore, spearheaded by the Speak Mandarin Campaign. Following this, the Singapore government also began to employ a more stringent censorship, or ban, of Hokkien media in the Singaporean Chinese media. Consequently, all Hokkien-language media in Singapore had to be dubbed in Mandarin before being allowed to stream on national TV.
In addition, the 1980s saw Chinese-medium education replaced by that in English, causing English to emerge as the most widely used language in Singapore. The emergence of the English language, coupled with heavy promotion of Mandarin, generally led Hokkien to decline in Singapore after 1979.
Places in Singapore[edit]
Singapore's Chinese name "新加坡" (sin-ka-pho) originated from Hokkien's transliteration of "Singapore". In addition, there are many other place names in Singapore that originated from Hokkien: Ang Mo Kio and Toa Payoh, for instance.