Singlish vocabulary

Singlishis the English-basedcreoleorpatoisspoken colloquially inSingapore. English is one of Singapore's official languages, along with Malay (which is also the National Language), Mandarin, and Tamil.Although English is thelexifier language, Singlish has its uniqueslangandsyntax, which are more pronounced in informal speech. It is usually a mixture of English, Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay, and Tamil, and sometimes other Chinese languages like Teochew, Hainanese, Hakka, Hockchew, and Mandarin. For example,pek chekmeans to be annoyed or frustrated, and originates fromSingaporean Hokkien迫促(POJ: pek-chhek).It is used in casual contexts between Singaporeans, but is avoided in formal events when certain Singlish phrases may be considered unedifying.Singapore Englishcan be broken into two subcategories: Standard Singapore English (SSE) and Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) or Singlish as many locals call it. The relationship between SSE and Singlish is viewed as adiglossia, in which SSE is restricted to be used insituations of formalitywhere Singlish/CSE is used in most other circumstances.
Some of the most popular Singlish terms have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) since 2000, includingwah,sabo,lepak,shiokandhawker centre.On 11 February 2015,kiasuwas chosen as OED's Word of the Day.
Singlish vocabulary formally takes afterBritish English(in terms of spelling and abbreviations), although naming conventions are in a mix ofAmericanand British ones (with American ones on the rise). For instance, local media have "sports pages" (sportin British English) and "soccercoverage" (soccer—originally slang forassociation football—while used in Britain, is more usually called justfootball). Singlish also uses many words borrowed fromHokkien, the non-Mandarin Chinese language native to more than 75%of theChinese in Singapore, and fromMalay. In many cases, English words take on the meaning of their Chinese counterparts, resulting in a shift in meaning. Vocabulary is also taken from Indian words such asdaimeaning 'hey',goondumeaning 'fat', etc. This is most obvious in such cases asborrow/lend, which are functionally equivalent in Singlish and mapped to the same Chinese word,借(Hokkienchioh, Cantoneseze, Mandarinjiè), which can mean to lend or to borrow. For example: "Oi, can I borrow your calculator?" / "Hey, can you lend me your calculator?"
There have been several efforts to compile lexicons of Singlish, some for scholarly purposes, but most for entertainment. Two early humorous works wereSylvia Toh Paik Choo'sEh, Goondu!(1982)andLagi Goondu!(1986).In 1997 the second edition of theTimes-Chambers Essential English Dictionarywas published. To date, this is the only formal dictionary containing a substantial number of Singaporean English terms. Such entries and sub-entries are arranged alphabetically amongst the standard English entries. A list of common words borrowed from local languages such as Hokkien and Malay appears in an appendix. It appears that no subsequent editions have been published.
2002 saw the publication of theCoxford Singlish Dictionary,a light-hearted lexicon which was developed from material posted on the websiteTalkingcock.com. In 2004 a website,A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English, was launched to document the actual usage of Singlish and Singapore English in published material, in the way that theOxford English Dictionarydoes for standard English. Compiled by an amateurlexicographer, theDictionaryappears to be one of the more comprehensive and professionally written dictionaries dealing exclusively with Singlish and Singapore English available so far.
TheSingapore Tourism Boardand tourism-related businesses have also produced short lists of commonly used Singlish terms, ostensibly to allow foreigners visiting Singapore to comprehend the local language better. Such lists have been printed in brochures or booklets, and also published on websites.
The lack of an officially printed version of a Singlish dictionary is due to the fact that the Singapore government frowns upon the use of Singlish, their official stance being that the speaking of Singlish will make Singaporeans difficult to understand when communicating with foreigners who are not familiar with Singlish. Thus, the government has made an effort to quash the use of Singlish and to promote the use of standard English through theSpeak Good English Movementover the past few years. Though failing to discourage the use of Singlish, it has resulted in Singlish having a bad reputation in recent years, further stalling efforts to document actual Singlish usage.
Letters contributed to the forum ofThe Straits Times, the main local newspaper, by readers have called for Singlish to be kept alive in Singapore. Community efforts to do so include the aptly named "Speak Good Singlish Movement". The idea of promoting Singlish was raised as part of a larger debate on creating a uniquely Singaporean identity. However, the government has yet to officially change its stand regarding Singlish.
A list of Singlish terms and expressions widely used in Singapore is set out below. It is not exhaustive and is meant to provide some representative examples of Singlish usage in Singapore. The origins of the Singlish terms are indicated where possible, and literal translations are provided where necessary.
Below are the phonological sounds used from theInternational Phonetic Alphabetused in Singlish.
Singlish is prominently used in local coffee shops, orkopitiams(the word is obtained by combining the Malay word for coffee and the Hokkien word for 'shop'), and other eateries. Local names of many food and drink items have become Singlish and consist of words from different languages and are indicative of the multi-racial society in Singapore. For example,tehis the Malay word for 'tea' which itself originated fromHokkien,pengis the Hokkien word for 'ice',kosongis the Malay word for 'zero' to indicate no sugar, andCrefers to 'Carnation', a brand ofevaporated milk.
Names of common local dishes in Singapore hawker centres are usually referred to in local dialect or language. However, as there are no English words for certain food items, the dialect terms used for them have slowly evolved into part of the Singlish vocabulary. Ordering in Singlish is widely understood by the hawkers. Some examples of food items which have become part of Singlish:
These terms can be combined together. For example, strong iced coffee with evaporated milk and sugar would be called “kopi-c gau peng.”
The above list is not complete; for example, one can add the "-peng" suffix (meaning "iced") to form other variations such asTeh-C-peng(tea with evaporated milk and ice) which is a popular drink considering Singapore's warm weather.