These Damned Singaporeans, Part II.
Warning - Do not read if you piss off easily. Heck, make that do not read if you can't stand being around me. =p
You know, something I've been meaning to point out for a pretty long time is that, to solve the mysteries of Singlish, one has but to directly translate into English from a Chinese-thinking mind.
There are actually Chinese words for la and mah, and they are used in much the same context - to end a sentence with an emotive sound that can be accentuated to convey meaning. Leh and meh, I personally theorize, arose when people got too lazy to even say lah and mah. Sheesh.
Grammatically, what comes out as broken English works well in Chinese. "Today we go where", a typical phrase in Singlish, translates literally into "Jing tian wo men qu na li" in Chinese, which is correct in all senses.
People cannot, perhaps, be blamed for this. The common mind, and no, I do not -quite- exclude myself from this category, tends to think in a primary language; one that they grew up speaking. I have also, indeed, seen the reverse happening - Bad Chinese being spoken because the speaker thinks in English, and then translates (looks at Donald pointedly). Subsequent languages learned tend to be a case of literal translation, and in the case of Singapore, with the majority of us being Chinkity Chink, we have the blind and paraplegic leading the rest of the natives in an extensive bad language campaign.
That brings us to the crux of my argument - The ability to hold up your end of an intelligent conversation. Yes, it is blindingly obvious that my default tone tends to be one of condescension. Yes, I do have quite a bit of pompousity when it comes to what I refer to as 'Singaporeans'. It is all, however, at least in my bigoted view, justified.
For, as much I have just argued that these people cannot be blamed for bad English, it is another matter entirely as to their -attitude- towards it. I do not mean to say that, like in China and Korea, fluent English should have a kind of almost-revered status. What I -am- saying is that Singaporeans have an entirely misconstrued opinion of their own linguistic ability, the relative worth of other languages, and of people who speak better English than themselves.
In a bit more detail than just that, Singaporeans think they can speak English well. So be it, however sad it is when you see a local, upon query of his peculiar linguistics by someone entirely ignorant of (-wince-) our culture, boldly retorts, "ITS ENGLISH LA. Y U CANNOT UNDERSTND ENGLISH IZZIT? KNN! KP LA!". With this profound understanding of the language, they then proceed to make fun of Chinese Nationals, who, while being unable to speak English in any measure as proficiently as their Singaporean counterparts, are able to speak -flawless- Chinese.
Somehow, this ability is downplayed by the average local citizen as worthless. I have seen a side to side conversation between a Chinese national and a local, and it's painful to behold the contrast between the eloquence of the Chinese, and the crassness, as always, of the local, who obviously thinks nothing of it. Him, who would not be able to tell a bellhop in a Chinese hotel that he wants a cab in Chinese (Jing bang wo jiao yi liang de shi), but MUST do it in an abomination of two languages (Bang wo jiao TAXI, can?), thinks he is superior to the Chinese national.
And to top it all off, when confronted with distinctly good English, they feel compelled to defend their own mutation of the language aggressively, and if the speaker of it is, gods forbid, Singaporean as well, they heap abuse on him. "Y U TOK SO LYDAT 1??? CHAO ANG MOHZZZ. KNN CANNOT TOK PRPERLY AH??!!" .
I just felt a need to clarify what exactly it is I have disdain for in Singaporeans. It is not entirely the lack of linguistic capability - I have full respect for native Chinese, Japanese, Thai and what-have-you speakers. They have fluid conversance in a language I have not, and would that I could have. It is when, as with most of the local population, you are UNABLE to hold a conversation in a single language, that you earn my disdain. Just look/listen to the average Singaporean interviewed on television or radio to see what I mean. On any damned topic, they are laughable. "I feel that IS IS very er xin lor." Strangely, once asked to speak in the other half of the language, it becomes "Wo jue de it is very digusting lor." .
This was kind of brought about after watching 'Please Teach Me English." . Movie-wise, it was pretty horrible. It does, however, bring out Respect for each individual language (Korean and English), which I am unable to convey to my compadres, who would rather eagerly stone me for being Ang Moh Pai.
Wake up, Singapore. Do you fucking realize that the world is laughing at youz?
Lolx this.
-Drake
