PM Goh calls on citizens to do away with Singlish

Agence France Presse. Singapore. April 29, 2000

PRIME Minister Goh Chok Tong on Saturday urged Singaporeans to speak  proper English and give up a popular but corrupted form known as "Singlish."

"If we speak a corrupted form of English that is not understood by others, we will lose our key competitive advantage. My concern is that if we continue to speak Singlish, it will over time, become Singapore's common language," he said at the launch of the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM).

This would impede Singapore's bid to become a first-world economy, he added.

"We will lose a key competitive advantage ... poor English reflects badly on us and makes us seem less intelligent or competent," Goh said.

Singlish, he said, used Chinese syntax and literal translations of Chinese phrases which resulted in sentences that were "ungrammatical and truncated but often incomprehensible especially to foreigners."

He recounted how impressed he was with the "elegant English" of his Zimbabwean golf caddy, who, after a game asked him: "Would you have some used balls to spare me?"

"I was so impressed by his elegant English that I gave him all my used golf balls, and some new ones too.

In Singlish, it would be 'Got old balls give me can or not?'," he said, to laughter from the audience.

English is widely spoken in this former British colony, a multi-racial island of 3.1 million people plus some 700,000 foreigners.