The government desperately wants to promote internationally intelligible English among its populace whose command of the language has declined mainly because high-school students have been required to be bilingual for the last decade. Youngsters have become vulnerable to Singlish that is part standard English, part Chinese dialect, part Malay and part Indian.

Again, the authorities have had to speak out against inverted snobbery among Singapore's middle-class who see the patois of Singlish as a crucial part of the national identity. One media editor went so far recently to claim that Singlish was a national language.

However, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was critical of Singlish when he launched the Speak Good English Movement 2001 campaign recently. He noted that people like the media editor can usually speak and write good English, but said the hybrid was not appropriate for the many who had not learned standard English. He asked: "Will we then write our own school and university textbooks in Singlish?"

The government is concerned that the less educated will be held back in life if they continue to speak so-called unintelligible English, and it has urged people to "speak English everyone understands".

The younger generation is switching from speaking Chinese, Malay or Tamil to speaking English. But the question is, which English? While more are now conversant in English, it differs in style and quality, with the language divide of old remaining but in a different form.

Formerly in all communities there were divisions between those who were English educated and those who were not. In a decidedly bilingual Singapore, there remains a language divide that the middle-class English educated literati tend to paper over. Almost to a person, Singapore writers are great advocates of Singlish. They are no doubt inspired by leading African writer Taban Lo Liyong's sentiments, "I have slept with the English language."

Enamored with the richness of the hybrids and different varieties that this spawned, it makes promoters of standard English like the Singapore government look philistine to say the least. And certainly there's a hint of a contradiction in the government's position. The Singaporean identity - whatever it might be - has always been paraded as the best bulwark against Western decadence.

And surely Singlish would provide the people with greater emotional sustenance and a sense of pride than standard English. Leading academic professor Tommy Koh said, "When one is abroad, in a bus or train or airplane, and when one overhears someone speaking, one can immediately say this is someone from Malaysia or Singapore. And I should hope that when I'm speaking abroad my countrymen will have no problem recognizing that I am a Singaporean." But Koh is not in favor of abandoning English language standards.

Nevertheless, no matter how hard the authorities strive for perfection, it is the people who will ultimately decide how they wish to speak and write. There is a limit to how far the authorities can enforce any language policy or movement, escpecially if it is out step with developing patterns within society.

But the Speak Good English Movement still has a relevant role to play. For instance, most middle-class English educated Singaporeans do not invest time to continue reading standard English after school, and they are also not exposed enough to standard English users.

By now, state bilingualism in Singapore, with its increasing emphasis on English, makes it imperative that the English used is a on par with the standard of English in the indigenously English-speaking countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

There is no ignoring the fact that almost none of the native population are ethnically English-speaking, with result that as the use of English spreads the small number of monolinguals and anglophiles like Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and other elite school products are swamped by the mass of newer, less competent speakers. Reduced English competence perpetuates itself as people poorly exposed to good English rise to be teachers and bosses. Singlish could merely be badly learned and taught English.

It clearly doesn't help that with freedom of statement being so limited the middle-class English educated Singaporeans have been pushed into making fun of their less-educated neighbors' Singlish. Quite a few have even made a good living out of mimicking the Singlish of their less fortunate brethren who have to make do with inferior education.

Lee said: "Those Singaporeans who can speak good English should help to create a good environment for speaking English, rather than exploit for their own ends the use of Singlish."

But the matter is not as straightforward as that, Singlish afterall is the result of multi-culturalism. As such, it is a crucial solidarity "tool". A compromise that the language movement wants to strike is th he dialect be restricted to informal usage (conversation, letters, dialogue in novels, plays, etc) but for formal written purposes where communication is vital, the more neutral international standard should be adopted.

The pragmatic official stance is: "Will Singlish help you to write a business proposal?" Further, will multinationals, banks or even local companies prefer to hire you if you speak Singlish instead of standard English? Besides, there are only 3 million Singaporeans - too few to cook up a language all for their own consumption. And if one is not convinced that sentimentalism does not play a part here at all one merely has to tune in to the official line that "Singlish is not the way to strengthen the Singaporean identity. There are other ways to achieve this."