I REFER to the article “Foolish to advocate the learning of dialects.” published in The Straits Times on 7 March 2009.
There is no denial that Singapore has achieved much progress with our bilingual education. It has allowed us to attract international investors, and one of the fore-runners to do business with China, one of the most populated country in the world, if not Asia.
While there are many who gave up on the learning of Chinese totally and focus on just one language, there are also a number who went on to pick up a third language. There are also some who could speak third languages but not their own dialect.
Though there are a number of students who are able to handle both languages, there are many children who struggle with the languages in school. When it comes to the crunch, parents will advocate learning only “useful” languages that will help one in the future, like English, as that is the main medium for our education, and ignore Mandarin, as it is too difficult. Has the learning of languages been delegated to just passing examinations?
Many parents start speaking to their children in English at a young age, and even grandparents will put their best effort to learn a splattering of English in order to converse with their grandchildren. Is there still room for Dialects?
The Chinese in Singapore has to grapple with the issue of identity more than their Indian and Malay counterparts. We no longer speak our own dialects for one, and many of our traditions and cultures are inter-linked with our dialects. Every dialect group has its own unique culture and tradition, such as the Cantonese must always buy a pair of shorts on the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, and the Teo Chew likes porridge with fish.
When I explained to foreigners about the short history of Singapore, and that most of us are second or third generation Singaporeans, one of the common questions that I have to answer was which provinces in China were my ancestors from. It actually reflects badly on as being ignorant and rootless when I was not able to answer the question. I am sure the same would apply to an Indian if he/she does know which state he/she originated from.
The change in the learning of dialects is also a reflection of the change in society. Some may not have anyone in the family who could speak the dialect, some may not be spending enough time with the grandparents for them to pick up the dialects, grandparents are picking up English/Mandarin to communicate with the kids, hence . not using Dialect at home. It is more important for children to practise the important language such as English rather than to learn Dialect.
Without a doubt, as far as the policy goes, we are first Singaporeans, then Chinese, and later on our personal Dialect group. There is no room for dialect in our education policy. However, is there still a room for dialects in our family education?
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I personally shared the view that we should try to speak dialects at home wherever possible so as our children get to pick it up as well. To me, dialects brings across a closeness, a unique ethic group culture amongst people then English that is most spoken at home these days never could replace.
ReplyDeleteRegretfully, even some people at my generation as parents cannot speak dialects as well as our own parents. However, we do see more people picking up dialects these days which is consoling.