Singlish

Singapore English has its origins in the schools of colonial Singapore. In the nineteenth century very few children went to school at all, and even fewer were educated in English. The people who spoke English and sent their children to English medium schools were mainly the Europeans, the Eurasians (people of mixed racial ancestry), some of the small minorities, such as the Jews, some of the Indians and Ceylonese, and also a group of Chinese people usually called the Straits Chinese, who had ancestors of long residence in the region, and who spoke a variety of Malay usually called Baba Malay which was influenced by Hokkien Chinese and by Bazaar Malay.

The fact that all these children would have known Malay probably explains why most of the loan words in Singapore Colloquial English are from Malay. The largest group of teachers was Eurasians, and there were also many teachers from Ceylon and India. European teachers were never more than a quarter of the total teaching staff in a school, and they usually taught the senior classes. These Europeans may have been from Britain but were also from the USA, Belgium and France. The children in these schools would have been exposed to many varieties of English.

Singlish or Singapore  English  is  the most commonly spoken language  in  Singapore.  Though English  is one of the  most  commonly spoken language  in the world, you may  still find it a little difficult to understand  the English  spoken  in  Singapore. The reason behind this  is  that you may  find a number of terms, words and phrases  from the  locally spoken languages.

Almost everyone in Singapore speaks more than one language, with a lot of people speaking three or four. Most children grow up bilingual from childhood and learn additional languages as they grow up. As expected the presence of other languages has prejudiced the English in Singapore. The influence is especially obvious in the kind of English that is used informally, which is popularly called Singlish. Singlish is a symbol of identity for many Singaporeans.