Is there a future for Chinese dialects in Singapore?

As a migrant society, the social structure of Singapore’s ethnic Chinese community has always been based on dialect-based ethnic groups and identities. Since the 19th century, there have been six major dialect groups or clans: Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese and Foochow. Each clan has established clan associations based on geography and dialect to provide comprehensive services to its community.

The ethnic Chinese community in the 19th century was largely based on clan politics, with deep lines drawn between various dialect groups as each pursued their own interests, which inevitably led to conflicts and even armed fights. One of the more serious incidents happened in 1885 between the Hokkiens and Teochews, which spread from the city to the rural areas; it lasted 14 days and resulted in over 400 deaths and countless injuries.

This situation was only slightly eased in 1906 with the establishment of the General Chinese Trade Affairs Association (the precursor to the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry), which worked with the various dialect groups for the interests of Chinese businesses. The association’s council was elected based on the clan system — it was only in 1993 that an extraordinary general meeting was finally held to amend its constitution to abolish the clan-based election system, while reserving seven seats on the council for seven dialect groups (the six main dialect groups and Sam Kiang Huay Kwan, one of the organisation’s founding clans).

At that time, the various Chinese dialects groups naturally used their respective dialects within their groups and families, with Hokkien the common language among the different dialect groups. Before the Speak Mandarin Campaign began in 1980, the annual National Day Rally was delivered by founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew not just in Malay, English and Mandarin, but also in Hokkien, to communicate with the ethnic Chinese community. Also, during the General Elections, many candidates extensively used dialects to garner votes, which still happens today.

For Lee himself, one of the major challenges in his early years in politics was learning Hokkien to communicate with voters. While the various dialects were important, Hokkien was the lingua franca among the various dialect groups. In the early years of National Service following Singapore’s independence, the army recruits were generally poorly educated and unable to communicate in Mandarin or English. They were assigned to the “Hokkien Platoon” and trained under Hokkien instructions, which showed how important Hokkien was at that time.

Lee struggled with dialects, and he was deeply wary of them, which was also one of the reasons why he launched the Speak Mandarin Campaign. In the Chinese edition of My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore’s Bilingual Journey, he said: “Dialects not only hinder bilingual education but also have a negative impact of dividing the Chinese community. Chinese people have formed different cliques due to various dialects, with those speaking the same dialect forming a clique, closely interacting with each other, and creating barriers with people from other dialect groups. My aim in promoting the Speak Mandarin Campaign is to replace dialects with Mandarin and get the Chinese community together again, to create unity out of division.”

After years of planning, led by Lee, the government launched the Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979. The slogan then was “Speak more Mandarin and less dialect” (多讲华语，少说方言). Thereafter, the authorities implemented some measures (Lee called them soft measures) to actively encourage the learning and use of Mandarin in various public settings. Concurrently, there were phrase books, courses and hotlines for learning Mandarin, including a publication entitled Phrase Book of Frequently Used Mandarin Phrases (《常用华语手册》) and conversational classes in Mandarin.

There were some hard measures too — the ban on dialect radio and TV broadcasts drew the strongest public reaction and was the most impactful. At the time, the popular Hong Kong Cantonese TV drama series Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (《倚天屠龙记》) was immediately dubbed into Mandarin. Within three years, by 1981, all dialect radio and TV commercials and programmes were stopped and all Chinese programmes were broadcast only in Mandarin. The entire transformation was completed two years ahead of the deadline set by the Government.

In fact, even in Singapore’s short history, there was a precedent for the Government to impose limitations on broadcast programmes to restrict the use of dialects.

In the 1950s before there was television, Singapore’s radio broadcasts were in Mandarin and the six Minyue (闽粤, Minnan/Hokkien and Yue/Cantonese) dialects. In October 1958, the authorities announced the cessation of broadcast in the four dialects with lower listenership (Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese and Foochow). In November, the Nanyang Hakka Federation was the first to contact organisations representing the other affected dialects to launch an appeal.

Sin Chew Jit Poh published an open letter to Lim Yew Hock, Chief Minister of Singapore, to fight for their “civil rights”. It did not work, and by the end of the year, only Teochew programmes were retained due to larger listenership, while Hakka, Hainanese and Foochow programmes were set to go silent. On 25 December, Sin Chew Jit Poh published another joint letter, and contacted the relevant clan associations to organise an emergency meeting to discuss and plan protests involving more than 90 associations and societies. This was supported by the Malayan Chinese Association, and clan representatives met with Lim Yew Hock. Under public pressure, the Government eventually decided to resume broadcasts in those dialects.

Comparing what happened in 1958 and 1980, we can see the shifting influence of the Chinese community and the Government during these two periods.

Another tough measure was bringing hanyu pinyin into general use to spell Chinese names, so as to avoid the confusion that had long existed in using dialect spelling for Chinese surnames and names. The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced the implementation of the policy to use hanyu pinyin for the names of Chinese students in preschool and Primary One with effect from 1 January 1981.

This was met with resistance as most ethnic Chinese remained emotionally attached to dialects and many insisted on using the dialect spelling of their surnames (for example, the surname 陈 in Hokkien is rendered as Tan instead of Chen). The authorities finally relented and resumed the dialect spelling of students’ surnames and names in 1992.

Nevertheless, dialects in Singapore continue to be necessary and to serve a function, especially in extraordinary situations, such as the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. To disseminate information on protection against the virus, the authorities invited government leaders, celebrities and personalities to explain its prevention in various dialects on TV, illustrating dialects’ social function and the Singapore government’s pragmatism.

Since the start of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, there have been unsuccessful calls to relax the ban on dialects in the media. In the 1996 annual report of the Advisory Committee for Chinese Programmes (ACCESS) under the Ministry of Information and the Arts, it was proposed for the first time to relax the ban on dialect broadcast. Nothing came of it, as the timing was clearly inopportune. In 2003, ACCESS brought it up again, highlighting that it was timely to appropriately relax the ban on dialect programmes after the steady outcomes of years of implementing the Speak Mandarin Campaign.

Within days, the proposal gained widespread enthusiastic support in the editorials and commentaries in the Mandarin and English media. The proposal to relax the ban on dialects was widely interpreted as an official position and its implementation as a certainty, since it came from this committee. However, the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts responded two weeks later and flatly rejected the proposal, saying that it was not time yet for free-to-air TV to do so.

At the 2010 Annual General Meeting of the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations attended by 260 leaders of clan associations, it was unanimously resolved to call on the Government to relax the ban on dialects in TV broadcasts and “allow greater space for dialects”. With all eyes watching, the authorities’ response was still an unequivocal “No”.

It has been 45 years since the Speak Mandarin Campaign was launched in 1979. Indeed, such a long-term language planning campaign is a unique rarity. Has it worked?

As there have been five Censuses of Population during these 45 years, let the data speak for itself.

According to the Censuses, the percentage of Chinese residents who speak dialects most frequently at home has decreased from 81.4% in 1980 to 11.8% in 2020. It appears that this downward trend will continue and that it will be difficult to arrest the marginalisation of dialects.

In the past four decades, the percentage of Chinese residents who speak English most frequently at home has jumped from 7.8% to 47.6%, while the percentage of Chinese residents who speak Mandarin most frequently at home has also increased from 10.2% to 40.2%.

English and Mandarin have replaced dialects as the common languages for the ethnic Chinese. The goals of the Speak Mandarin Campaign — “speak more mandarin” and “speak less dialect” — have been accomplished. However, Lee warned at the opening ceremony of the Promote The Use Of Mandarin Campaign in 1979, that “if we continue to use dialects, then English will tend to become the common language between Chinese of different dialect groups”.

Today, we are no longer using dialects, but it still appears that English will become the common language of the ethnic Chinese!

The rapid shift within a single generation from dialects to Mandarin, then to English, is unprecedented. Mandarin, the language of the intelligentsia, has become the common language, completely replacing and marginalising dialects. Indeed, this would be a wish come true for Lee.

Similarly, is it the goal of Singapore’s language policy to have its population speak English? At the 1986 National Day Parade (NDP), for the first time, the emcees spoke entirely in English throughout the celebrations. During the National Day Rally of 1986, Lee lauded the NDP that year as a “great success”. He said: “... after 27 years since ’59, the compere, the announcements could be in English and the whole stadium understood and they responded as one. They could sing together. You know, we couldn’t sing together. We sang different songs in different languages… We did not laugh at the same jokes.”

Nevertheless, there is a price to pay for promoting Mandarin and sacrificing dialects. Some families concurrently use different languages or dialects at home. Other three-generation families do not have a common language, rendering communication between grandparents and grandchildren impossible. This is a regrettable situation for many ethnic Chinese families. At the opening of the Speak Mandarin Campaign on 7 September 1979, Lee also admitted: “Logically, the decision is obvious. Emotionally, the choice is painful.”

Besides the personal sphere of family, geography- and language-based clan associations have also been hit hard.

Geography-based clan associations were originally intended to strengthen ties among people from the same ancestral hometowns and provide necessary services. Naturally, dialects and local accents are the basis of building bonds. Yet, from the perspective of promoting the use of Mandarin, these clan associations are one of the very obstacles to the prevalent use of Mandarin, a stronghold that must be “broken” by the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The inherent contradictions cannot be any more evident.

For years, although dialects are not widely used, they remain alive at the grassroots level. Despite being squeezed by official policies, they still have a place in popular culture. This is more apparent in local films, where restrictions on the use of dialects is more relaxed, such as the popular Money No Enough (1998), 881 (2007) and Ah Boys to Men (2012). In addition, dialect songs, including Cantopop and Hokkien songs, are popular at getai sessions during the seventh lunar month and karaoke sessions, and this has lasted for years.

The lifting in August 2013 of the 23-year broadcast ban on Liang Wern Fook’s song The Sparrow with a Bamboo Twig (《麻雀衔竹枝》) for the use of dialects is particularly noteworthy. Now that the sparrow can finally pick up the bamboo twig, does it signify greater latitude in the use of dialects? Is this the first of many sparrows in spring?

Three years later, in September 2016, Mediacorp started a dialect timeslot at noon on Fridays to broadcast local drama series Eat Already? (《吃饱没？》), with Hokkien as the main language alongside other dialects, as it aimed to better communicate with the elderly. In 2021, Mediacorp introduced a new dialect magazine show Happy Together (《欢喜一家亲》), which advocated lifelong learning and encouraged the elderly to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle, while offering rich information and entertainment.

It seems these are all signs that official language restrictions on television broadcasts are being relaxed. While there has been no official announcement of any policy change, it can be considered an experimental opening up. As the programmes have raised no waves so far, they are likely to continue. Spring has come late, but it has been worth the wait.

Looking at the increasing community activities in recent years, it feels like civil organisations are getting louder and more energetic. Lianhe Zaobao has reported that millennials and Gen Z are starting to show interest in dialects, and some have even suggested to MOE to offer dialect electives, while it seems to have become fashionable to discuss and study dialects in universities.

At the same time, there appears to be some tweaking of the official position. At this year’s National Chinese Challenge (全国华文大比拼), co-organised by SPH Media’s Chinese Media Group and Nanyang Girls’ High School, and supported by the MOE’s Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning, there were even questions on dialects. The organisers explained that they wanted to present the distinctiveness of local Mandarin and “hoped to more widely convey the diverse elements of the Chinese language” so as to affirm that dialects are unique features of local languages. It is worth looking at whether the relaxed yardsticks might signal future developments.

In recent years, clan associations have also organised dialect conversational classes and talks, including Singapore Kwangtung Hui Kuan’s Cantonese classes, Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan’s Hokkien courses, Singapore Amoy Association’s Hokkien talks, as well as Teochew and Hainanese courses. To my knowledge, response has been good, but the results remain to be seen.

The fact is, looking at the results of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, Mandarin has been firmly established as the common language among Chinese dialect groups in Singapore today. The mess of dialects is no more, and one might say past objectives have been met, so that restrictions on the use of dialects can be relaxed with confidence.

Singapore has also changed a lot over the four decades since the launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The first thing is the change in population structure. In four decades, Singapore’s population has increased from 2.4 million in 1980, to 3 million in 1990, 4 million in 2000, 5 million in 2010, and nearly 6 million at the time of writing.

Most of the increase in population is due to new immigrants, most of whom in turn are first-generation immigrants from China. This significant new group has made positive contributions to safeguard and promote Mandarin as well as enrich Chinese cultural resources.

The changes in population are not just about increased numbers, but also about population diversity. The influx of new immigrants has made the Chinese community in Singapore more diverse. Most of them come from outside the Minyue (Fujian and Guangdong) regions in China; linguistically, this further dilutes the status and use of Singapore’s local dialects.

The past four decades have seen a significant improvement in Singapore’s education levels. With greater civic awareness, Singaporeans are actively participating in public affairs. Add to that the spread of social media, where one is lost in the multitude of voices or finds comfort in like-minded groups, and anyone can be an online celebrity.

In short, the world has changed over the last four decades, and Singapore is in a different era, with three changes of prime ministers. It is time to review various policies, including language policies. A relaxation of the ban on dialects can be considered, with the people taking charge and being responsible for the results.

Are community activities effective in promoting dialects? In the Chinese edition of My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore’s Bilingual Journey, Lee said: “We have changed Singapore’s language environment from speaking multiple dialects to Mandarin-speaking. There is no turning back from speaking Mandarin as it is impossible to reverse Singapore’s language environment. Please go ahead if anyone wishes to retain dialects. We will not go far with dialects alone because the whole community is already speaking Mandarin. Who else can you speak dialects with?”

So, whither Chinese dialects in Singapore? Can it go far, and will it lead anywhere? Let us give it a go. At the least, it will be where we choose to go.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “新加坡华族方言：路在何方？（上）” and “新加坡华族方言：路在何方？（下）”.

Related: [Big read] Singapore youths reconnect with Chinese dialects | Can the Chinese language survive in Singapore?