With the lack of dialect-speaking youths, our once common dialects in Singapore will cease to exist, making us lose our culture and identity. Let us bring it back together and rediscover our roots.
Written & illustrated by Shermaine Wong
The use of dialects is dropping drastically. According to government surveys, the number of Singaporean households that use Chinese dialects most frequently shrunk from 14.3% in 2010 to 8.7% in 2020.
But how does that concern you?
Just like your nationality, your dialect group shapes your identity, embracing you in a community that shares your roots, culture, traditions and language. So as your dialect slowly becomes extinct, you are gradually erasing your heritage, your connections and your identity. This then begs the question: Are we losing our roots?
How It All Started
In 1979, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew rolled out the ‘Speak Mandarin Campaign’, which sought to unify and simplify the Chinese language, abolish dialects and the divisions it brought about.
However, the campaign caused long-term repercussions by stopping our pioneers from teaching and speaking dialects to their children. With education also becoming more prominent and accessible, many Chinese adults were becoming increasingly well-educated in their mother tongue — Mandarin.
This eventually spilled over to the current generation, where the speaking of dialects has evolved to be more of a rarity.
Despite the many current efforts to rekindle interest among the new generation, like having multi-dialect content aired on national television in 2016, these efforts are simply not enough.
The Problem
Many teenagers and millennials nowadays are uninterested in learning dialects, with reasons ranging from a pure lack of motivation, to the impracticality of using dialects in the new age.
With English being the “default” language Singaporean youths speak, Chinese has become a struggle to learn, let alone dialects.
Dialects, like any language, need to be learnt and spoken consistently. And since dialects have not been a constant in many households since young, youths face more difficulties in trying to learn them.
Furthermore, since most people in this generation have likely received education in English, there will be a decreasing need and demand for dialects, limiting it to mostly a small fraction of less educated elders in Singapore. With the ageing and passing of that generation, we will be left with one less reason to keep our dialects.
The Solution
Apart from the loss of communication, our cultures, traditions, history, and heritage will also vanish along with dialects as they embody the ways of generations before us. An example is how Teochews believe that during weddings, the bride must be brought to the groom’s household before dawn as it is considered unlucky for her to see sunlight before seeing the groom.
A more familiar example may be you hearing phrases like “teh o peng'' and “mee siam mai hum” being tossed around when you are at a coffee shop. These are little bits of our dialect culture that are still alive and spoken commonly as part of our daily lives.
While some may argue that cultural traditions like these are proof that our dialectal roots are not disappearing, we have to look back and remember what has been lost thus far. What was once our mother tongue, has now ceased to even be part of our vocabulary. The dilution of this part of our identity starts from the moment we choose not to learn our dialect, corroding our history, heritage, and roots.
So, why not explore this part of yourself? Pick up your dialect little by little, starting from just greeting your parents or grandparents in dialect. Start expanding your vocabulary to food, household items, and things that can be said day-to-day. Ask about traditions, customs, and everything about your dialect, because once it is gone, it will be almost impossible to revive.
We may have been losing our roots, but the beauty of roots is that if there are still some remaining, they can regrow. It is still not too late to start regrowing yours.