Use of dialects interfere with learning of Mandarin & English
Posted: 06 March 2009 2101 hrs

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SINGAPORE: Singapore's experience over 50 years of implementing the bilingual education policy has shown that most people find it extremely difficult to cope with two languages when they are as diverse as English and Mandarin, said Chee Hong Tat, principal private secretary to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

That is why the country has discouraged the use of Chinese dialects.

In a letter to the Straits Times' Forum page which was released to the media on Friday, Mr Chee said the use of dialects interfered with the learning of Mandarin and English.

He was responding to an article in Straits Times which quoted a local academic who said that Singaporeans were more multilingual 40 years ago.

Dr Ng Bee Chin – the acting head of the Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) – had noted at a Language and Diversity Symposium on Thursday that young children are not speaking dialects anymore.

In his letter, Mr Chee said Mandarin is the common language of China's 1.3 billion people and Singapore had emphasised the learning of the language to make it the mother tongue for all Chinese Singaporeans, regardless of their dialect groups.

He also highlighted that to engage China, overseas Chinese and foreigners are learning Mandarin and not the dialects of the different Chinese provinces.

Referring to Singapore's progress in bilingual education, Mr Chee said: "Many Singaporeans are now fluent in both English and Mandarin. It would be stupid for any Singapore agency or the NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin."

Besides stopping all dialect programmes on TV and radio after 1979, Mr Chee said Mr Lee, who was then prime minister, also stopped making speeches in Hokkien to avoid giving conflicting signals.


- CNA/so