To safeguard bilingualism, do not bring back dialects
Mr Liew Kai Khiun argues that the “Govt policy against Chinese dialects may be ripe for review” (Aug 22). That is a slippery slope towards disaster.
Mr Lee Kuan Yew, when he was Prime Minister, paid a political price in sacrificing dialects and encouraging people to speak Mandarin. If we backtrack, we fail to safeguard his legacy: The benefits of bilingualism. This would affect our next generation.
Bringing back dialects may lead to the older generation speaking in dialect to their children and grandchildren. If dialects eventually replace the common use of Mandarin, that would contradict Singapore’s language policy.
Our Government used dialects in video clips in special circumstances: To help pioneers understand the Pioneer Generation Package and MediShield Life, which are important policies.
We cannot cite that as an example to advocate the revival of dialects or do that for every policy due to resource constraints.
If we bring back dialects, years of effort to promote bilingualism — allowing us to maintain the use of English as the working language, supplemented by Mandarin for conversation in the community — may go to waste.
While the desire for the young to learn dialects for heritage reasons is understandable, there is also a risk of de-emphasising bilingualism, and the Government must choose bilingualism over dialects.
One must remember the core objective of the Speak Mandarin Campaign: To enable everybody to understand a homogeneous spoken mother tongue instead of multiple dialects.
English as the common language enabled Singapore to progress, flourish and connect with the West, while Mandarin helped to unite the Chinese-Singaporean community, helped them to communicate easily with Chinese overseas as well as preserved our roots and culture.
We should maintain the status quo. Our Government did not put a complete stop to dialects. There are DVDs in dialects available in shops. There are dialect news reports on the radio and dialect classes run by clan associations.
We must acknowledge that it is impossible to revive dialects fully in Singapore, given the nature of our bilingual education, which has helped students to connect with others globally while staying anchored to their culture.
Nor it is our Government’s intention to make dialects extinct. When deemed necessary, the state would accord more space for dialects, such as in getai and opera shows, and its use in the media to promote important policies.
