政府嘗試鎮壓的語言 新加坡式英語

Singlish is seen as a national treasure or a detriment and danger – depending on whom you ask.

新加坡式英語被視作民族瑰寶抑還是視作危害和危險，這取決於你問誰。

Is that English or not? Most of Singapore's 6 million people speak it, but they don't agree either. What they do agree is that it's Singlish.

它到底是不是英文？新加坡六百萬人口中的大部分都在講，但是他們自己也不認同它。他們認爲那是新加坡式英語。

Singapore is a small island at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, and it was originally populated by Malays.

新加坡是馬來半島南部的一個小島，它起初居住着馬來人。

After a British trading post was established there in 1819, many of the traders who arrived were from different Chinese ethnicities: Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese.

自1819年英國在這裏建立貿易點後，很多來自中國各民族的商人匯聚這裏：福建人、廣東人、潮州人、客家人、海南人。

Some also came from India and Sri Lanka, especially Tamils.

還有一些來自印度和斯里蘭卡，尤其是泰米爾人。

By the early 20th Century, there was a pidgin used in trading, but it wasn't based on English or Chinese – it was called Bazaar Malay.

20世紀初，貿易往來有用皮欽語，但是這種語言不源於英文或者中文--它叫做市井馬來語。

Education was not universal; the better-off families paid to send their children to English-speaking schools to advance their career prospects, and it was in this context that the seeds of Singlish were sown.

當時教育並不是普遍現象。家境富裕的家庭花錢送他們的孩子到英文學校推進職業前景，在這種背景下，播下了新加坡式英語的種子。

Singlish didn't show up first as a pidgin, a lingua franca used in trade. It came about as an adapted version of English used by students in English-language schools who spoke other languages at home.

在皮欽語演化的初期，並沒有新加坡式英語，皮欽語是一種用於貿易的法國語言。當學生們在英文學校講話時候，出現了這種改編的英文版本，這些學生在是家中講其他語言。

Which means that from the beginning, it had the air of 'not-quite-right' English, a version that the students knew wasn't 'proper' – but was functional and had more cultural connection for them.

這就意味着從一開始，就有一種"並不是很正確的"英文，一種學生知道並不是"很準確"的英文版本--但是它的適用性很廣泛，也更具有文化關聯性。

After World War Two, universal free education was instituted in Singapore, and starting in the 1960s it was provided on an 'English plus mother tongue' basis: the students would take their classes in English, plus a class in one of the three mother tongues of Singapore – Malay, Tamil, and Chinese ('Chinese' in this case meaning not Hokkien or Cantonese but Mandarin: the most prestigious kind, and the most useful for business).

第二次世界大戰以後，新加坡創立了全民免費教育，20世紀70年代開始，開始英文加母語教育：學生使用英文上課，加上新加坡三門母語之一—馬來語，泰米爾語或者中文（這裏的"中文"不是福建話或者廣東話，而是普通話——最權威，商業使用最廣泛的中文語種）。

The schools were the soil in which Singlish sprouted, and it has now spread through all of everyday life.

學校是新加坡式英語萌芽的地方，如今，新加坡式英語覆蓋了每天的日常生活。

The population of Singapore today is more than 75% Chinese, about 15% Malay, about 8% 'Indian' (mainly Tamil), and roughly 2% other origins, but about half of the population now speak English (or Singlish) at home.

今天的新加坡人口75%都是中國人，約15%是馬來人，8%是印度人（主要是泰米爾人），大約2%源自其他民族，但是國內只有大約一半的人講英文（或者是新加坡式英語）。

And Singlish is the neutral language between members of different ethnic groups. It is undeniably a central expression of Singaporean culture, vibrant, loaded with references from the cultural backgrounds of Singaporeans.

新加坡式英語是不同種族間的中性語言，毋庸置疑是對新加坡文化的核心表達，這種語言具有生命力，富含新加坡人文化背景的註腳。

And it is still thought of by many Singaporeans as 'bad English' even as they use it themselves.

儘管有些新加坡人使用它，但是仍然覺得是"不好的英文"。

Must Singlish ultimately die for Singapore to thrive? Some have said so.

爲了新加坡的興旺，新加坡式英語最終必須消亡嗎？一些人說它應該消亡。

In 1999, Jaime Ee, in a column in The Straits Times, wrote that Singlish "became an identity thing for us, something that we created ourselves and gave us a sense of rootedness even if nobody else could understand it except us.

1999年，海峽時報專欄的Jaime Ee寫道，新加坡式英語已經成爲了我們的一種身份，一種我們自己創造的東西，儘管除了我們以外他人無法理解，但是卻給了我們一種有根的感覺。

Unfortunately, if we want to become a global economy, we have to give this up, and in a way, give up a bit of our identity."

不幸地是，如果我們想要成爲全球化的經濟體，我們必須放棄它，在某種程度上來說，就是放棄一點兒我們的身份。"