Singlish and accents.
As a singaporean, I have to say, not a lot of us are proud of our accents. Mainly, they are those who are aware of their accents. Therefore in the presence of a foreigner, be it american, british, filipino, japanese....blah blah, we fake it. Some ppl think tt singaporeans only speak with a different accent with american or british. No. It really goes across to all foreigners.
So..there are like various arguments in regards to this matter. I would like to bring up one point being mentioned. The argument is that you will be influenced by the different communities you are exposed to. So let's say you hang around british ppl alot, you start to sound like them.
In singapore, we are exposed to so much american TV, that we start to adopt some....innotaions...grammer. Like the word, "cool", "lame", "bucks", OH MY GOD", "WHat the hell", Are you serious?" And the raising of tone after we finish a sentence.
Example:
Used to be--> I dunno la...
Now--> I dunno?
I think it's only natural.
I mean I didn't speak in like hokkien terms until I started hanging out with ppl from TP. Because, my secondary school is such an English school.
So when I went to Temasek Poly, I was like. whoa...these ppl are speaking so differently. So gradually you learn to be a bit more like them.
When you spend time with people, as much as you can, I think most ppl try to close the gap of differences between each other. It's just very awkward to be different. When you speak in singlish and you hear american english back, it's just weird. So most of us just change so the difference is not so great.
You know I have a colleague from miami. He still has his American accent after being in singapore after 2 years. But sometimes in some words he use, I can hear the singaporean accent just like slowly seeping in.
So this proves it. language is versatile, it can be influenced and changed.
So..there are like various arguments in regards to this matter. I would like to bring up one point being mentioned. The argument is that you will be influenced by the different communities you are exposed to. So let's say you hang around british ppl alot, you start to sound like them.
In singapore, we are exposed to so much american TV, that we start to adopt some....innotaions...grammer. Like the word, "cool", "lame", "bucks", OH MY GOD", "WHat the hell", Are you serious?" And the raising of tone after we finish a sentence.
Example:
Used to be--> I dunno la...
Now--> I dunno?
I think it's only natural.
I mean I didn't speak in like hokkien terms until I started hanging out with ppl from TP. Because, my secondary school is such an English school.
So when I went to Temasek Poly, I was like. whoa...these ppl are speaking so differently. So gradually you learn to be a bit more like them.
When you spend time with people, as much as you can, I think most ppl try to close the gap of differences between each other. It's just very awkward to be different. When you speak in singlish and you hear american english back, it's just weird. So most of us just change so the difference is not so great.
You know I have a colleague from miami. He still has his American accent after being in singapore after 2 years. But sometimes in some words he use, I can hear the singaporean accent just like slowly seeping in.
So this proves it. language is versatile, it can be influenced and changed.