Issues with Ice Age linguistics

Last week I had a few friends ask me about a recently published study titled "Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia" by Mark Pagel, Quentin D. Atkinson, Andreea S. Calude and Andrew Meade. It's been making headlines all over the globe in articles with titles like "English May Have Retained Words From an Ice Age Language" (Wired.com), "Ice Age language may share words with modern tongues" (News.com.au and various sites) and "15000-year-old 'fossil' words reveal ancestral Ice Age language" (LA Times).

You can download their report here. Also, the data for the study comes from the Languages of the World Etymological Database, which can be accessed at this site.

As always, Language Log has a great post by Sally Thomason that highlights many of the issues about the study here, including issues with both the data and methodology. Similarly, another post at GeoCurrents by Asya Pereltsvaig rubbishes the study.

Now, before you go and cry 'Academics marking territory!', there are very good reasons to take the study by Pagel et al. with a sea-ful of salt. But let me start with a short personal anecdote and brief introduction into the world of historical linguistics. Also, if you're a believer in Nostratic, you should probably just ignore this post altogether.


Nagaland and the Yucatec Peninsula?

A few years ago, a friend of mine from Nagaland in North-East India saw Mel Gibson's Apocalypto and was astounded that her language and Mayan (technically, Yucatec Maya) shared a number of words in common. She thought the two languages might be related and asked me about it. I told her this was highly unlikely given (a) the geographic distance between the two and (b) the lack of any recent contact between the people of Nagaland and the Mayans. Of course, I could tell she was still sceptical of my response even some time after.

Now my dismissal of her theory wasn't just because I found the geographic distance and lack of recent contact problematic (or the fact that she was basing her observations on translations given in the subtitles). It was the fact that given the geographic distance and the lack of recent contact, the words she cited were just too similar in both pronunciation and meaning. Such similarity between cognates, that is, words in related languages that are descended from the same etymological source (and not through borrowing), is actually highly unlikely. Such words rarely keep both their original form and meaning as time goes by, and the languages they belong to drift apart. As an example, let's look at the Italian word for 'dog': cane (pronounced /ka.ne/, like 'car-nay' with a [k] sound at the start). The French equivalent is chien (pronounced /ʃjɛ̃/ with a sound usually written in English as sh). Despite both words deriving from Latin canis, the modern equivalents in Italian and French sound quite different.


Historical Linguistics 101

(Image by Koryakov Yuri, taken from Wikimedia Commons)

To address this problem of sound change, most historical linguists apply what is known as the Comparative Method. The idea is to look for sound correspondences across a number of words in two languages, and not just individual words in each language that sound identical and mean the same thing. Applying this method reveals that the /ʃ/ 'sh' sound in French (written as ch) regularly corresponds to a 'k' sound in Italian (written as c): compare French chanter with Italian cantare 'to sing', French bouche with Italian bocca 'mouth'. It is these regular sound correspondences that form the basis for genetic groupings of languages, not similarities in the actual forms of the words themselves. Historical linguists will then use these sound correspondences to attempt to reconstruct a 'proto-language' from the forms in the modern languages. Such proto-languages are always theoretical - even 'proto-Romance', a proto-language reconstructed based on modern Romance languages like Spanish, Sardinian and Romanian, is not identical to Vulgar Latin, which had many varieties spoken in across the Roman Empire.

However, even before historical linguists can begin to establish sound correspondences, they first need to identify cognates in various languages. This process of identification is complicated by the fact that words don't just change in pronunciation, they also change in meaning. For example, English dog and Swedish hund /hɵnd/ 'dog' sound nothing alike, even though they share the same meaning. On the other hand, English hound /haʊnd/ and Swedish hund share many similarities in pronunciation, with similar consonants both at the start and end of each word. However, Swedish hund refers to any kind of dog, while English hound refers to only a specific breed of dog. Which word in English would we say is cognate with Swedish hund then? Given the similarity in pronunciation and the somewhat related meaning, hound is the more likely answer.

Now this may not look like a huge semantic leap that could cause much confusion, but a combination of both sound drift and semantic drift can make it difficult to locate cognates. Take for instance, the Swedish word for 'animal', pronounced /jʉːr/, almost like English you're. Based on this spoken form, can you think of a word in English that might be cognate with this?

Unless you know something about proto-Germanic linguistics, I'm guessing that you probably weren't able to work out that the Swedish word for 'animal', written as djur, is actually cognate with English deer. (Yes, the spelling might have helped, but imagine you're working with languages that have no written records.) The word deer in English does not refer to animals in general, but to a specific kind of animal, somewhat analogous to English hound. Speakers of German may have seen the connection, since German Tier means 'animal (in general)' and still sounds similar to English deer. However, the point here is that as languages diverge more over time, the task of identifying cognates between them gets increasingly difficult.

Certain types of sound and semantic change are quite common, and follow well-established patterns. For example, in a number of languages, the word for 'five' is historically derived from the word for 'hand': compare Malay lima 'five' with Hawaiian lima 'hand' (see here for more words for 'hand' in Austronesian languages). However, the rules governing such changes are not necessarily predictive, and at best can only give a probability that a word developed from a particular source. This is when historical linguists can get rather creative in deciding whether two words are cognates or not - disagreements over what words should be used as cognates can lead to rather different reconstructions of what is supposed to be the same hypothetical proto-language.


Swooning over Swadesh lists

To help identify cognates, many linguists start by comparing items from Swadesh lists in various languages. The list was first developed by Morris Swadesh in the 1940s and 50s and contains words that are viewed as belonging to the 'core vocabulary' of all languages, as opposed to culturally-specific vocabulary. Depending on the version of the list, there may be 100 or sometimes up to more than 200 items on the list. The items include nouns referring to body parts like 'heart' and 'tooth', personal pronouns like 'I' and 'we', kinship terms like 'father' and 'mother', some verbs of motion, the numerals 1-5, etc. It was originally assumed that such 'core vocabulary' was more stable over time and underwent replacement by other words in the language at a slow but constant rate, analogous to the process of radioactive decay. Furthermore, there was the implicit belief that words for such 'basic' concepts were not likely to be borrowed from other languages.

Based on such assumptions, Swadesh applied a method called glottochronology to these word lists, which then allowed him to propose dates for when various languages / language families split from each other. Today, this method has been largely discredited, mainly for its flawed assumption that word replacement happens at a steady rate across languages and across all words in a language - although there do remain proponents of this type of research. Furthermore, 'core vocabulary' is not always resistant to replacement by borrowed words. One notable example of this is the adoption of the Chinese numeral system in the genetically unrelated Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese languages.

Despite all these limitations, many field linguists and historical linguists see the Swadesh list as a useful starting point, myself included. But any decent fieldworker or historical linguist would also know that you need to move beyond a Swadesh list consisting of some 200 items (at the maximum) if you want to get any real insight into a language and its past. One needs to go beyond studying the etymology of only 'core vocabulary' and look at other areas like morphology (e.g. prefixes and suffixes), syntax, as well as sociolinguistic variation. Some linguists would also argue for the need to look at vocabulary associated with agriculture and material culture, words that the Swadesh list deliberately omits. In a sense, Swadesh lists are the 'standardised testing' of historical linguistics, designed to make quick and 'consistent' comparisons by omitting large amounts of information and disregarding any subtle nuances in the data. A study that uses data drawn solely from Swadesh lists is inevitably going to be woefully inadequate, just like education policies based entirely on the results of standardised testing.


Words frozen in time?

Coming back to Pagel et al's work, which I now have the overwhelming desire to call the 'Ice Age language study', I hope you can start to see some of the problems with their methodology. Now I'm certainly not saying that their methodology is as basic as my friend's casual linguistic comparison of what are essentially false cognates (pairs of words with similar pronunciation and meaning but very different sources) in her language and Yucatec Maya.

Nevertheless there are issues with their study, as listed here:

(1) They only use Swadesh list data.
(2) There are a number of inaccuracies in the data used to reconstruct certain proto-words, as noted by Thomason.
(3) They apply the Comparative Method to reconstructed proto-words, which are themselves hypothetical and disputable, to reconstruct even older proto-words. (Note: this is acceptable, but only if your first reconstructions are solid.)
(4) There are some questionable judgements about which words to treat as cognates, although this is always going to be a subject of debate in any historical linguistic research. Some linguists simply err on the side of caution, while others are more liberal in their judgements.

It should be obvious by now that this is not an exact science - you can apply all the statistics you want, but if the initial data is based on somewhat subjective judgements, the results of the statistical analysis are not going to be very convincing. To their credit though, they try to show that the rate of word replacement can be correlated with frequency of use, and provide a more empirically-based study than what Swadesh did, even if this study is based on just 200 items on the Swadesh list.

Personally, I find questions about the origins of language families fascinating because they are intimately linked to human migration in prehistoric times, and going back deep enough, to our origins as a species. Judging by the amount of media coverage, this also seems to be an issue that media outlets believe people are interested in reading about. All that I've said doesn't mean that I don't believe that a super 'Eurasiatic' / 'Ice Age' language could have ever existed - I'm certainly in no position to say if one did or did not. I just don't think the evidence provided is compelling enough to suggest that one did. And given the time depth we are talking about, it's doubtful that we'll be able to recognise true cognates using the Comparative Method.

I don't think linguistics by itself will be able to give any satisfying conclusions about our origins, or about prehistoric human migration. But this doesn't mean that we should abandon the collection of linguistic data altogether. Comparative work like this calls for a lot more subtle attention to detail than lists of 200 words. Linguists, such as Roger Blench and George van Driem have also increasingly started to collaborate with anthropologists, archaeologists and geneticists to try and corroborate findings for each field in order to provide a better picture of our prehistoric movements.  More sophisticated statistical, genetic and geography-based computer modelling are also being developed and some are being applied to linguistic data. With any luck, some of these will bring promising results in the future.

What a 'hotel' can mean in India

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the English word hotel was first recorded in the 1640s and denoted a 'public official residence'. The modern sense of the word as 'an inn of the better sort' (i.e. 'a place offering lodging, food and other services to travellers') was first recorded in 1765. The word comes from the French hôtel, which itself is derived from the Medieval Latin hospitale via Old French hostel.

In French, hôtel was used to refer mainly to public official buildings that frequently received visitors, but this has been largely replaced by the meaning of 'place offering lodging and food to travellers', as used in contemporary English. However, you can still see traces of this old usage in words like hôtel de ville 'town hall' and hôtel des impôts 'tax office' and hôtel de police 'police headquarters'.

In India, the term hotel has taken on a slightly different meaning (and pronunciation, with stress on the first syllable, not the second.) Visitors to India are likely to find that big modern buildings offering lodging are called 'hotels', but they might be slightly shocked to see signs for hotels that do not provide lodging at all.

Take for instance this hotel located right next to the Dimapur Railway Station. As you can see, the hotel only offers 'fooding', a very common term in Indian English meaning 'the provision of food' - this can include the catering at an event or simply selling food at a restaurant.

I'm not entirely certain how the term 'hotel' has come to be used to refer to (what I would call) a 'restaurant', where only food and no lodging is provided. I doubt that this use derives from the original French meaning of a public building that frequently receives visitors. Incidentally, there are also hotels in India that advertise 'only lodging' with no 'fooding'.

My guess is that the term did originally designate a place frequented by travellers and provided both food and lodging - I imagine that travellers were the most likely people to frequent places offering food since most people would have taken their meals at home or packed their own food. Over time, some establishments may have stopped providing one service or the other for whatever reason (e.g. greater profits from selling food), but the label 'hotel' remained. Consequently, the term 'hotel' no longer denoted a place of lodging, but simply a place frequented by travellers. Someone else starting a restaurant near a train station or along a highway may then choose to call their business a 'hotel', even though they have no intention of providing lodging, as long as their expected clientele are likely to be travellers stopping in for a meal.

Whatever the history of the word may be, don't be shocked if you rock up to a hotel in India and can't get a room - some of them simply don't have any for guests!

Taiwan indigenous languages on television

One of the things I was impressed with during my short stay in Taiwan was the Taiwan Indigenous Television (TITV) channel, which features programming for and by indigenous peoples of Taiwan, including news programmes, educational shows and variety shows.

Here's a screenshot of a programme that is in (what I assume to be) the Seediq language (sometimes still classified with Atayal).

And here's a screenshot of a news programme in what I assumed was the Amis language ('Pangcah' is the endonym for the group). Although I couldn't understand what they were saying, I did see that the story they were running was about Julia Gillard's March 21 apology to victims of forced adoptions in Australia. Her apology echoed Kevin Rudd's 2008 apology to victims of the Stolen Generation, a policy which I believe has some resonance among the indigenous people of Taiwan, given their own experience of institutionalised racism.

Speaking of the Amis language, most people around the world would have actually heard bits of an Amis song without even realising it. Remember Enigma's 'Return to Innocence', which was used in ads promoting the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta?

The 'chant' you hear right at the start, then throughout the song was actually sampled from a recording of a tradition Amis song titled 'Elders' Drinking Song' (or 'Jubilant Drinking Song' or 'Weeding and Paddyfield Song No. 1'), as performed by Difang Duana and Igay Duana (also known as Kuo Ying-nan and Kuo Hsiu-chu) while they were in Paris on a cultural tour in 1988.

The Maison des Cultures du Monde in France recorded the husband and wife duo, along with 30 other visiting artistes, and created a compilation titled 'Polyphonies vocales des aborigènes de Taïwan'. However, they failed to properly credit the Duanas and their compatriots. Michael Cretu, the producer of Enigma, was later sued for not giving proper credit to the original singers, stating that he had assumed the recordings belonged to the public domain and thus were not subject to intellectual property rights. The case was eventually settled out of court. [Click here for more details.]

Sadly, Difang and Igay Duana both passed away in 2002, but I found a video of them on Youtube taken in 2001 singing a bit of the song in their garage. You can still purchase their 1998 album Circle of Life on iTunes which features the famous song and was produced by Rock Records.


This issue of 'indigenous intellectual property rights' is a very tricky but important one for people involved in the documentation of language, indigenous art forms and scientific knowledge. For one thing, the 'owner' of such intellectual property is rarely a single individual or two but rather an entire 'community' - itself a problematic notion that does not always correspond to a stable cohesive unity. [Click here for Gawne and Kelly's presentation at this year's International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation.] At the same time however, there is seen to be a need to safeguard such intellectual property (be they songs or botanical knowledge) from what could be called 'exploitation' by outsiders who offer no compensation to any members of that community (even if it is difficult to determine what one considers exactly to be 'exploitation').

Perhaps having a television channel that advocates for indigenous rights and which produces and airs programmes related to traditional culture is one way of documenting and showcasing traditional art forms to a wide audience without the threat of 'exploitation' - in fact, many of the educational programmes on TITV are aimed specifically at imparting traditional knowledge to children belonging to the relevant indigenous community.

Of course this is not a solution for all indigenous peoples, even within Taiwan, especially for smaller groups with insufficient resources and viewers. Furthermore, as we see people move away from more 'traditional' forms of media like radio and television to online media, the nature of the debate surrounding indigenous intellectual property rights will undoubtedly continue to change.

Sun Moon Lake and Assam Tea

Last month, I was in Taiwan for about a week with Mum. We spent a few days at Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), which we used as a base to visit our places, including Alishan (阿里山). The mornings and evenings were blissfully quiet without the hordes of tourists arriving by mid-morning.

One thing I did not expect to see were signs for 'Assamese Black Tea' products, including this one for 'Assamese Black Tea' egg rolls.

This signboard near the Shuishe visitor centre also mentioned 'Assam Black Tea Cuisine'.

What I didn't realise was that in 1925 (or 1926), black tea from Assam was brought by the Japanese to the Sun Moon Lake area for cultivation. Apparently, the climate and soil conditions of the area are similar to those of Assam and so the tea thrived here. I have to admit, the area did remind me a little of North-east India, but mainly because of the extensive betel nut (areca nut) plantations filling the valleys! Today, black tea production still continues, albeit on a smaller scale. There's a Sun Moon Lake Antique Assam Tea Farm in nearby Yuchi (鱼池) if you're interested in learning more about tea cultivation in the area.

 

I should also mention that the area around Sun Moon Lake was previously inhabited mainly by the Thao (pronounced [θau]), many of whom continue to live close to the lake. They are the smallest group out of the 14 officially recognised aboriginal tribes of Taiwan. The Thao language, an Austronesian language, is critically endangered - Robert Blust estimated that there were only about 15 remaining fluent speakers living in the village of Barawbaw (now commonly known as Ita Thao (伊達邵), seen in the photos above from across the lake) when he published his dictionary of the Thao language back in 2003. Despite Blust's amazing efforts in making what is perhaps the most comprehensive dictionary of a Formosan language, the language unfortunately looks to be moribund, if not already extinct. Blust also was thankful that the community emerged mostly unscathed from the deadly 1999 earthquake which caused massive damage around the country.

On a final note, the day Mum and I left Sun Moon Lake, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck the region. We had just left the lake by bus and had arrived at the Taichung High Speed Railway station. The quake struck while we were waiting for our train to take us back to Taoyuan to catch our flight back to Singapore. The section of the high speed railway we were supposed to travel on was shut down for several hours while inspections took place. However, thanks to some very helpful locals, and Taiwan's amazing intercity transport network, we managed to catch a bus straight from Taichung to the Taoyuan International Airport to catch our flight home.

Phou-oibi, the Rice Goddess - a Manipuri ballad opera

I just got to see Phou-oibi, the Rice Goddess, as part of the Tapestry of Sacred Music 2013 programme here at the Esplanade in Singapore.  It is described as a Manipuri ballad opera, performed by the Laihui Ensemble from Manipur in North-East India.

It tells the story of a number of goddesses, including the Goddess of Fish, the Goddess of Water, the Goddess of Land, the Goddess of Metal, the Goddess of Wealth and the eponymous Goddess of Rice, Phou-oibi, who are sent by the Supreme God to the realm of humans, Lamlen Madam Madaima, to help them prosper. However, when they try to leave, they are stopped by the four protectors of the realm, under the orders of the Supreme God who believes that humanity will suffer once they leave. Phou-oibi, the Goddess of Rice, is the only one unable to escape - the stream she tries to cross turns into a huge river. Unable to cross the river, she meets a man, Akongjamba, who is out hunting. They meet and recognise instantly a connection they had in a past life. Akongjamba eventually proposes to Phou-oibi, who makes him wait till the full moon of the month of Sajibu to give her response. [Incidentally, we are currently in the month of Sajibu, which started last week with Sajibu Cheiraoba, the Meitei New Year.] However, at the appointed time, Akongjamba fails to show up. Enraged, Phou-oibi throws paddy down on the land.

According to the creative director, in other versions of the tale, the two end up together. In one version I just found in the book The Lois of Manipur: Andro, Khurkulm, Phayeng and Sekmai, Phou-oibi only spends a day in Akongjamba's house before she is forced to leave by his mother.

You can see short excerpts from the show here:



There are also videos of the performance on Youtube, though I'm not sure whether the uploader has the copyright.



I thought it was a wonderful production, from the performance to the lighting. The women, and especially the lead female, showed such control over their bodies and voices. I particularly enjoyed the flowing hand movements. I was also impressive by the physicality of a somersault that the women performed, given the limited movement afforded by their clothes and accessories (the wrapper around their waist, is what I think is called a phanek).

The post-performance talk / Q&A left a sour note in my mouth though. The very first question was, "Where are you from?", which I found to be incredibly offensive and disrespectful to the performers, given that the information was provided in the programme! As a follow-on question, I heard the same audience member make a comment that they didn't 'look Indian'. Surely, there are more culturally appropriate ways to ask someone about their place of origin. For instance, "I'm not familiar at all with Manipur, could you please tell me more it?" In contrast, asking "Where are you from?" basically implies, "The programme says you're from India, but where are you really from?" And of course, I get upset about these things because I have many friends from NE India who have to continually assert their membership as 'Indian citizens', both outside India and even when they live in other parts of India - though I do think / hope this is changing, with greater visibility by people like Mary Kom, a boxer from Manipur who won Bronze at last year's Summer Olympics.

But that aside, going back to what I loved about the show - what I loved most was, as stated in the programme, that the production was a collaboration between the various performers, musicians and artists and more importantly, that:

"Laihui Ensemble's The Rice Goddess gives free rein to its artists to improvise, and in doing so, allows them to reconstruct a traditional art form into a contemporary setting."

Culture and cultural performances are not static (unless we want them to be), and I think there's a lot to be said for finding the right balance between respecting tradition and producing work that a contemporary audience can still appreciate, even if it is a niche audience looking for something 'exotic'.

Happy New Year(s) on the Indian subcontinent

India and its immediate neighbours celebrate not one, not two but... a bewildering number of New Year's Days (not even counting the one in the Gregorian calendar, the Islamic New Year and Tibetan New Year). In fact, this week alone will see the start of a new year for a number of different communities across South Asia - and they don't all fall on the same day or signal the start of the same year!

If you are Kannadiga or Telugu living in Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh, you would have celebrated Udagi on 11 April, and the start of the year 1935, according to the Saka Calendar. But in Nepal, 14 April 2013 will mark the start of the year 2070, following the Bikram Sambat calendar (which is not to be confused with the Nepal Sambat calendar where the current year, 1133, started last November). If you are Meitei / Manipuri you would have just celebrated Sajibu Cheiraoba on the same day as Udagi, but I have no idea what year you are in.

Also, if you are Tamil, Puthandu falls on 14 April this year, marking the start of the year 2013. If you're Bengali, that's also the date for Pôhela Boishakh, but you will now find yourself in the year 1420. In Assam, Rongali Bihu (or Bohag Bihu) also starts on 14 April. However, the festival starts on the last day of the previous year, a day known as Goru Bihu 'cow bihu', while it is the second day of the festival that marks the first day of the new year, a day known as Manuh Bihu 'human bihu'.

Finally, just to add to the confusion, don't forget that these Indic calendars also left their mark in South-east Asia: New Year celebrations are also taking place this week in Burma (Thingyan), Laos (Pbeemai / Songkan) and Thailand (Songkran) starting today (13 April).

So whoever and wherever you are, Happy New Year!

The persistence of Singapore English and Mandarin

In my previous post, I looked at what the government had hoped to accomplish through its language policies, as summarised here in this quote from Lee Kuan Yew:

"Our ideal was that the Chinese would be able to speak English and Mandarin, Malays would be able to speak Malay and English, and Indians would be able to speak Tamil and English. Alas, the situation did not develop as we had hoped."

In this post, I consider the seeming perpetual need for English and Mandarin campaigns in Singapore. After all, English was meant to be the language of wider communication, and the 'mother tongues' were to be the language of each respective race. But even after decades of policy that has institutionalised and privileged languages like English and Mandarin (and involved the vilification of Chinese dialects), why do we still need the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) and the Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC)?

[Note that despite falling use across all three 'mother tongues' in households, the decline of Malay and Tamil has never warranted similar campaigns for these languages.]

Singlish and Singdarin

The villains in this story are typically Singlish and Singdarin (sadly not an Elvish language). The local variety of English Singlish (colloquial Singaporean English) is often viewed as 'broken English', as opposed to correct 'Standard English' and has been described by the government as a 'handicap' which prevents one from accessing better job and educational opportunities (Wee 2010). Similarly, a local variety of Singapore Mandarin also called Singdarin, viewed as 'broken Chinese' has also emerged. This has become another cause of concern, especially if 'Mandarin' speakers from Singapore find it difficult to understand and to make themselves understood by Mandarin speakers in China and Taiwan.

The continuing existence of these varieties seems to be why we perpetually need to have such language campaigns. But why do these 'substandard' varieties still persist? After all, they're not exactly prestige forms and even speakers of Singlish sometimes describe it as sounding 'uneducated' and 'immature'. Some speakers, who are able to codeswitch between the colloquial variety and the variety closer to what is understood as 'standard English', cringe at the use of Singlish by other Singaporeans, especially in the presence of non-Singaporeans.

One common answer I get to this question is that in most schools, English teachers and Chinese (Mandarin) teachers themselves cannot speak 'good English' and 'good Mandarin'. Therefore, the students learn 'bad English' or 'bad Mandarin' and continue the cycle when they leave school. The media has also been blamed in the past - hence the banning of Singlish on TV shows like Phua Chu Kang back in 1999.

This is still a rather simplistic answer to the question. Language is used in numerous domains outside the classroom and the media. The use of Singlish and Singdarin in schools (and previously in the media) is not enough reason to explain their persistance. The prescribed solution is equally simplistic. Modelling 'proper English' and 'proper Mandarin' for speakers to follow in schools and in the media, does not immediately, or eventually, result in the faithful reproduction of these models of 'good English' and 'good Mandarin'.

Instead, we need to re-examine the associations made between language and identity, and move beyond the official racial categories and the 'mother tongues' that have been assigned to them. We need to start considering what goes on in day-to-day interactions among speakers of Singlish and Singdarin.

Language in the moment

When talking about language and identity, much attention is paid to the correlation between what language you speak and your identity (defined in racial terms here). In contrast, little attention is paid to how speakers actually use the languages they know, and in what context they use these languages.

I am reminded of John Gumperz, a famous sociolinguist who passed away week ago, and his work on conversation analysis and interactional sociolinguistics. [You can read the story of how he helped identify a source of intercultural miscommunication at Heathrow Airport in the 1970s in the article.] He was interested, amongst other things, in how people make conversation. This sounds simple enough, but to maintain a conversation, speakers have to process a huge amount of verbal information (e.g. choice of words and topics) and non-verbal information (e.g. intonation, gesture, clothing & appearance) within a particular context (e.g. at the workplace between an employer and an employee). The actual processing is mostly unconsciously done, but being able to read these cues has consequences for how we speak, what we can talk about, and what attitudes we think we can share regarding these topics.

Most people are aware that the way we speak to our boss is usually different from the way we speak to our friends (and even if our boss was our friend, there may be differences when we are speaking in the workplace and when we are outside). However, what they may not realise is that they are always doing this, even when speaking with friends, or when buying food at a hawker centre.

Taking a simplified example, I've noticed that my Singapore English-speaking friends and I will avoid using sentence-final particles like lah when speaking with non-Singaporean English speakers. However, these particles may appear again when speaking in the presence of Singaporean English speakers. On one level you might say, "It's because others don't understand 'lah'." But it's more than just that. In a sense, what we're doing is monitoring our own speech to ensure that we are recognised as competent English speakers in the first situation, since lah is associated with 'broken English'. In the latter, we're subtly asserting our identity as a Singaporean and that we share some cultural knowledge that others may not be aware of.


Why u so liddat ah?

Some people might ask: But why do we do this? Shouldn't we be free to say whatever we want and however we want to, especially when we are in less formal situations?

A few days ago, I went to Toast Box in Clementi for lunch. I ordered nasi lemak. The person at the counter told me that they'd run out of ikan bilis. I took an extra second to look at the menu to see if there was anything else that could satisfy me more than an ikan bilis-less nasi lemak. In those few seconds (milliseconds even), the person at the counter interpreted my hesitation as confusion, and proceeded to explain to me what ikan bilis was: "the small fish".

For me, something had gone wrong in this communicative exchange, minor as it was. Having grown up in Singapore, of course I knew that ikan bilis refers to the crispy anchovies (which really should accompany any decent nasi lemak)! However, some element of the interaction, whether it was my appearance or my accent or my choice of language (although, all I said was, 'One nasi lemak'), signalled to her that I may not have been Singaporean. Consequently, rather than interpreting my hesitation as 'considering my choices', she thought it was because I didn't understand what 'ikan bilis' meant. From her perspective, she was just trying to be helpful, but from my perspective, it was actually a little annoying that she didn't recognise that I was Singaporean, and that she had to explain to me something that I understood as basic local knowledge.

This is one reason why we might modify our language behaviour and more generally, present ourselves in a certain way (which I clearly failed to do in the above situation) - we are trying to make it known to the people we are talking to that we have shared knowledge and experience. At the same time, we are also using cues from other people in the conversation to work out if we do share any of this cultural knowledge and experience. Ultimately, this has consequences for what we talk about and how we talk about these topics (e.g. what attitudes we can share) within that particular conversation.


Damn atas, he

As much as language is used to mark membership of a group, it can also be used as a basis for exclusion. Taken to its extreme, people can use language to isolate and ostracise others who do not belong to the community - at the national level, we have the infamous diction test from the White Australia policy era, but all societies have had their own shibboleths to mark who belongs in a group, and who doesn't. It does seem that at least a small degree of exclusion is necessary to maintain an individual and a group's sense of identity (through a process of 'Othering' others.)

It is not just a case of people with higher status excluding people who are perceived to be of lower status. The opposite can happen too. For example, if an Australian went to the UK and came back speaking with any sort of British accent, they would probably be ostracised and called a 'twat'. Similarly, if a Singaporean started speaking with a foreign accent in most informal situations here, people would say they 'talk like ang moh'. There are a myriad of reasons for the adoption of the other accent, especially if the person grew up in that country. When the other language variety carries more status or power, people back in the home country may read the linguistic cues as a projection of dominance by the returning person - 'They think they're better than us!' In some cases, they would be right, but even in others, social exclusion is still inflicted on the 'offending' person where no offence was intended.

I've also encountered this myself - once I was criticised by a friend and a waiter for sounding atas, a term used to describe something or someone as being 'high class' (from Malay, meaning 'above'), but with a slightly pejorative sense. All I was doing was speaking what I considered to be 'standard' Singapore English, as opposed to the more colloquial form of Singlish. In a sense, I was being 'punished' for not conforming to the expected social norms of that situation.

But as frustrating and painful as it is for individuals to be marginalised like this, we also need to remember that the very groups responsibility for this marginalisation -usually speakers of the basilectal / most colloquial varieties of Singlish and Singdarin who are generally unable to codeswitch to more standard varieties- are also among the most marginalised within Singapore society (typically an English-speaking elite and middle class). It is easy for a speaker of a dominant language variety to ignore the sociolinguistic realities of other people in society and think, "I speak [language / language variety], why can't they too?" or to assume that people of lower status will always want to emulate the speech of people with higher status. That speakers of non-standard varieties of English and Mandarin continue to use and enforce the use of these varieties, can be seen as the result of their own social exclusion from the rest of society. The solution therefore cannot be for the government to simply tell people to accept the standard form and to stop speaking the way they currently do.

Furthermore, I suggest that Singdarin actually serves an important function of helping to distinguish Chinese Singaporeans from more recent migrants from the Peoples' Republic of China, given the very different histories of the two countries. For instance, Mao and the PLA mean very little to people here, and there's still a great deal more trust among people here since we never went through the Cultural Revolution. The current Speak Mandarin Campaign slogan "Mandarin - It Gets Better With Use" seems almost absurd when we consider the contexts where Singdarin is currently used and why it is used. However, I acknowledge that more research is needed in this area before any conclusive arguments can be made.


Switching back and forth

If we recall, use of these varieties form the basis for social identification through their use in everyday interaction, which would be lost if people were made to speak like people from China, or to emulate 'proper' English speaking habits derived from British English. (In fact the problematic nature of what is 'standard Singapore English' and 'Standard Mandarin' will have to be discussed in another post.) The effect of forcing most Singaporeans to use standard Singapore English or standard Mandarin, which are associated with more formal situations, in all day-to-day interactions would be akin to making the participants at a birthday party sound like they were at a business meeting full of strangers. What would work better is if speakers were able to switch between the colloquial and the standard.

I should state that I'm not actively advocating the use or development of Singlish or Singdarin. What I am advocating is that we acknowledge their existence and the important role they play in personal and social identification in this country, which will explain their continued existence despite the government's efforts. At the moment, there is little motivation for Singdarin speakers who only live in Singapore to give up Singdarin and only speak 'standard' Mandarin, especially if it means that they will end up being identified as Mainlanders themselves. There is also little motivation for individual Singlish speakers to completely abandon Singlish in favour of standard Singapore English in their day-to-day interactions with other Singlish speakers, since they would risk being labelled atas or worse, like they talk like ang moh.

Ideally, these speakers would be able to codeswitch between Singlish and standard English, or Singdarin and standard Mandarin, depending on the situation. The problem here is that many speakers can't switch between the two varieties (not that they need to in many day-to-day situations) and it is unrealistic to eliminate the colloquial varieties, since others will pop up to fulfill the sociolinguistic functions mentioned above. Consequently, we will end up in an never-ending cycle of campaigns encouraging 'better' language use.

The current language policy favours a one-variety-or-nothing rule (for both English and Mandarin) and ignores any of the sociolinguistic functions of these language varieties. My own feeling is that rising xenophobia in this country can be partly attributed to the fact that a good portion of the population is constantly told both by the government (and by new arrivals) that they are not good enough, that their language skills are not good enough, and that they should learn to be and speak more like foreigners - and to essentially, give up their old identities. And yes, at the moment, many people have language skills that are not good enough if they want to work in areas like the banking sector, but how do we get to a point where most speakers of these varieties and their children are able to effectively switch between varieties for use in different situations?

I hope that from what I've discussed, it has become to some readers that a good first step is to acknowledge the need and the value of these local varieties in providing social cohesion, instead of trying to eliminate them completely. They do not need to become enshrined as official languages, but the people behind language policy and language teachers need to know they have more value than people realise. For instance, at the classroom level, teachers could be trained to help students codeswitch between the two varieties. In this way, students can maintain a sense of identity (and self esteem), while picking up the language skills that the government so desperately wants its citizens to have to participate in its workforce.

Finally, although I've been speaking about Singlish and Singdarin as being distinct varieties from their respective standards, it might actually be more useful to think of them as being on a continuum. Even speakers of the 'standard' varieties will find themselves on different parts of the continuum in their interactions with other Singaporeans. I would argue that for many of these speakers, it is their ability to place themselves on this continuum depending on the situation that actually forms the basis of identity for them, much more so than any official 'mother tongue' they are supposed to speak.

Of course, if the government and the educated public still find these language varieties so vile and broken, maybe we should try and bring back Chinese dialects and encourage speakers to codeswitch between them and standard Mandarin.