[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/what-do-we-lose-when-we-stop-speaking-a-language\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/what-do-we-lose-when-we-stop-speaking-a-language\/","headline":"What Do We Lose When We Stop Speaking a Language?","name":"What Do We Lose When We Stop Speaking a Language?","description":"Hi, I\u2019m Ming En. I\u2019m Singaporean Chinese. Hakka, to be exact. But we don\u2019t introduce ourselves that way anymore. We\u2019re just Chinese, all of us.\u00a0 My ethnic subgroup doesn\u2019t matter, for I don\u2019t know my language, I don\u2019t know my history, and I don\u2019t know my heritage.\u00a0 I wrote a poem once, about being a […]","datePublished":"2021-02-18","dateModified":"2022-04-16","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/Ming%20En%20Liew\/#Person","name":"Ming En Liew","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/Ming%20En%20Liew\/","identifier":132,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8fe7a89455a989038349633329a6e4ad6299388f5e1e3ea83c28126090b2314f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8fe7a89455a989038349633329a6e4ad6299388f5e1e3ea83c28126090b2314f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1613621805676_1280X626_281029.png","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1613621805676_1280X626_281029.png","height":626,"width":1280},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/what-do-we-lose-when-we-stop-speaking-a-language\/","about":["Community","Local","Race","Singapore"],"wordCount":1989,"articleBody":"Hi, I\u2019m Ming En. I\u2019m Singaporean Chinese. Hakka, to be exact. But we don\u2019t introduce ourselves that way anymore. We\u2019re just Chinese, all of us.\u00a0 My ethnic subgroup doesn\u2019t matter, for I don\u2019t know my language, I don\u2019t know my history, and I don\u2019t know my heritage.\u00a0I wrote a poem once, about being a Hakka in Singapore.\u00a0 I\/WeI am a proud Hakka.We make up 8% of the Chinese population —something I only found out today,writing this poem.We are the fourth largest Chinese dialect group,but our numbers are still small.We are a minority \u2013 special, unique.—\u201cWhat dialect group are you?\u201d\u201cPure Hakka!my mother, father, grandparents \u2013all Hakka!\u201d\u201cCan you speak the language?\u201d...\u201cI can count!\u201dand count I do, rattling off numbersI have long since memorized.I count to 10in tones I grew up within a languageI cannot actually speakits heritageI do not know.—I am a proud Hakkawith shame in my heart.We are a minoritygrowing smallerstill. It was a lament of my inability to speak a language that I should have grown up with, and a bemoaning of the dearth of knowledge I have regarding my own heritage.\u00a0Growing up, my parents and grandparents never spoke to me in Hakka. They never saw a need, for schools only call for me to learn English and Mandarin, and the language landscape of Singapore was almost exclusively English and the mother tongue languages by the time I was born.\u00a0It\u2019s only when I grew older that I realised how much I was losing out on not knowing how to speak my grandmother tongue, particularly since all conversations within my parents\u2019 and grandparents\u2019 generations were primarily in Hakka.\u00a0I found myself unable to participate in conversations, missing out on stories of a time before I was born, and\u00a0 missing out on inside jokes that simply didn\u2019t carry the same meaning when translated into Mandarin.My story isn\u2019t unique.Based on Singapore\u2019s census data, the percentage of speakers who mostly spoke Chinese Vernaculars (languages such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese, Teochew and so on) at home have decreased from 74.4 per cent in the 1950s, to a mere 14.3 per cent by 2010.\u00a0While the communication barrier and loss of bonding opportunities with the older generation are easily observable consequences of an inability to speak these languages, is that all? What more do we lose when we stop speaking a language?What languages are we losing, or have already lost?Contrary to today\u2019s linguistic landscape, Singapore pre-independence and pre-colonisation was a diverse one, with immigrants from numerous countries bringing with them their own languages. The table below, adapted from Cavallaro and Serwe (2010), and published by Cavallaro and Ng (2014), aptly summarises the most widely spoken languages in Singapore during those times.\u00a0Most widely-spoken languages in Singapore. Cavallaro & Bee (2014)Yet, in the past 50 years or so since independence, Singapore\u2019s linguistic landscape has changed from one that is largely heterogeneous, into one where English is used as the lingua franca (a language used for communication between people who do not share a native language).This language shift towards English and away from other languages can generally be attributed to government policies and people\u2019s desire for upward social mobility (Li, Saravanan, & Ng, 2010).\u00a0The bilingualism policy saw Singapore adopting English as Singapore\u2019s working language, and the three mother tongues (Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil) as the mother tongue languages of the Chinese, Malay and Indian communities respectively.\u00a0With these policies in place, opportunities to use other languages once prevalent in Singapore steeply declined. Usage of Chinese vernaculars and other languages not included in the mandate fell.\u00a0Why does this matter?According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (also known as the theory of linguistic relativity), language influences our thoughts, actions, and worldviews. Many linguists have found support for this theory, finding differences in the way individuals perceive colours, directions, and more.\u00a0Under this hypothesis, language isn\u2019t just a mode of communication or transmission of culture, it directly shapes our culture and ways of thinking. For instance, words found in some cultures can convey certain nuances that other languages do not. An oft-cited example of this would be that of the Eskimo languages, where they have a copious amount of words used to describe what we would sum up in one word in English: snow.\u00a0In the Eskimo languages, a multitude of words are used to describe different types of snow such as aput for \u2018SNOW ON THE GROUND\u2019, qana for \u2018FALLING SNOW\u2019, or piqsirpoq for \u2018DRIFTING SNOW\u2019 (Martin, 1986).\u00a0The environment that Eskimos live in, where snow is a staple and expected part of their lives, necessitates this distinction in their language. And this, in turn, shapes how they communicate and view the phenomenon of \u2018snow\u2019 in their culture.\u00a0Clearly, language can have a sway on the way we perceive the world. But how important is it to our culture? What happens when a language is no longer spoken? Well, the best way to understand that is to examine a language that is endangered at this very moment.\u00a0Case Study: KristangKodrah Kristang\/FacebookTo understand the true depth of what we lose when we stop speaking a language, let\u2019s take a look at a community vastly underrepresented in Singapore \u2013 the Eurasians. More specifically, the Kristang people, who spoke a language that is their namesake.\u00a0The Kristang people are Portuguese-Eurasians, often with a strong Dutch heritage. Their language, also named Kristang, is a creole language developed in Malacca during the Portguese (1511-1641) and Dutch (1641-1774) rule.\u00a0Today, Kristang is classified as a \u201cseverely endangered\u201d language by UNESCO, with slightly more than 2,000 speakers in Malacca (where the language originated). In Singapore, the situation is even more dire, with fewer than 100 individuals speaking the language. According to Kodrah Kristang (translating to: Awaken, Kristang), a platform hoping to revitalise the language here in Singapore, no children are known to be learning the language. In fact, most Singaporeans are scarcely aware of the language\u2019s existence.\u00a0So how exactly did this language end up in such disuse? And what are the implications it has on the Kristang community, and on society as a whole?\u00a0We spoke with Frances Loke, one of the teachers at Kodrah Kristang, to find out.\u00a0While Frances herself isn\u2019t of the Kristang ethnicity, she has worked with many people who are over her years at Kodrah Kristang. Her own experiences of learning Kristang and her encounters with the language has also exposed her to the intricacies of their culture and heritage.Frances explained that the chain of transmission for Kristang mostly ended with the grandparents’ or parents’ generation, as many from the community did not see a reason to pass down the language when the bilingual policy already meant that students had to deal with two in school. Some also felt that the language lacked prestige against more widely-spoken ones like English. \u201cKristang has brought a different level of understanding on what it meant to be Singaporean,” she said, “it allowed me to look at how language policies have been biased [and]… affected the different populations of Eurasians.\u201d\u201cWe all just settle with a label that paints us with a really broad stroke,\u201d Frances adds, referring to the umbrella terms used to group individuals into the four main races (Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Eurasians), and the Mother Tongue languages each of these ethnic groups had to learn. In doing so, we lose the complexity and diversity within our own nation. Frances went on to cite examples of how within each of the three major races, there exists distinct cultures, each with their own traditions and heritage. For example, within Kristang, there are words that encapsulates the environment and culture of the Kristang people. She says of the language, \u201cKristang has certain words that just capture what… life was like for a Kristang person. So you would have words, for example, that encapsulates the notion of fishing.\u201d\u00a0So what do we lose when we stop speaking a language?\u201cOurselves,\u201d Frances answered after a short pause, \u201cthere\u2019s no other way for us to perceive the world or communicate about the world other than language. So when we lose that language, we\u2019re also losing a way of thinking about the world, a way of talking about the world, and a way of exploring the world.\u201d\u00a0UNESCO sums it up nicely: \u201cEvery language reflects a unique world-view with its own value systems, philosophy and particular cultural features. The extinction of a language results in the irrecoverable loss of unique cultural knowledge embodied in it for centuries, including historical, spiritual and ecological knowledge that may be essential for the survival of not only its speakers, but also countless others.\u201dThis knowledge is why Frances and the rest of Kodrah Kristang are working so hard to revitalise and preserve the language here in Singapore.\u00a0Frances shared her own experience of being a Cantonese speaker, and how much it helped her create a special connection with her grandmother as it was the only common language they had.\u00a0She related her own experience to that of Kristang, \u201cI was just thinking, if I lost that connection (with her grandmother, if she had been unable to speak Cantonese), there would be such a loss in transmission of culture, transmission of knowledge about the world, history of Singapore, history of the world, customs, [and so on]. I just couldn\u2019t imagine the same happening for Kristang… it just feels like [a shame] if nobody even bothered to save it\u201d.\u00a0What can we take away from this?Here are some sobering numbers for you: today, a third of the world\u2019s languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers left. Every fortnight, a language dies along with its last speaker. By the next century, 50 to 90 per cent of these languages are predicted to disappear (Strochlic, 2018).The declining languages in Singapore might not be on the brink of extinction on a global scale, but losing them here will mean losing a precious part of Singapore\u2019s history.\u00a0Our identity and culture are made up of many things but language undoubtedly plays a significant role. Bearing in mind the example of Kristang and that of other languages around the world that are slowly disappearing, maybe it\u2019s time we view languages with a less callous lens and instead, be more mindful about the languages we use and learn.\u00a0For those fortunate enough to have grown up with some of these declining languages, perhaps consider passing them down to your children when the time comes. In whatever shape or form, have them learn a little piece about their history and heritage. Meanwhile, find opportunities to use these languages whenever you can. Keep them alive in our country.\u00a0For myself, I\u2019ll be doing what I can to pick up however much I can, from videos, online audio lessons, podcasts, or even formal lessons in due time, should they be available. For others like me, perhaps these are avenues you can consider as well.\u00a0Frances acknowledged the importance of Singapore\u2019s language policies in our nation-building years to forge a national identity but now that it\u2019s been done, perhaps it\u2019s time we learned to embrace the diversity within our little island city, languages and all.\u00a0ReferencesCavallaro, F. and Serwe, S. (2010) Language use and shift among the Malays in Singapore. Applied Linguistics Review, 1(1), 129-170.\u00a0Li, W., Saravanan, V. and Ng, L. H. J. (1997). Language shift in the Teochew community in Singapore: A family domain analysis. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 18(5), 364-384.Martin, L. (1986). Eskimo words for snow: A case study in the genesis and decay of an anthropological example. American Anthropologist, 88(2), 418-23.Join the conversations on THG’s\u00a0Facebook\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram, and get the latest updates via\u00a0Telegram."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What Do We Lose When We Stop Speaking a Language?","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/what-do-we-lose-when-we-stop-speaking-a-language\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]