Singapore has four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese and Tamil. English is the main working language of government, business, the courts and schools, and Malay is the national language, used in the national anthem and for military commands. Most Singaporeans are bilingual, speaking English and a "mother tongue" linked to their ethnic group. English is also now the language most spoken at home: in the 2020 census, 48 per cent of residents said they used it most often at home, up from 32 per cent in 2010, ahead of Mandarin at 30 per cent. On the street you will also hear Singlish, the island's distinctive colloquial English.
| Language most often spoken at home (2020) | Share of residents | 2010 |
|---|---|---|
| English | 48.3% | 32.3% |
| Mandarin | 29.9% | 35.6% |
| Malay | 9.2% | 12.2% |
| Chinese dialects (Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and others) | 8.7% | 14.3% |
| Tamil | 2.5% | 3.3% |
| Others | 1.4% | 2.3% |
Four Languages for Three Main Communities
The choice of four official languages reflects Singapore's population. About three-quarters of residents are ethnically Chinese, about 14 per cent Malay and about 9 per cent Indian. When Singapore became independent in 1965, its leaders wanted to recognise each community without letting any one language dominate. Mandarin was chosen for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays and Tamil for Indians, because most Singaporean Indians have South Indian Tamil roots. English, the language of the British colonial administration, was the neutral fourth, belonging to no community and useful for international trade.
Malay has a special position as the national language, a recognition of Singapore's place in the Malay world and its history as part of Malaysia from 1963 to 1965. The national anthem, "Majulah Singapura" ("Onward Singapore"), composed by Zubir Said in 1958, is sung only in Malay, and drill commands in the armed forces are still given in Malay.
A Port Built on Many Tongues
Singapore's language mix goes back to its founding as a British trading post in 1819. Merchants and labourers arrived from China, India, the Malay archipelago, Arabia and Europe, and the common language of the port and its markets was Bazaar Malay, a simplified trade Malay understood by nearly everyone. In 1822 Stamford Raffles's town plan, known as the Jackson Plan, assigned separate quarters to different communities. The Chinese settled south of the Singapore River, Indians around what became Little India, and Malays and Arabs around Kampong Glam, near the Sultan's palace. The plan still shapes the city. Chinatown's signs are full of Chinese characters, Little India's temples and shops are labelled in Tamil, and Kampong Glam's streets around the Sultan Mosque carry Malay and Arabic names.
Lee Kuan Yew's Own Languages
The man who shaped Singapore's language policy was himself a product of its problems. Lee Kuan Yew grew up in an English-speaking Chinese family and studied at Cambridge. When he entered politics in the 1950s, he found that he needed Mandarin and Hokkien to reach Chinese voters and Malay to speak to the wider region, so he learned all three as an adult, making speeches in Hokkien at mass rallies. He later described the bilingual policy as one of the hardest things his government attempted, and he wrote a book about it, My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore's Bilingual Journey, published in 2011.
The Bilingual Policy
Since 1966, schools have taught every child in English, with a second "mother tongue" language as a compulsory subject. The mother tongue is assigned by ethnicity, not by the language actually spoken at home. A Chinese Singaporean child learns Mandarin even if the family speaks Hokkien or Cantonese, and Indian children whose families speak Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati or Urdu can study those languages instead of Tamil. English-medium schooling became universal in the 1980s. Nanyang University, the Chinese-medium university founded with community donations in 1955, was merged into the National University of Singapore in 1980, a decision that is still remembered with regret by some older Chinese-educated Singaporeans.
The policy worked in its main aim. English is now the common language of all communities, and Singapore consistently ranks among the most English-proficient countries in the world where English is not the historical native language. The result, as the census shows, is that English is steadily replacing the other languages at home as well.
Language in Parliament and the Schools
The four official languages are written into Article 153A of the constitution, and the equality is more than symbolic. Members of Parliament may speak in any of them, with simultaneous interpretation provided, although almost all debate is in English, and the English text of laws is the authoritative one. The school system also keeps a place for Chinese-language education. Since 1979 a group of Special Assistance Plan schools, many descended from long-established Chinese-medium schools, have taught both English and Mandarin at a high level, and students can take a Higher Mother Tongue subject at a more demanding level in any of the three mother tongues.
Speak Mandarin: How the Dialects Declined
For most of its history, Chinese Singapore did not speak Mandarin. Most early Chinese immigrants came from southern Fujian and Guangdong, and they spoke Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese, which are mutually unintelligible. Hokkien was the most common, and it served as a trading language on the island.
In 1979 Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew launched the Speak Mandarin Campaign, which urged Chinese Singaporeans to use Mandarin instead of their dialects. Dialect programmes were phased out of free-to-air television and radio, and popular Cantonese dramas from Hong Kong were dubbed into Mandarin. The campaign transformed home language within a generation. Grandparents who speak only Hokkien or Teochew now often struggle to talk with grandchildren who speak English and Mandarin. In recent years the restrictions have eased a little, with some dialect broadcasting allowed for elderly viewers. Mandarin's own lead is now slipping: in the 2020 census, for the first time, more ethnic Chinese residents said they mainly spoke English at home (about 48 per cent) than Mandarin (about 40 per cent).
Singlish, Lah
The everyday English of Singapore is Singlish, an English-based creole shaped by Hokkien, Malay, Tamil and Cantonese. Its grammar and vocabulary are distinctive. Sentences end with particles that carry tone and attitude: "lah" for emphasis ("Don't worry lah"), "lor" for resignation, "leh" for softening a request. Questions can be framed as "Can or not?" Borrowed words fill everyday life. Makan, from Malay, means to eat. Kiasu, from Hokkien, means afraid of losing out. Shiok means delicious or great. To chope a table is to reserve it at a food centre by leaving a packet of tissues on it.
The government has long been uneasy about Singlish. In 2000 it launched the Speak Good English Movement, arguing that Singlish could hurt Singapore's international competitiveness, and it pressed the makers of a popular sitcom whose main character spoke broad Singlish to have him sign up for English classes on screen. Singaporeans have largely embraced Singlish as a marker of identity anyway, and most switch easily between it and standard English. In 2016 the Oxford English Dictionary added nineteen Singapore English words, including shiok, sabo and ang moh, a term for a Westerner.
Ordering Coffee: Four Languages in One Order
The easiest place to hear how Singapore's languages mix is a hawker centre coffee stall. A basic order combines several languages in a few words. Kopi, coffee, comes from Malay. "O", meaning black, without milk, comes from Hokkien. Kosong, Malay for "zero", means without sugar. Siew dai, Cantonese, means less sweet, and peng, Hokkien, means iced. So "kopi-o kosong" is black coffee without sugar, and "teh-c peng" is iced tea with evaporated milk. Stallholders and customers of every background use the same terms, which have become a shared Singaporean code independent of anyone's ethnic language.
Smaller Languages and Signs in Four Scripts
Beyond the big four, Singapore holds several small and endangered languages. Baba Malay, a Malay-based creole with Hokkien influence, was the language of the Peranakan Chinese community, descendants of early Chinese settlers who married locally. Kristang, a Portuguese-based creole of the Eurasian community with roots in Portuguese Malacca, has fewer than a hundred fluent speakers and is the subject of an active revival project. Newer migrants have brought Tagalog, Bengali, Burmese, Thai and other languages, especially among foreign workers.
Public life often shows all four official languages together. Safety signs and many government notices appear in English, Chinese characters, Malay in Latin script and Tamil script. That mix of four scripts in a small space is one of Singapore's most recognisable sights. The tiny size of the country that holds it is described in our guide to how big Singapore is.
Language Across the Causeway
Singapore's language choices look different next to its neighbour Malaysia, which shares much of the same history and ethnic mix. Malaysia made Malay the sole national and official language and the main medium of state schooling, while keeping Chinese- and Tamil-medium primary schools. Singapore chose English. As a result, a Malaysian Chinese is more likely to speak fluent Malay and Cantonese or Hokkien, and a Singaporean Chinese fluent English and Mandarin. The comparison is set out in our guide to the language spoken in Malaysia.