Singaporean Hokkien

Singaporean Hokkien
Singaporean Hokkien
Traditional Chinese	新加坡福建話
Simplified Chinese	新加坡福建话
Hokkien POJ	Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-ōe
Hanyu Pinyin
showTranscriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Xīnjiāpō Fújiànhuà
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ	Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-ōe
Tâi-lô	Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-uē
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	新加坡閩南語
Simplified Chinese	新加坡闽南语
Hokkien POJ	Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gu/Sin-ka-pho bân-lâm-gí
Hanyu Pinyin
showTranscriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Xīnjiāpō Mǐnnányǔ
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ	Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gu/Sin-ka-pho bân-lâm-gí
Tâi-lô	Sin-ka-pho bân-lâm-gu/Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gí
Second alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	新加坡閩南話
Simplified Chinese	新加坡闽南话
Hokkien POJ	Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-ōe
Hanyu Pinyin
showTranscriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Xīnjiāpō Mǐnnánhuà
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ	Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-ōe
Tâi-lô	Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-uē

Singapore Hokkien
Singapore Hokkien
新加坡福建話; (Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-ōe)
Native to	Singapore
Native speakers	1.2 million (2017)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Min Southern Min Quanzhang Quanzhou dialect Southern Malay Peninsular Hokkien Singapore Hokkien; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Latin (Pe̍h-ōe-jī); Han characters (traditional or simplified)
Official status
Official language in	None, Lingua franca of the Chinese community in Singapore before 1979.
Regulated by	None
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Singaporean Hokkien (simplified Chinese: 新加坡福建话; traditional Chinese: 新加坡福建話; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-ōe; Tâi-lô: Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-uē) is a local variant of the Hokkien language spoken in Singapore. In Chinese academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu (simplified Chinese: 新加坡闽南语; traditional Chinese: 新加坡閩南語; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Sin-ka-pho Bân-lâm-gu). It is closely related to the Southern Malaysian Hokkien (南馬福建話) spoken in Southern Malaysia, as well as to Riau Hokkien (廖內福建話) spoken in the Indonesian province of Riau. It also closely resembles Amoy (厦门话; 廈門話) spoken in Amoy, People's Republic of China, and Taiwanese Hokkien which is spoken in Taiwan, Republic of China.^[2]

Hokkien is the Min Nan pronunciation for the province of Fujian, and is generally the term used by the Chinese in South-East Asia to refer to the 'Banlam' dialect (閩南語). Singaporean Hokkien generally uses Amoy as its standard, and its accent is predominantly based on a mixture of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech, with a greater inclination towards the former.^{[citation needed]}

Like many spoken languages in Singapore, Singaporean Hokkien is influenced by other languages or dialects spoken in Singapore. For instance, Singaporean Hokkien is influenced to a certain degree by Teochew, and is sometimes regarded as a combined Hokkien-Teochew speech (福潮話). In addition, it has many loanwords from Malay and English.

Nevertheless, the grammar and tones of Singaporean Hokkien are still largely based on Banlam. When compared to Taiwanese's prestige accent (臺語優勢腔) spoken in Tainan and Kaohsiung, the pronunciation of Singaporean Hokkien inclines toward the Quanzhou accent, which is also close to the pronunciation of Taipei and Amoy, and is less close to that of Tainan, which has a greater inclination towards the Zhangzhou accent (漳州腔).

A Singaporean would likely not have trouble conversing with Taiwanese speakers in Singaporean Hokkien, with the exception of some Japanese loanwords. Similarly, Singaporean Hokkien is understood by Taiwanese speakers, with the exception of some Malay and English loanwords.

History[]

From the 19th until the early half of the 20th century, there was a large influx of Chinese migrants from southern China into Singapore. This led to Chinese constituting almost 75% of Singapore's population. Of these Chinese, many originated from the regions of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou in Fujian province. They brought Min Nan to Singapore, which was then propagated throughout Singapore and Malaysia. As there was no formal Chinese name for Min Nan in the early 20th century, these migrants began to use their place of origin as the name of their speech, and thus called the dialect "Hokkien", referring to Fujian province.

During the 19th century, many traditional private Chinese schools in Singapore (referred to as 私塾仔; su-sio̍k-á) generally used Hokkien to teach Chinese classics and Classical Chinese.^{[citation needed]} However, by the early 20th century, Mandarin began to replace Hokkien as the medium of instructions in Chinese schools after the founding of many Mandarin-medium schools.^{[citation needed]}

During the 1950s and 1960s, many political speeches in Singapore were in Hokkien, in order to reach out to the Chinese community in Singapore. There was also a thriving Hokkien cultural scene that included Hokkien story-telling, opera, and media in Singapore.

After 1979, the Singapore government began to push for the use of Mandarin in Singapore, spearheaded by the Speak Mandarin Campaign. Following this, the Singapore government also began to employ a more stringent censorship, or ban, of Hokkien media in the Singaporean Chinese media. Consequently, all Hokkien-language media in Singapore had to be dubbed in Mandarin before being allowed to stream on national TV. In addition, the 1980s saw Chinese-medium education replaced by that in English, causing English to emerge as the most widely used language in Singapore. The emergence of the English language, coupled with heavy promotion of Mandarin, generally led Hokkien to decline in Singapore after 1979.

Current status[]

Today, the lingua franca of the Chinese Community in Singapore is Mandarin. Although Hokkien is still spoken in Singapore today, particularly by the elderly Chinese population, it is not as widespread as before. The most common places to hear Hokkien spoken in Singapore are in hawker centres or kopi tiams.

Speaking ability varies amongst the different age groups of the Hokkien Singaporeans. The elderly are generally able to communicate effectively in Hokkien. On the other hand, the middle and younger generations have generally lost the ability to communicate as fluently. However, when it comes to using profanities, majority of the younger generation listed Hokkien as the first out of all languages and dialects. With the Speak Mandarin Campaign from the government, the Hokkien speaking population has declined greatly.

Revival through social media[]

There is, however, a minority group of Hokkien Singaporeans and Taiwanese living in Singapore working to help preserve, spread and revive the use of Hokkien Chinese in Singapore.^{[citation needed]}

The ease of access to online Hokkien entertainment media and pop music from Taiwan helps to connect to the language and culture. Many Singaporeans are increasingly using online and social media platforms, such as Facebook and Meetup groups, to learn, discuss, meet, and interact with each other in Hokkien.

Some of the groups include:

Facebook Singapore Hokkien Language and Culture Society: Discussion forum on all aspects of Hokkien Chinese, with a primary focus on the Singaporean Hokkien dialect and its variations from other forms of Hokkien.
Facebook Singapore Hokkien Meetup: Group that organizes regular meetups for language practice. It also organizes free language courses and sharing sessions for those who are interested.
Singapore Hokkien Language Meetup Group: Same as the Facebook group, but organized over Meetup.

Phonology[]

Consonants[]

Initials
		Bilabial		Alveolar		Alveolo-palatal		Velar		Glottal
		Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless
Nasal			m [m] 名 (miâ)		n [n] 耐 (nāi)				ng [ŋ] 硬 (ngǐ/ngē)
Plosive	Unaspirated	p [p] 邊 (pian)	b [b]^[a] 文 (bûn)	t [t] 地 (tē)	d [d]^[b] 日 (di̍t)			k [k] 求 (kiû)	g [g]^[a] 牛 (gû)	ʔ [ʔ] 音 (im)
Plosive	Aspirated	ph [pʰ] 波 (pho)		th [tʰ] 他 (thaⁿ)				kh [kʰ] 去 (khì)
Affricate	Unaspirated			ch [ts] 曾 (chan)	j [dz]* 熱 (jua̍h)	chi [tɕ] 祝 (chiok)	ji [dʑ]* 入 (ji̍p)
Affricate	Aspirated			chh [tsʰ] 出 (chhut)		chhi [tɕʰ] 手 (chhiú)
Fricative				s [s] 衫 (saⁿ)		si [ɕ] 心 (sim)				h [h] 火 (hé)
Lateral					l [l] 柳 (liú)
Labialized									w [w] 我 (wá)

^ Jump up to: ^a ^b The voiced plosives /b, ɡ/ are fricatized to [β] and [ɣ] respectively in certain phonetic contexts such as during fast speech.
^ Pronounced in some regional variations of Hokkien spoken in Singapore.

Finals
	Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal consonant	-m [m] 心 (sim)	-n [n] 今 (kin)	-ng [ŋ] 興 (heng)
Stop consonant	-p [p̚] 急 (kip)	-t [t̚] 越 (oa̍t)	-k [k̚] 速 (sok)	-h [ʔ] 物 (mih)

Syllabic consonant
	Bilabial	Velar
Nasal	m [m̩] 毋(m̄)	ng [ŋ̍] 酸(sng)

Vowels[]

Variation[]

Regional accents and tones[]

When Singaporeans speak Hokkien, they do so with various accents and tones largely from Tong'an, Anxi, Nan'an, Kinmen as well as Yongchun, Jinjiang, Longhai City and Southern Zhangzhou accents. In practice, it is common for Singaporeans to mix English conjunctions such as "and" into a Hokkien sentence. Some would include hngo2 (an exclamatory remark in Jinjiang /Nan'an), in addition to the widely used Hokkien exclamatory particles lah (啦) or lor (囉).

No distinction between literary and vernacular readings[]

In saying years or numbers, Singaporean Hokkien normally does not differentiate between literary (文讀音) or vernacular (白讀音) readings of Chinese characters. In Taiwan or Amoy, a distinction is usually made. For instance, the year 1980 would be said with a literary pronunciation (一九八空年; it kiú pat khòng nî); but in Singapore, no differentiation is made and is pronounced as otherwise vernacular it káu poeh khòng nî.

As another instance, Taiwanese would speak telephone numbers using literary readings, whereas Singaporeans would use vernacular ones instead. For example, the telephone number 98444678 will be pronounced in Taiwan as kiú pat sù sù sù lio̍k chhit pat, where in Singaporean Hokkien it would be pronounced as káu poeh sì-sì sì la̍k chhit poeh.

Influence from Southern Zhangzhou and Teochew Phonology[]

Vowel shift from ing to eng[]

In Singaporean Hokkien—as compared to Quanzhou (whose accent Hokkien usually inclines toward), Zhangzhou, Amoy or Taiwanese (all being standard Hokkien), which pronounce the vowel ing—there is a vowel change from ing (/iŋ/ or /iəŋ/) to eng (/eŋ/ or /ɛŋ/). This change is similar to pronunciation in regions south of Zhangzhou—Dongshan, Yunxiao, Zhangpu, Pinghe, Zhao'an counties (southern Zhangzhou accent)—and in Teochew and Cantonese.

Below is a table illustrating the difference:

Hanzi	Standard Hokkien (Amoy/Taiwanese)	Singaporean Hokkien	English
生	sing	seng (Teochew)	'to live'
淸	tshing	cêng (Teochew)	'clear'
明	bîng	bêng (Southern Zhangzhou) / mêng (Teochew)	'bright'
冷	líng	léng (Southern Zhangzhou/Teochew)	'cold'
英	ing	eng (Southern Zhangzhou/Teochew)	'brave'
政	tsìng	zèng (Teochew)	'political'

Pronunciation of 'I'[]

In standard Hokkien pronunciation, 我 (lit. 'I/me') is pronounced as /ɡʊa˥˨/; but in Singapore, it is pronounced as /wa˥˨/, which is alleged by some to have been influenced by the Teochew pronunciation /ʊa˥˨/ although other dialects like Putianese and some regional Hokkien dialects also pronounce it as /ʊa˥˨/.

Grammar[]

There are some differences between the sentence structure used by Singaporean Hokkien and by Standard Hokkien (Amoy/Taiwanese).

For instance, when asking a question "do you want to...?", Singaporean Hokkien typically uses the sentence structure 愛……莫？ (ai…mài?), whereas Taiwan uses 欲……無？ (beh…bô?). The word 愛 (ai) is commonly used in Singaporean Hokkien to mean "want to", but in standard Hokkien and Taiwan Hokkien, the word 欲/卜 (beh) (which means "want" in Hokkien) is used instead. 愛 (ai) in standard and Taiwanese Hokkien it typically means "love to" or "need to".

Also, unlike Taiwanese Hokkien—which typically uses the word 敢 (kám) (meaning "whether or not") when asking a question, which is more formal or polite—Singaporean Hokkien does not use the word 敢 (kám). Instead, it simply adds the word 無 (bô) at the end of the sentence to indicate that it is a question (similar to Mandarin's 嗎 (ma) or adds a Cantonese intonation 咩 (me1) at the end. Adding the word 無 (bô) at the end of a sentence is also used in Taiwanese Hokkien, when one is asking a question in an informal way.

**Differences in sentence structure**
Singaporean Hokkien	Amoy	English
愛食飯莫？ (ai chia̍h-pn̄g mài?)	欲食飯無？ (beh chia̍h-pn̄g bô?)	Do you want to eat?
汝有睏飽無？ (lé ū khùn-pá bô?)	汝敢有睏飽？ (lí kám ū khùn-pá?)	Did you have enough sleep?

Numerals[]

The following list shows the colloquial readings of the numerals used to count objects.

Hanzi	Pe̍h-ōe-jī	Value	Notes
零, 〇	lêng	0	〇 is an informal way to represent zero also 空 (khòng)
一	chi̍t	1	also pronounced it also 么 (trad)/幺 (simp) (io) when used in phone numbers etc.
兩	nn̄g	2	also 二 (lī/jī)
三	saⁿ	3
四	sì	4
五	gō	5
六	la̍k	6
七	chhit	7
八	poeh	8
九	káu	9
十	cha̍p	10

Most ordinal numbers are formed by adding 第 (tē) in front of a cardinal number. In some cases, the literary reading of the number must then be used. For example, 第一 = tē-it, 第二 = tē-jī.

Differences from Standard Hokkien[]

There are minor differences between Singaporean Hokkien and Amoy or Taiwanese in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Amoy and Taiwanese bear close resemblance, and are usually considered the standard in Hokkien, differing only in terms of vocabulary.

Unique vocabulary[]

Although Singaporean Hokkien is similar to Amoy or Taiwanese, there exist certain unique Singaporean Hokkien words, which are different from those two aforementioned dialects.

Singaporean Hokkien (Hanji)	POJ	Standard	Definition
死景	sí-kéng	博物館 (phok-bu̍t-kóan)	'museum'
活景	o̍ah-kéng	動物園 (tōng-bu̍t-hn̂g)	'zoo'
掠無球	lia̍h-bô-kiû	毋捌 (m̄-bat)	'completely not understand' (lit. 'catch no balls')
假強	kê-khiàng	假 WIKI

[b-3] Jump up to: ^a ^b The voiced plosives /b, ɡ/ are fricatized to [β] and [ɣ] respectively in certain phonetic contexts such as during fast speech.

[a-4] Pronounced in some regional variations of Hokkien spoken in Singapore.

[1]

[2]

[a]

[b]

Singapore Hokkien
新加坡福建話 (Sin-ka-pho Hok-kiàn-ōe)
Native to	Singapore
Native speakers	1.2 million (2017)^[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Min Southern Min Quanzhang Quanzhou dialect Southern Malay Peninsular Hokkien Singapore Hokkien
Writing system	Latin (Pe̍h-ōe-jī) Han characters (traditional or simplified)
Official status
Official language in	None, Lingua franca of the Chinese community in Singapore before 1979.
Regulated by	None
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.