singlish

Do you know that "shiok!" is originally "shauk" in Punjabi? Do you know that Singlish, like Chinese and Japanese, is topic-prominent? Do you know that Singlish is an English-based creole language native to Singapore? Do you know that it is the first language of many younger Singaporeans, especially those whose parents do not share a native language or dialect, and that is the second language of nearly all the rest of the country's residents?

I bet you didn't know, but neither did I. According to the 'gahmen' my first language has always been English, but Wikipedia suggests otherwise. Before we delve deeper and learn the grammer and phonetics of Singlish. I suggest that we first find our what genre of Singlish do you speak. Ae you more likely to say : -

1) "Dis guy Singrish si beh powderful wan. Hoh seh liao lah! Damn steady wan la!"
2) "Dis guy Singlish damn powerful one leh."
3) "This person's Singlish is very good."

Well, for those who choose 1, you speak Basilect Singlish. If you have choosen 2 or 3 then you are speaking Mesolect and Acrolect Singlish respectively. If you want to learn more or brush up on your Singlish, you can pick up the finer points of the language (like past tense, negation and interrogative) through this Wikipedia's website - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish. For any unfamiliar vocabulary, you can check out the Wikipedia's online Singlish dictionary - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish_vocabulary. Start now and Speak Singlish as it is unbroken today!

i wonder if i'm ever going to use Wikipedia as my report/project/article reference again...