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Singapore -
சிங்கப்பூர்
- an estimated 200,000 Tamils live in Singapore
-
Ethnologue report for Singapore Republic of Singapore.
National or official languages: Bengali, Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Tamil,
English. 3,476,000 (1998 UN).... 90,000 Tamil speakers in Singapore
(1985), 3.5% of the population, out of 111,000 in the ethnic group
(1993).
“In terms of numbers, the
Ceylonese, like the Eurasians, are among the smallest of our various
communities. Yet in terms of achievements and contributions to the
growth and development of the modern Singapore and Malaysia they have
done more than warranted by their numbers. In the early days of
Malaysia’s and Singapore’s history the civil service and the professions
were manned by a good number of Ceylonese. Even today the Ceylonese
community continues to play a prominent role in these and other fields
of civil life. For example in Singapore, today, the Speaker of
Parliament is a Ceylonese. So is our High Commissioner in Great Britain.
So is our Foreign Minister. In the Judiciary, in the civil service, in
the University, in the Medical Service and in the professions they
continue to make substantial contributions out of all proportion to
their numbers. They are there not because they are members of a minority
community but on the basis of merit. The point is that the Ceylonese are
holding their own in open competition with communities far larger than
them. They have asked for no special favour or consideration as a
minority. What they have asked for – and quite rightly – is that they
should be judged on their merits and that they be allowed to compete
with all other citizens fairly and without discrimination. This, as far
as the Singapore government is concerned, is what is best for all of us.
I believe that the future belongs to that society which acknowledges and
rewards ability, drive and high performance without regard to race,
language or religion.” Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew
From
Tamil Language Policy in Singapore: the Role of
Implementation.- Harold Schiffman -
"How endangered is Tamil in Singapore?
According to Fishman’s graded intergenerational disruption scale
(GIDS), an eight-point scale of endangerment, with stage 8 the point
of no return, Tamil can be located at Stage 4, “where the regional
or minority language gains some official recognition and moves into
mainstream formal education.” This stage presupposes that the
minority language is actually used in the home and is transmitted
intergenerationally, which is true for Tamil (and indeed other
languages in Singapore) to some extent, but as we know from other
studies, Tamil may indeed be lacking this support in many Singapore
homes. But what is important here would be to determine whether
measures taken by the Singapore state to strengthen the domains of
Tamil, such that it moves up the ranks, e.g. to Stage 1, which is
the highest level of vitality, or whether other measures taken by
the state actually weaken the support for Tamil, without appearing
overtly to have any relationship to language maintenance.
Grin goes on to state that for minority languages to be used, there
must be ‘capacity, opportunity and desire’ to do so. This is where
problems with Tamil maintenance in Singapore appear most strongly,
because while the school system gives children the capacity to use
the language, they need opportunities to do so, and with the lack of
a territorial domain for Tamil, and given the small size of the
population, opportunities are few and far between. And finally,
desire, the weakest link. When Tamils are interviewed on this issue,
we find that little incentive to use the language exists. The
language has no economic value, and other opportunities to actively
use it are few and far between—even religious use may be largely a
matter of passive observation of religious practices, especially in
Hinduism. Since young people lack also the incentive or opportunity
to create their own slang the way teenagers in other linguistic
cultures do, they are forced either to speak like their elders, or
simply opt out of using the language. As Grin puts it,
“Typically, minority language speakers are bilingual. This implies
that in principle, they have a choice to carry out their various
activities through the medium of the majority language or of the
minority language. If there is a choice, one of the conditions for
the choice to be made in favour of ‘doing things through the medium
of the minority language’ is therefore people’s desire (or
willingness) to do so.” (Grin 2003:44)
As Grin goes on to say, minority language speakers are more
dependent on the state (than are majority language speakers) to
provide for the three conditions of capacity, opportunity and desire
to be present. Here is where things begin to get troublesome: Grin
feels that the state needs to be sure desire is facilitated, but
most polities I am aware of see this as something the minority
language community needs to recognize for itself, and that it is not
the task of the Singapore state to provide motivation to its
minorities. In the Tamil community, as far as I am aware, when
desire or lack of it is discussed, the older generation generally
faults the younger generation for lack of desire (especially lack of
love for Tamil), and the younger generation of course rolls its eyes
and replies that the older folks ‘just don’t get it.’
But perhaps the more serious problem here is the economic issue.
Tamil has no economic value in Singapore, since almost no jobs exist
for people who know Tamil, or know it better than they know English.
To this the older generation, imbued with a love of Tamil that seems
to be difficult to instill transgenerationally, reply that younger
Tamils should love Tamil for reasons that are difficult to explain,
or are just simply intangible. This situation calls to mind another
linguistic minority situation I have studied, that of
German-Americans in 19th century America (Schiffman 1976).
German-American church denominations tried to maintain the German
language through the establishment of German-language schools for
their parishioners’ children, and requests from congregations to
deal with the fact that many younger members (known in German as die
Nachkömmlinge) were becoming English speakers, were denied, ignored,
or stonewalled. The German-born pastors and theologians simply could
not fathom how their children and grandchildren did not nurture the
same love for the German language that they had brought with them
from Germany, and refused to allow the English language any domains
in these churches. This had the unfortunate effect of driving die
Nachkömmlinge out of these churches and into membership in
English-speaking bodies, rather than making them love the German
language. Perhaps the requirement among Singapore Tamils that their
children should love the Tamil language as much as they do is having
the same effect—driving them into the embrace of English, which they
already learn in school, especially for the study of ‘practical’
subjects. The parallels between this situation and the
German-American case are striking, since those schools also tried
desperately to maintain some domains for German, falling back on a
formula that reserved German for religious subjects (Bible study,
hymn-singing, etc.) but English for math, science, and geography.
Grin again has pointed out the necessity of a cooperative approach:
There is no doubt that the behaviour of actual or potential language
users is crucial for the success of any policy measure. Language use
cannot be mandated, and there are many examples of well-intentioned
revitalisation policies that have failed to produce any results,
because of their top-down perspective, which ignored the role of
actors. This does not mean that the authorities must […] make
language decisions in their place. However, should we not expect the
state to select measures in such a way that they actually engage
actual and potential users, and result in effective minority
language use? (Grin 2003:85)
One of the examples Grin cites here is that of Ireland, where
attempts at revitalization went on for decades after the
establishment of the Irish Republic, but were mostly unsuccessful,
and have now been largely abandoned. Irish citizens did not want to
give up English, and did not even feel tremendous enthusiasm about
learning Irish for sentimental reasons, even if they were forced by
their school systems to do so. As the European Union expands to take
in new members, as it recently did, it will be interesting to see
whether this new state can help its citizens to retain languages
with so few speakers as Estonian, Slovenian, and Latvian, when
knowledge of English or some other language will obviously prove
more ‘useful.’ Given the strong role of English in Singapore, it is
also questionable whether efforts to get citizens to maintain
languages spoken by less than 4% of the population will be
successful in the long run..."
more
From
Language
Shift in the Tamil Communities of Malaysia and Singapore: the Paradox of Egalitarian
Language Policy - Harold F.Schifmann 1996 Note: this paper was
originally published in Language Loss and Public Policy, I ,
Garland Bills (ed.), Southwest Journal of Linguistics ,
Volume 14, Nos. 1-2, 1995.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the position of Tamil as an
ethnic minority and language in Malaysia and Singapore, and to draw
some conclusions about the role of language planning/policy planning
in the determination of linguistic outcomes, i.e. what happens as a
result of (or even in spite of) the language policies in effect in
the two polities. Tamils are the largest of the language groups that
form the `Indian' minority in Malaysia and Singapore, constituting
around 9% of the population, or 1.5 million in the former, and about
7% or 190,000, in Singapore.
Within this number, people classified
as Tamil-speaking amount to about 85% in Malaysia, and 65% in
Singapore, or perhaps 120,000. Some people estimate only 60%, or
115,000 speakers. But in fact, with the declines in actual native
speakers as evidenced by figures in the 1990 Census (see tables),
what the actual Tamil population of Singapore might be is
difficult to say with any accuracy. Most of the time, declaration of
`Tamil' is a declaration of Tamil ethnicity, not linguistic
habits. Below I will deal with the subject of the increasing number
of people classified as Tamil who are not actually Tamil speakers.
In a recent compendium of articles on South Asian immigrants in
Southeast Asia (Sandhu and Mani, (eds.) 1993) over half of the
articles are devoted to the question of Indian communities in
Malaysia---nineteen out of a total of 37, the rest being devoted to
Brunei, Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore and
Thailand. All of them see the situation of Indians in Malaysia as
somehow problematical.
Contrast this with the articles on Singapore,
where the future of Indians in Singapore is described as ``not
without promise." (Sandhu 1993:787, op. cit.) . In fact the future
of Indians in Singapore may be more secure than the languages spoken
by them; it is not clear what would happen if all Singapore Indians
were to become English speakers. whether it be the preferences given
to Bumiputra Malaysians2 over immigrant Indians,
the socio-economic conditions affecting plantation workers or the
educational opportunities provided their children. In Singapore the
situation is less dire, but language shift, especially among
educated Tamilians, is proceeding apparently even faster than in
Malaysia.
I will try in this talk is to place the issue of Tamil
language and language maintenance within the larger sociolinguistic
milieu in Malaysia and Singapore, and see whether we can make a
prognosis for the survival of Tamil, and indeed the survival of a
Tamil-speaking minority, in Malaysia and Singapore in the
twenty-first century.
Origins of the Tamil Community in
the area.
The Tamil situation in Malaysia and Singapore must be seen in the
context of an original colonial unity---after the Napoleonic Wars,
Britain ceded many of its colonial `possessions' in insular
Southeast Asia to the Netherlands in exchange for Dutch concessions
in South Asia and South Africa. But Britain maintained a presence in
the Straits of Malacca (Singapore, Penang, Malacca) as `trading
posts' of the East India Company, and expanded from there into all
of Malaya, and parts of Borneo. Tamils were brought to the area as
indentured laborers to do agricultural work of various sorts, but
eventually predominantly on rubber estates.
They were drawn from two
different segments of Tamil society---the workers were recruited
from the most destitute landless laborers in Tamilnadu, while the
overseers were recruited from educated, English-knowing graduates of
Jaffna College, in what was then called Ceylon. It should be noted
that the Jaffna Tamil spoken dialect is not mutually intelligible
with Indian Tamil, though both share a diglossic `H' variety in
Literary Tamil, and Jaffna Tamils learned to speak enough Indian
Tamil to be able to communicate.
These two groups were thus so
different, both sociolinguistically and socio-economically that they
never developed any notion of having common interests. Even today
there is little intermarriage between their descendants, and it is
the Sri Lanka-descended Tamils who are most urbanized and
educated.In Sri Lanka itself, Jaffna Tamils have no common interests
with so-called Indian Tamils, who were brought from India in the
19th century to work on tea plantations; the Sri Lankan census
considers them to be different categories of people, so that despite
an actual population of approximately 25% Tamils (Jaffna or Sri
Lanka Tamils, Indian Tamils, and `Moors'), each group is treated
differently, and sees no commonality with the other.
After World War II, Singapore joined the Federation of Malaysia
but was `ejected' from it in 1965,Singapore rejected the
Malayocentric view of Malaysia, since its population was
predominantly Chinese in origin; in fact all of the larger cities in
Malaysia, especially the coastal ones, have Chinese majority
populations.
In Singapore, the interpretation is that Singapore was
`expelled' from Malaysia, while in Malaysia, Singapore is seen as
having `withdrawn' from the Federation. so for three decades their
language policies have diverged---Malaysia has moved toward a
Malay-dominant policy, while Singapore enshrines Chinese, Malay and
Tamil as languages given special rights (alongside English).
Language policy in Malaysia is a topic that cannot be openly
discussed without fear of being charged under the Sedition Act of
1948.
The policy, as stated in the Constitution (Amendment) Act,
1971, is that the status of Malay as official and other languages as
tolerated, ``may no longer be questioned, it being considered that
such a sensitive issue should for ever be removed from the arena of
public discussion." (Suffian bin Hashim, 1976:324). It is only one
of those taboo issues (the place of Islam, the special status of
Malays) that may not be discussed in Malaysia, for fear of
disturbing certain ethnic sensibilities. Most of the writing on the
topic of language policy, therefore, consists of filiopietistic
articles extolling the virtues of the system, its natural fairness,
its commitment to building up the national culture, and so forth.
It
can be described, but it cannot be criticized, so criticism of it
only occurs outside the country. In Singapore, the language policy
is openly discussed, and may be criticized, but rarely is, because
it appears on the surface to be egalitarian, and therefore to not
deserve any criticism.Singapore Tamils rarely criticize the language
policy, because it seems so much fairer than Malaysia's policy;
instead they lay the blame internally, at the feet of the Tamil
teachers, the young people, their parents, the English language, the
curriculum developers, or the kali yuga. Were they to assess
the situation correctly, they would instead blame the housing
policy.
My original research goal was to establish how the Tamils of
Malaysia and Singapore were maintaining their language in the face
of two differing policies, the former (Malaysia) emphasizing
integration through Bahasa Malaysia and Islam, and the latter
(Singapore), with a supposedly open, tolerant and `egalitarian'
policy.
Since the Tamils are known for their intense language
loyalty back in their South Asian homeland, I was expecting to find
that their love of the language and intense language maintenance
efforts, manifested in India and Sri Lanka with strong opposition to
Hindi, Sanskrit and English.
The current antipathy is strongest
against Hindi and is known as Hindi etirppu; the opposition
to Sanskrit was stronger several decades ago, and the opposition to
English is mainly to English loan words being borrowed into Tamil (
angilak kalappu), not to English as an instrument or as a
language per se. The opposition to Sanskrit has had the effect of
ridding the written language of almost all traces of loan words from
that language; in the spoken language, where no overt rules are
prescribed, Hindi, Sanskrit, English, Portuguese and other loan
words abound. would result in effective language maintenance in both
contexts, but more so in Singapore, where Tamil actually has
`rights'. "
more
From National University of Singapore -
South Asian Studies
Publications of Dr Subramanian Thinnappan Books
and monographs
Dhandayudham, Thinnappan, Tamil Kavikkovai, (Kuala Lumpur: University of
Malaya, 1973) (in Tamil).
Thinnappan, Phonetics and Speech Training in Tamil. A package consisting of one
Textbook for Primary Schools, one Textbook for Secondary Schools, Teachers Guide
Audio Cassette tapes and Transparency masters (Singapore: Curriculumn
Development Institute of Singapore, 1983) Dheivanayagam, Thinnappan, Govindasamy, Manual for the Teaching of the 13
Modified Letters in the Tamil Script Occasional Paper, No.15. (Singapore:
Institute of Education, 1984) Thinnappan, Ramiah, Govindasamy, Functional objectives in language learning
Tamil Language A Report on Phase 1 of the Project Institute of Education,
(Singapore 1989). Thinnappan, Ramiah, Govindasamy, Functional objectives in language learning
Tamil language. A Report on Phase II of the project. Institute of Education,
(Singapore 1990)
Thinnappan, Singapooril Tamil Moliyum Ilakkiyamum (Tamil Language and Literature
in Singapore) (Devakottai: Theen Valliyammai Publishers, 1993)
Swami Siva Nandhi Adikalaar,Loganathan,Thinnappan (eds), Saivite Hinduism
(London: Meikandar Aadheenam World Saiva Council, 1994) Thinnappan, SP. Kaniniyum Tamil Karpittalum (Computer and Teaching of Tamil) (A
Collection of 10 Research papers) Pulamai Publications, Madras (S.India) 1995 . Thinnappan, Ramiah, Govindasamy, Seet, An Attitudinal Study of a Cross Section
of Tamils in Singapore towards Tamil Language: Perception and Practice, Research
Report SOA, (Singapore: NIE 1995)
Chapters in books
Thinnappan, 'Tolkaapiyattil ilakkana kuriyittyccorkal', in Agesthialingom and
Murugaiyan (eds), Tolkappiya Moliyiyal (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai University,
1972) Thinnappan, 'Do type interrogative in Dravidian', in Prabakara Wariyar (ed),
Malayala Bhasa: pathannal (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai University, 1976) Thinnappan, 'Case system and Sandhi'. in Agesthialingom (ed), Dravidian Case
System (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai University, 1976) Thinnappan, 'Alapetai in Tamil', in Agesthialingom and Subrahmaniyam (eds),
Dravidian Linguistics (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai University, 1977) Thinnappan, 'Concepts of Grammar', in Agesthialingam and Kumaraswami Raja (eds),
Tolkappiyam Studies in Early Dravidian Grammars, (Annamalai Nagar:
Annamalai,1977) Thinnappan, 'Nagarathars' way of Letterwriting', in Agestialingom and
Karunakaran (eds), Sociolinguistics and Dialectology (SeminarPapers) (Annamalai
Nagar: Annamalai University, 1980) Thinnappan, Govindasamy, 'The Bilingual Ability (English/Tamil) of a sample of
Primary 3 pupils', in Ho Wah Kam (ed), Research Papers (Singapore: Institute of
Education, 1987) Thinnappan, 'Cinkappuuril Tamil Kalvi (Tamil Language Education in Singapore)',
in Sambasivanar (ed), Veezhchiyutra Tamizhagathil (Madurai: Tamil Maarudham,
1995) Thinnappan, 'Ikkala nookkil moli karralum karpittalum (Teaching and learning of
a language from the Modern point of view)', in Karunakaran and Shanmugam (eds),
Working Papers in Linguistics and Literature Vol 2 (Coimbatore: Bharathiar
University, 1995) Thinnappan, 'Tamil mozhi oor aRimukam, Tamil language: An Introduction', in The
Handbook of Tamil Culture and Heritage (Woodbridge: International Tamil Language
Foundation, 2000) Thinnappan, 'Nataraja Thaththuvam Dance of Siva Nataraja', in The Handbook of
Tamil Culture and Heritage (Woodbridge: International Tamil Language Foundation,
2000)
Thinnappan, 'Ungal cinthanaiththiranum padaippaaRRalum vaLara - Ways to increase
your capacity to think and create', in The Handbook of Tamil Culture and
Heritage (Woodbridge: International Tamil Language Foundation, 2000)
Journal Articles Thinnappan, 'A Modern Evaluation of Neminatam', in
Journal of the Annamalai University (Humanities) Vol XXVII, (India, 1970) Thinnappan, 'A Contrastive Study of Tamil and Malay Phonology (Consonant)', in
Tamil oli (Malaysia, 1972) Thinnappan, 'Writing of Text Books in Tamil – Some Problems', in Pulamai (India,
1988)
Thinnappan, 'Kaninivali Tamil (Tamil Through Computer), in Kalanciyam 5:3
(India, 1990). Thinnappan, 'Some Aspects of Singapore Tamil' , in Pulamai 16:2 (India,1990) Thinnappan, 'Karpittal Kotpadukalum moli karpittalum (Teaching Theories and
Language Teaching)', in The Journal of Tamil Learning, Vol. 1:1 ( Madurai:
International Council for Tamil Learning, 1993) Thinnappan, 'Kaninivali Tamil Karpithal (Teaching of Tamil through Computer)',
in Tamil Marutham, 4:3 (India,1994) Thinnappan,' Karral karpittalil Cintanaippanku perum Cirappu – (Importance of
Thinking Skills in teaching and learning)', in Pulamai 23:1 (India, 1997) Thinnappan, 'Cinkai Tamil Ilakkiya Munnodi Ci.Na.Sadhasiva Pandithar (S.N
Sadhasiva Pandithar, Pioneer of Singapore Tamil literature (1887))', in Pulamai,
24:1 (India, 1998) Thinnappan, 'S.N.Sadhasiva Pandithar and his works - A Pioneer for Singapore
Tamil literature', in Singa, issue 27 (Singapore, 1998) Thinnappan, 'Kudhiraip pandhaiya laavaNi - oor aayvu ( A Study of Kudhiraip
pandhaiya laavaNi)' , in KOLAM, Vol 5&6, (Singapore, July 2000) Thinnappan, 'KuRal kaattum Kudumbam (Family depicted in Thirukkural)' 4 parts,
in Namkudumbam (May-July 2000)
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