Keep Mother Tongue Alive at Home
保留族群母语在各族家庭中的生存空间
In his speech at the 25th anniversary of the Speak Mandarin campaign, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has said that: “…The Speak Mandarin campaign now is to encourage parents and students not to switch to speaking English to the children at home…When we began the Speak Mandarin campaign, our minorities, Malays and Indians, were concerned that we would drift back towards a Chinese-speaking society. They now know that there is nothing to fear. Indeed Malay and Indian children are facing the same problems in learning their own mother tongues…My advice to all is, try to keep your mother tongue alive at home. We should also use our mother tongues at markets, shopping malls, hawker centres, food-courts, restaurants, whenever we can…”.<Ref1*>
I think many people would agree that MM Lee’s advices are timely and important for all Singaporeans. It is especially so, when we ponder upon the following facts.
In Singapore, base on the policies and rules of games set by our government, which it has persuaded most people to accept them as pragmatic approaches to deal with our unique national situations; and, after many years of nation building since 1965, we have, besides the English working environment, set up an all-English education system with bilingual policy which requires ethnic mother tongue to be taught as a (single), second language subject to most students.
This all-English education system is truly regardless of race, language and nationality. That is to say, any child by the age of 7 or 4 <Ref2*>, with normal aptitude and who has come from a non-English speaking environment <Ref3*>, would have been converted to an English speaking and educated young adult by the time he or she has completed the O-Level education. And we have to bear in mind that we have not yet mention the variety of higher education, which are also mostly in English, that 40% or more of our students, as well as our elite, will take after their O-Level. (converted or "social-engineered" problem...<Ref4*>)
Therefore, with such an all-English system in place, it would be very reasonable to suggest and encourage all Singaporeans to retain the language custom practiced by our fore-fathers and most people in today’s world, which is, to allow their children to learn and use the ethnic mother tongue at home. This is because once the children have enrolled into pre-school education at the age of 3 or 4, they will begin to immerse into an all-English learning and working system UNTIL THEY GET OLD AND RETIRE. Hence our system will ensure all children would master the English language, not the mother tongue language, naturally. That is why a lot of our young adults have the impression that they are forced to learn mother tongue but not English. If we were to have an all-Mother Tongue system instead of all-English system in place, the impression would be reversed. (It is a COMMON SENSE that no language is too difficult to learn as long as the education system is using it as the sole or main medium of instructions and the society rewards it as the working language. This is because, whether one like it or not, in order to be educated and employable, one must force himself or herself to master the language. Hence, when our young complain that ethnic mother tongue is difficult to learn, we know it is only partly due to the language itself, but mostly due to the lack of effective supporting and rewarding systems mentioned in the above COMMON SENSE.<Ref5*>)
However, so far, the efforts to encourage the use of ethnic mother tongues for all races, especially to use them at home, are not very successful. Take for example, the Speak Mandarin campaign for Chinese Singaporeans has been around for 25 years, but the English-speaking Chinese families have risen to 50% this year (i.e. year 2004) and it is still rising.
Although we have to respect the Rights of parents to choose their family language, but we should always insist to encourage parents on the facts that, in Singapore, with an all-English learning and working system in place, and as an Asian country, the best and balance way to nurture our young to become bilingual and bi-cultural citizens is to allow them to use ethnic mother tongue at home and in normal social life while learning and working largely in English.
This language aspiration is easy to achieve because it is nearer to the real life situations we face today. In fact, what all Singaporean parents need to do is simply adhere to our fore-fathers’ and the world’s language custom of Speak Ethnic Mother Tongue at home (NB: Speak Mandarin campaign can thus be seen as a subset of this custom. Hence we can replace Speak Mandarin campaign with Speak Ethnic Mother Tongue campaign in future for all Singaporeans if needed). Our school and working systems will take care of the English language; they will guarantee most children, if not all, would master English eventually. Therefore, it is un-wise and un-necessary to turn our home language system from Asians’ to English’s.
Finally, as we are determined to build, not an English Singaporeans or Chinese, Malay, Indian Singaporeans Singapore, but a bilingual, multi-racial and multi-cultural Singaporeans Singapore <Ref6*>, therefore, for long term consideration, we should insist on the principle that, regardless which language is used by the majority of Singaporeans as their lingua franca <Ref7*>, we must always maintain our WILL (which our fore-fathers have when building the current bilingual, multi-racial & multi-cultural system) to adjust our policies and rules of games, as and when necessary, so as to ensure a more balance playing field for the healthy development of English and ethnic mother tongues and multi-racial cultures in Singapore.
(The followings are References):
Please refer to The Straits Times report dated on 14/Dec/2004 for more details.
Age of 4, if we were to take into account the pre-school education.
Ref3: For example, many English-educated Singaporeans whose age are above 40, are from Chinese's dialect speaking families or Malay and Indian speaking families. They are the living proof that whatever language one use at home would not hinder the learning of English as long as English is assigned as the sole learning medium in our education system.
As all of our young will be converted or "social-engineered" into English speaking and educated adult with little exposure to their own ethnic languages and cultures, therefore, we are likely to hear more of them saying they dislike or do not feel affinity for ethnic mother tongues or cultures. But if they are truly fair and highly educated with introspection ability, one day, they will find out why they tend to behave this way under the influences of our education and social systems, and hopefully, they will have the moral courage to rectify their bias views and support a fair and just bilingual policy. Such a policy will nurture all Singaporeans to respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, and it will begin with the very basic, that is, the self-respect, the respect of one's own language and culture.
For example, we may suffer a lot when learning English and Mother Tongue, but after working for a few years, we may only remember the sufferings of learning Mother Tongue. Why? This is because we have rewarded and made English an useful working language but not Mother Tongue. Therefore, for Mother Tongue, the rewards it can offer might not match the efforts being put in, thus, we are more likely to remember the sufferings than benefits.
Our bilingual policy is an important policy and mechanism to ensure all future Singaporeans will always learn ethnic mother tongues and English. To prevent anybody trying to mislead our young into treating this policy as a sacred cow waited to be slaughtered, we should amend our Constitution to include and protect this policy. We have amended our Constitution to empower an elected President to protect our reserves and the integrity of our civil service system. Shouldn't we do something likewise to safeguard our bilingual policy?
When English was not used by majority of Singaporeans, we have the WILL to implement the bilingual policy. When English has become the major language in Singapore, if we are fair and just, we should keep this WILL and insist on the bilingual policy.