In the early years of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, I often heard participants of Mandarin speech contests stressing on stage that as Chinese they took pride in being able to speak Mandarin （some even said they were very proud of it）。 Unfortunately, I hardly shared the feeling. I was saddened rather than elated.
What's gone wrong？ Shouldn't Chinese speak Mandarin？ And if this is so, what is there to be proud of？
If a Japanese were to say that he was proud that he could speak the Japanese language, wouldn't it be laughable？ The irony, however, did not seem to occur to those contestants. Or perhaps they did not have better things that they could feel proud of？
As I see it, we can probably declare the Speak Mandarin Campaign a success only when Chinese Singaporeans stop making such remarks.
They can take pride in everything except the ability to speak Mandarin.
The worry now is that with the standard of English by and large higher than the mother tongue and the gap between the two widening, the emphasis on bilingual education will come under greater pressure.
Many people （including senior government officials） look at the issue with a simple logic： Since everyone understands English, statements, notices and booklets etc from government and statutory boards need to be printed only in English. Why take the trouble and waste resources to make them available in the other three official languages？ They seem to think the request to use the Chinese language is to make life difficult for them.
Someone even raised in Parliament recently that students should not be compelled to learn the mother tongue, that it is enough for them to just learn the English language.
If such a view were to prevail, Singapore would eventually become a monolingual society and the bilingual policy would exist only in name.
To prevent such a scenario from becoming reality, there is a need to ensure that different ethnic groups maintain their mother tongues at an acceptable level and not allow them to decline further.
I believe it is not the aim of the government to turn Singapore into a purely English-speaking society. Yet if we allow the standards of the other three official languages, namely, Chinese, Malay and Tamil to plunge, we are effectively marginalising them and reducing their existence to only a symbolic one.
Take, for instance, the Chinese language. If the standard were to fall to the level of knowing nothing more than nursery rhymes for the young, they would probably still be able to sing along with local songbird Stephanie Sun, but reading Lianhe Zaobao would certainly be beyond them. Could we then claim our bilingual education policy a success？
It is worrying that the overall trend now seems to be for one to treat one's mother tongue as a foreign language. The reason for this is that an increasing number of Chinese families are using English as the only medium of communication at home.
According to the official Singapore Census of Population, the number of primary students using English as their main household language increased sharply from 9.3% in 1980 to 42.4% in 1999.
The 2000 figures showed that 35.8% of Chinese children aged between five and 14 use English as their main household language.
Commenting on this, language expert Dr Goh Yeng Seng said that should the language shift from Mandarin to English continue, English will emerge as the ethnic Chinese lingua franca in place of Mandarin in 10 to 20 years' time.
The aim of the Speak Mandarin Campaign is to make Mandarin the common spoken language among Chinese. Now it seems we are heading for the opposite direction and moving further and further away from the objective.
Think about it. Should what Dr Goh says happen, what price do we have to pay？
Our policy of having four official languages would become nominal, our multi-cultural society would become a mono-cultural one, and we would not be far from becoming a pseudo-Western society.
。The writer is an Executive Sub-editor of Lianhe Zaobao. Translated by Yap Gee Poh.
從前,華語運(yùn)動開展時(shí),常聽到演講比賽的一些參賽者在臺上說：身為華人,我能講華語,我感到很自豪（更有人說感到很驕傲）。
當(dāng)時(shí)我心里感到的不是高興,而是苦澀。怎么搞的,華人講華語,合情又合理,竟然有將這種理所當(dāng)然的事引以為榮。
如果有個日本人說：身為日本人,我能講日語,我感到很驕傲,那簡直是搞笑！可是,為什么新加坡卻有些人這么說呢？難道也想搞笑？難道找不到別的事情可以自豪、驕傲？
所以,我認(rèn)為,華語運(yùn)動要是真的成功,我們就不再聽到有華人說那樣的話。新加坡可自豪的事還不少,拜托大家,別拿這樣的事來引以為榮。
現(xiàn)在我們擔(dān)心是,在英文水平普遍高于母語水平,兩者的距離越拉越大的情況下,堅(jiān)持雙語教育將面對越來越大的壓力。很多人（包括一些高級官員）有一個邏輯：既然大家都看得懂英文,為了減少資源的“浪費(fèi)”,政府及法定機(jī)構(gòu)所發(fā)的文告、通知書、小冊子只須用英文好了,何必那么“麻煩”要用其他三種官方語文。
他們似乎以為,要求用華文就是跟他們過不去。最近甚至有人在國會說,不應(yīng)該硬性規(guī)定學(xué)生必須學(xué)母語,只學(xué)英文就夠了。如果讓這種主張占主導(dǎo),到頭來,新加坡必成為單語社會,雙語政策名存實(shí)亡。
要避免這個局面出現(xiàn),我們一定要確保各民族本身的語文保持一定的水平,母語水平不能一降再降。
我們不相信政府的最終目標(biāo)是要將新加坡變成一個“純英文社會”,然而,華巫印三種官方語文的地位卻是可高可低,降得太低,那就等于將這種語文邊緣化,甚至成為點(diǎn)綴品。以華文來說,如果降到只有“手拍手,拍拍手”,“排排坐,吃果果”的水平,頂多是聽得懂孫燕姿唱的華語歌,卻看不懂《聯(lián)合早報(bào)》,我們的雙語教育能說是成功嗎？
令人擔(dān)憂的是,在今天的新加坡,將母語當(dāng)外語似乎成了大趨勢。形成這一趨勢的原因是：越來越多華族家庭將英語作為家庭的用語。根據(jù)官方人口普查數(shù)字,在家中講英語的小一學(xué)生人數(shù),1980年僅占9.3％,1999年升到42.4％。2000年的人口普查顯示,年齡介于5至14歲的華族少年,35.8％在家講英語。
針對這種情況,本地語言學(xué)家吳英成博士說,這種‘脫華入英’的趨勢如果持續(xù)下去,快則10年,慢則20年,英語將成為新加坡華族最主要的母語。我們的華語運(yùn)動原來有個目標(biāo)：使華語成為華族的共同語,看來,我們現(xiàn)在是朝著相反的方向走,離開“華語是華族的共同語”這目標(biāo)是越來越遠(yuǎn)。
大家有沒有好好想一想,一旦新加坡到了那么一天,我們要付出的代價(jià)是什么？我們的四種官方語言政策將名存實(shí)亡,多元文化逐漸被單元文化取代,我們的文化傳統(tǒng)有可能失傳,那時(shí),我們離一個“偽西方社會”還會遠(yuǎn)嗎了？
。作者為早報(bào)執(zhí)行級編輯
What's gone wrong？ Shouldn't Chinese speak Mandarin？ And if this is so, what is there to be proud of？
If a Japanese were to say that he was proud that he could speak the Japanese language, wouldn't it be laughable？ The irony, however, did not seem to occur to those contestants. Or perhaps they did not have better things that they could feel proud of？
As I see it, we can probably declare the Speak Mandarin Campaign a success only when Chinese Singaporeans stop making such remarks.
They can take pride in everything except the ability to speak Mandarin.
The worry now is that with the standard of English by and large higher than the mother tongue and the gap between the two widening, the emphasis on bilingual education will come under greater pressure.
Many people （including senior government officials） look at the issue with a simple logic： Since everyone understands English, statements, notices and booklets etc from government and statutory boards need to be printed only in English. Why take the trouble and waste resources to make them available in the other three official languages？ They seem to think the request to use the Chinese language is to make life difficult for them.
Someone even raised in Parliament recently that students should not be compelled to learn the mother tongue, that it is enough for them to just learn the English language.
If such a view were to prevail, Singapore would eventually become a monolingual society and the bilingual policy would exist only in name.
To prevent such a scenario from becoming reality, there is a need to ensure that different ethnic groups maintain their mother tongues at an acceptable level and not allow them to decline further.
I believe it is not the aim of the government to turn Singapore into a purely English-speaking society. Yet if we allow the standards of the other three official languages, namely, Chinese, Malay and Tamil to plunge, we are effectively marginalising them and reducing their existence to only a symbolic one.
Take, for instance, the Chinese language. If the standard were to fall to the level of knowing nothing more than nursery rhymes for the young, they would probably still be able to sing along with local songbird Stephanie Sun, but reading Lianhe Zaobao would certainly be beyond them. Could we then claim our bilingual education policy a success？
It is worrying that the overall trend now seems to be for one to treat one's mother tongue as a foreign language. The reason for this is that an increasing number of Chinese families are using English as the only medium of communication at home.
According to the official Singapore Census of Population, the number of primary students using English as their main household language increased sharply from 9.3% in 1980 to 42.4% in 1999.
The 2000 figures showed that 35.8% of Chinese children aged between five and 14 use English as their main household language.
Commenting on this, language expert Dr Goh Yeng Seng said that should the language shift from Mandarin to English continue, English will emerge as the ethnic Chinese lingua franca in place of Mandarin in 10 to 20 years' time.
The aim of the Speak Mandarin Campaign is to make Mandarin the common spoken language among Chinese. Now it seems we are heading for the opposite direction and moving further and further away from the objective.
Think about it. Should what Dr Goh says happen, what price do we have to pay？
Our policy of having four official languages would become nominal, our multi-cultural society would become a mono-cultural one, and we would not be far from becoming a pseudo-Western society.
。The writer is an Executive Sub-editor of Lianhe Zaobao. Translated by Yap Gee Poh.
從前,華語運(yùn)動開展時(shí),常聽到演講比賽的一些參賽者在臺上說：身為華人,我能講華語,我感到很自豪（更有人說感到很驕傲）。
當(dāng)時(shí)我心里感到的不是高興,而是苦澀。怎么搞的,華人講華語,合情又合理,竟然有將這種理所當(dāng)然的事引以為榮。
如果有個日本人說：身為日本人,我能講日語,我感到很驕傲,那簡直是搞笑！可是,為什么新加坡卻有些人這么說呢？難道也想搞笑？難道找不到別的事情可以自豪、驕傲？
所以,我認(rèn)為,華語運(yùn)動要是真的成功,我們就不再聽到有華人說那樣的話。新加坡可自豪的事還不少,拜托大家,別拿這樣的事來引以為榮。
現(xiàn)在我們擔(dān)心是,在英文水平普遍高于母語水平,兩者的距離越拉越大的情況下,堅(jiān)持雙語教育將面對越來越大的壓力。很多人（包括一些高級官員）有一個邏輯：既然大家都看得懂英文,為了減少資源的“浪費(fèi)”,政府及法定機(jī)構(gòu)所發(fā)的文告、通知書、小冊子只須用英文好了,何必那么“麻煩”要用其他三種官方語文。
他們似乎以為,要求用華文就是跟他們過不去。最近甚至有人在國會說,不應(yīng)該硬性規(guī)定學(xué)生必須學(xué)母語,只學(xué)英文就夠了。如果讓這種主張占主導(dǎo),到頭來,新加坡必成為單語社會,雙語政策名存實(shí)亡。
要避免這個局面出現(xiàn),我們一定要確保各民族本身的語文保持一定的水平,母語水平不能一降再降。
我們不相信政府的最終目標(biāo)是要將新加坡變成一個“純英文社會”,然而,華巫印三種官方語文的地位卻是可高可低,降得太低,那就等于將這種語文邊緣化,甚至成為點(diǎn)綴品。以華文來說,如果降到只有“手拍手,拍拍手”,“排排坐,吃果果”的水平,頂多是聽得懂孫燕姿唱的華語歌,卻看不懂《聯(lián)合早報(bào)》,我們的雙語教育能說是成功嗎？
令人擔(dān)憂的是,在今天的新加坡,將母語當(dāng)外語似乎成了大趨勢。形成這一趨勢的原因是：越來越多華族家庭將英語作為家庭的用語。根據(jù)官方人口普查數(shù)字,在家中講英語的小一學(xué)生人數(shù),1980年僅占9.3％,1999年升到42.4％。2000年的人口普查顯示,年齡介于5至14歲的華族少年,35.8％在家講英語。
針對這種情況,本地語言學(xué)家吳英成博士說,這種‘脫華入英’的趨勢如果持續(xù)下去,快則10年,慢則20年,英語將成為新加坡華族最主要的母語。我們的華語運(yùn)動原來有個目標(biāo)：使華語成為華族的共同語,看來,我們現(xiàn)在是朝著相反的方向走,離開“華語是華族的共同語”這目標(biāo)是越來越遠(yuǎn)。
大家有沒有好好想一想,一旦新加坡到了那么一天,我們要付出的代價(jià)是什么？我們的四種官方語言政策將名存實(shí)亡,多元文化逐漸被單元文化取代,我們的文化傳統(tǒng)有可能失傳,那時(shí),我們離一個“偽西方社會”還會遠(yuǎn)嗎了？
。作者為早報(bào)執(zhí)行級編輯