Singdarin

Colloquial Singaporean Mandarin, commonly known as Singdarin^[a] or Singnese,^[b] is a Mandarin dialect native and unique to Singapore similar to its English-based counterpart Singlish. It is based on Mandarin but has a large amount of English and Malay in its vocabulary. There are also words from other Chinese languages such as Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew as well as Tamil.^[3] While Singdarin grammar is largely identical to Standard Mandarin, there are significant divergences and differences especially in its pronunciation and vocabulary.

The Singaporean government had previously discouraged the use of Singdarin in favour of Standard Singaporean Mandarin under the Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC), as it believed in the need for Singaporeans to be able to communicate effectively with other Chinese speakers from mainland China, Taiwan or other Sinophone regions. However, such campaigns have been toned down in recent years in response to push-back by Singaporeans, expressing the uniqueness of Singdarin in Singaporean culture.^[4]

Today, Singdarin remains often used and is commonly spoken in colloquial speech in Singapore and occasionally even on local television, and most Chinese-speaking Singaporeans are able to code-switch between Singdarin and Standard Mandarin, likewise with most Singaporeans in general with Singlish and standard Singapore English. Furthermore, most non-Chinese Singaporeans are also generally able to understand or speak Singdarin due to many of its phrases and words being widely used in common parlance throughout Singapore, including words which were initially not of Mandarin origin but subsequently adopted into Singdarin.

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