Like any self respecting Gen Y individual, I learned Japanese, and while I kinda sucked at writing — I was totally reduced to a dumb NS guy, on purpose. I found being dumb helped past the days, and made me appreciate the simpler things in life — I was a natural, especially tonally, and my cute Japanese doll teacher recommended I take the oral exams.
Teachers make the difference, don’t they? And besides speaking like Minnie Mouse, she spoke and taught with the Tokyo accent, and I think that really helped me group a random mess of strokes into sounds and words.
Instead of FUKU TO SHIN, she pronounced it Tokyo style, “FUKk TO SHiN”, which as you know, is similar sounding as “fù doū xīn”
SHINJUKU, instead of being pronounced SHINJOOKOO, SHINJKu
The Tokyo accent bastardized much of the language, obviously, driven by hard syllables and symmetry, adopting Roman language principles, so that even when poorly pronounced, anyone can understand.
This is why Cantonese and Taiwan Standard Mandarin never became global the way China Standard Mandarin has become.
Pronounce them in any tone, or screw it up almost entirely in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Shanghai.
Only one city’s citizens will understand you perfectly, and praise you for even attempting.
It is the level of intelligibility of bastardization, not colloquialism, not necessarily, that helps linguists predict which languages will last, and the answers may surprise you.
Singlish, is the world’s fastest growing creole of the English language. Outside of China, more people are trying to learn to speak, for fear of not understanding, Singlish, than Korean. How amazing is that! In fact the structure has reached a status that it qualifies as a language.
Rather unexpectedly, Singapore Standard Mandarin is expected to become the second most spoken form of Standard Mandarin. It’s funny, because my colleagues were largely Mainland Chinese — I really have to say, it’s Singaporeans who aren’t willing, not that there are no jobs — and within one year, despite me and the casino patrons, and even among patrons few are Singaporeans, they lose their accent quite significantly.
They are exasperated, sometimes, when they go back for New Year, that it’s pointed out to them, and within 2 days, the immediately family is “infected”, unable to rid themselves of the accent.
This is true for my Vietnamese, Japanese and Thai colleagues too. It’s so weird.
Just imagine, through our collective environment, we are spreading a Singaporeanism to foreign labor, subconsciously, who pay it forward. It’s the Indian construction laborers who slugged it out 10 years ago, and their children visiting the nation that gave employment to their parents and grandparents, in kind.
When I think of Singapore, and the fire that it burns in others who come, and despite the cost, are just happy to be a part of it all, I can’t help but feel moved, and confident that no matter what Singapore becomes, and the day may come when Singapore comes under Malaysia rule, or Indonesia, Australia, Chinese, American… By force, or by choice, or what… it is, and always, will be, eternal.
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