Dr Gwee Li Sui - Spiaking Singlish: A Companion to How Singaporeans Communicate

Praise for Spiaking Singlish

More than any cunning linguist who has produced cheem publications (self included), Dr Gwee Li Sui has been the one to put Singlish on the map, in world media, and, most of all, in our mouths. Spiaking Singlish is what its all about not just a list of quaint sayings, formally explained, but a whole book, in Singlish. Perhaps most crucially, Gwee shows how Singlish indeed, any emergent contact language variety isnt a handicap. Articulate and persuasive, he amuses, he expounds, he argues fully grounded in theories of language contact and change and all in Singlish! His performance throughout the book is a delight to proponents of translingual practice, seamlessly bringing together the more standard and more Singlish dimensions of his repertoire. I especially appreciate how much he sayangs Singapores diversity and multiculturalism, in word and in deed. He continues to do for Singlish what many of us only talk about revel in it even on the most formal of platforms, use it as one would use any language. This is precisely how any once-maligned language variety can increase in international intelligibility, garner greater acceptability, and attain legitimacy. Im putting this book on my course reading list.

Dr Lisa Lim, Associate Professor and Head of the School of English, University of Hong Kong

When I approached Dr Gwee to write a Singlish column for The Middle Ground, I knew I might be asking for trouble. Would The Middle Ground kena suan for promoting Singlish? If so, I would argue that the rest of our columns and news reports clearly showed our support for good, standard English and at a high level too. We cant deny that Singlish is part of our heritage, so why not delve into it more deeply? Dr Gwee obliged. He very nice one.

Bertha Henson

Veteran journalist who declines to reveal her age

Hes done it! Gwee has written a book explaining Singlish... in Singlish! Champion! So better fasterly buy this powderful book before it kena banned or dunno what!

Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen

Editors of The Coxford Singlish Dictionary

Singlish has always been a big part of my personal and maybe even more so of my professional life. I am excited that Gwee Li Sui has decided to embark on this project to make Singlish accessible to the masses not just locally but for the international market to appreciate something we can really call our very own. Dont play, play!

Gurmit Singh

Artist, author, and director of InDaHouz

Actually ah, I neh intended to be the Queens-English-enemy-number-one with my op-ed in The New Paper. Just so happens at the time, bladdy TV execs and mega-angkat cronies were telling us TV sitcom writers to write proper English. So, of course, everyone angry la siol. Liddat the tone of voice sure salah one what. Hallo, when have writers EVER listened to cockanaden execs?! Big surprise meh? Ah Gwee, you hantam them properly, can?

Imran Johri

Scriptwriter for Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd, Season 3

Wah seh! Who more tokong to write about Singlish than Dr Gwee! His England is more powderful than Queen of England sia! Also, inside the book got mention me, so I lagi must sappork! You may think Singlish is just anyhowly one but acherly is quite cheem ok? Dun say I bojio! Buy his book now!

mrbrown (aka Lee Kin Mun)

Blogfather of Singapore

Text and cartoons 2018 Gwee Li Sui

Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions

An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Name(s): Gwee, Li Sui, 1970

Title: Spiaking Singlish : a companion to how Singaporeans communicate / Gwee Li Sui.

Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, [2017]

Identifier(s): OCN 1003189566 | eISBN 978 981 4794 36 7

Subject(s): LCSH: English languageVariationSingapore. | English language Spoken EnglishSingapore.

Classification: DDC 427.95957dc23

Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd

Ah Kong, we miss you!

We have included this note for the sake of readers who might otherwise wonder what this incomprehensible, gibberish book is. Spiaking Singlish is arguably the first language book written entirely in Singlish. Not surprisingly, it also centres on Singlish.

Many people think that Singlish involves adding lahs and lors to regular sentences, but the truth is that it is so much more. The language has evolved since the 1970s when journalist Sylvia Toh Paik Choo wrote regularly about it. Acknowledged as the Queen Mother of Singlish, Tohs columns in Fanfare magazine and her Eh, Goondu! books had generated much discussion. Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen of the website Talking Cock published The Coxford Singlish Dictionary and cartoonist Miel An Essential Guide to Singlish in 2002 and 2003 respectively. Today, over forty years after the term was coined, the Singlish discussion continues in earnest.

Singlish, just like its country Singapore, has undergone upgrading, and Dr Gwee Li Sui explains its development to what it is today here. Some readers may find Spiaking Singlish challenging to read because of a lack of familiarity with several terms used. For this reason, there is an index with over 600 entries at the end of the book to help you track down definitions within it. If you faithfully read all forty-five chapters, we guarantee that youll find every term explained at some point.

A couple of features need us to intervene and clarify though. Firstly, it may take a while for a reader to figure out the way some words appear in the book. For example, the root word mati, meaning die, can take a form in the past tense and thus be spelt as matied.

Secondly, because Singlish is oral and aural, Dr Gwee has put a spelling to several words that were previously only verbal. To give two examples, liddat, for like that, and Gahmen, for government, are spelt the way they are pronounced in Singlish. Hopefully, doing so can help form the basis of some future standard Singlish like how the initiative to standardise Malay spelling in the 1970s had worked.