Speak Good English Movement - Criticism - Singlish As A Marker of Singaporean Identity - Save Our Singlish Campaign

Save Our Singlish Campaign

On 27 April 2002, two years after the start of SGEM, TalkingCock launched the Save Our Singlish Campaign . They made it clear at the speech during the launch that they were not against the speaking of good English. Rather, they "completely support the writing and speaking of good English" and hoped that SGEM see the Save Our Singlish Campaign "as complementary, not adversarial." TalkingCock found it important to save Singlish for it is a crucial part of the Singaporean culture and heritage:

Why we’re fighting for Singlish, is because it’s simply a part of our culture. In fact, it may be the ONLY thing that makes us uniquely Singaporean.It mixes all the various languages, which to me, seems to spread multi-cultural understanding. I thought this was something to be proud of.

Furthermore, they reiterated that "Singlish is not just broken English. It’s a patois." Their argument was that speaking good English should not be promoted at the expense of Singlish. Singapore Watch sumed it up with "Speak Singlish proudly, speak English properly." Colin Goh who started TalkingCock, pointed out that Singaporeans are able to tell the difference between English and Singlish:

Have more faith in Singaporeans than that. We know when to use Singlish and when not to. ... We are intelligent enough to know we don’t write formal letters in Singlish. When was the last time you typed out, "Eh, give me a job, leh!" And we try not to speak Singlish to our foreign friends because we instinctively know that they might not understand. Or as we say, they’ll catch no ball.

He further acknowledged that there are times when improper English is spoken by Singaporeans but reiterated that the blame cannot be pushed to Singlish:

If Singaporeans' communication with Europeans or Americans is bad, that's because they speak broken English, not Singlish. We all know we can't speak Singlish to foreigners because they'll all catch no ball. That's just common sense. The fault isn't with too much Singlish, it's because English is taught so badly.

In an event held on 24 August 2006, TalkingCock in Parliament: We, the Citizens, Ruby Pan who was a Ministry of Education scholar and graduated from Princeton University displayed the ability to switch easily from Standard English to Singlish and to different English accents.