The Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC; simplified Chinese: 讲华语运动; traditional Chinese: 講華語運動; pinyin: Jiǎng Huáyǔ Yùndòng) is an initiative by the government of Singapore to encourage the Singaporean Chinese population to speak Mandarin, one of the four official languages of Singapore. Launched on 7 September 1979 by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and organised by the Promote Mandarin Council, the SMC has been an annual event promoting the use of Mandarin.
Read more about Speak Mandarin Campaign: Background, Motivation, Evolution, Implementation, Outcome, Criticism, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words speak and/or campaign:
“As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“The fact that a man is to vote forces him to think. You may preach to a congregation by the year and not affect its thought because it is not called upon for definite action. But throw your subject into a campaign and it becomes a challenge.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)