Use Singlish at work? 'Can lah,' say more people in Singapore, according to study
SINGAPORE — More people in Singapore are using Singlish more frequently in everyday life, including at work, with 80 per cent of those who are younger saying they speak the colloquial language well.An increasing number also identify most with English or Singlish, while the proportion of people who identify most with their mother tongue or parents’ dialects has dropped, according to a new study by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).In another finding, mother tongue proficiency has remained stable over the years based on self-reported figures, but ethnic Chinese respondents were more likely to perceive a drop in general mother tongue standards in Singapore.The increased identification with Singlish represents an attempt to describe a sense of national identity, said Dr Mathew Mathews, head of the IPS Social Lab and lead researcher of the study published on May 25.The Language Identity and Management in Singapore study draws from findings of the latest IPS survey on Race, Religion and Language, which surveyed 4,000 Singapore residents in 2024, for comparison with its 2013 and 2018 iterations.