Originally posted by angel3070:Language IS culture.
Language is part of the non material culture of the people.
You don't seem to grasp that.
Language IS culture.
For example eating pork is not in the food culture of muslims, eating beef is not part of food culture of hindus, eating insects is part of food culture of thais but not that of western people.
Eating using hands is part of culture of malays but not that of chinese.
Use chopsticks to eat is chinese culture but not that of muslims.
Use chopsticks as a way to eat is part of chinese culture, use certain type of language or dialect to communicate, to speak is part of the culture of southern chinese people.
Use certain languages IS part of the culture of people.
We must be clear.
Picture, sign language and drawing are universal language, i dun believe that there is a language barrier if you are friendly in everywhere you go. Just dun show your middle finger.
The term language is culture already differentiate btw culture and language, it is by understanding the language that you get to know better of the culture, both them must interwind and evolve together. But without knowing the language, you can also adopt to the culture, like some ang mo also practice chopstick and bowl to eat food, especially on chinese foods, but they do not neccessary need to know the culture. Yes, language and culture works hand in hand, but to me, Language is not Culture hor
Originally posted by Atobe:
It is best for a Taiwanese "Hum" to get out of the local discussion when it is only familiar with the propaganda filth fed to for the daily diet of the "hum" ?
There is no integrity in a foreign Taiwanese "hum" - who does not even have the integrity of any honorable Taiwanese that will oppose any political tyrant that will abuse and incarcerate its own comrades for 20 years and more.
Are you qualififed to pass any comments for what ever it is worth from a "hum" ?
Going, Decemeber holiday go back Taiwan liao...dun worry lah
Originally posted by angel7030:
Going, Decemeber holiday go back Taiwan liao...dun worry lah
Bury yourself on the beach in Taiwan, and hope that the next typhoon will bring your further from your Taiwanese shores.
Originally posted by angel3070:Language IS culture.
Language is part of the non material culture of the people.
You don't seem to grasp that.
Language IS culture.
For example eating pork is not in the food culture of muslims, eating beef is not part of food culture of hindus, eating insects is part of food culture of thais but not that of western people.
Eating using hands is part of culture of malays but not that of chinese.
Use chopsticks to eat is chinese culture but not that of muslims.
Use chopsticks as a way to eat is part of chinese culture, use certain type of language or dialect to communicate, to speak is part of the culture of southern chinese people.
Use certain languages IS part of the culture of people.
We must be clear.
This is where cultured sensitive comes into specific and not being a monolithic culture that overshadow the rest......For particularly Chinese writing characters are part of chinese culture as Chinese characters are a derivation of calligarphy thru inscription from expressing objects. Thus you can said language ties into its cultured.
While other languages such as spanish are oral phonetics. and influence by various civilizations such as Arabic, and other European language. So its less of cultured influence.
Originally posted by angel7030:You have not widely visit the world enuf, if you are in Tapei, beijin or shanghai talking to American trained management, scholars and trainers, they speak fluent American english with a New yorker accents. Therefore, in near future, we can see PRC speak perfect slanted American English, and they are hunger for it. For those PRC who are here in Singapore, these are the begining stage, and also these group are those from rural areas, they dun understand english or singlish, not wrong, after all, they are from China Chinese, you cannot expect them to speak like singaporeans singlish, but those who are educated here will find it hard to speak American english.
Finally, if you really want to learn speaking good Chinese as the Chinese does, visit my geyland or joo chiat kopitiams, there are lots of beautiful and sexy Chinese teacher here with special services waiting for you.
I can only said this to you..........Ma loa BOOMZ!
Such ignorant presumption.......I am quite sure i walked more places in Taiwan alone than the time you spend in Taiwan....perharp u should come to my place in Shin Chu....introduce u to taiwan Lao Tai....
I have a question so now that he admit it was a mistake ? Any room to file for Class Action ? For those borned in the 60's that suffer the consequences? ....
Originally posted by angel3070:Language IS culture.
Language is part of the non material culture of the people.
You don't seem to grasp that.
Language IS culture.
For example eating pork is not in the food culture of muslims, eating beef is not part of food culture of hindus, eating insects is part of food culture of thais but not that of western people.
Eating using hands is part of culture of malays but not that of chinese.
Use chopsticks to eat is chinese culture but not that of muslims.
Use chopsticks as a way to eat is part of chinese culture, use certain type of language or dialect to communicate, to speak is part of the culture of southern chinese people.
Use certain languages IS part of the culture of people.
We must be clear.
why you sound so upset? Language is part of a culture, not The culture. many people learn the language without adopting the culture. Many of us speak English but we do not necessarily accept or adopt the culture, many indonesia may speak very little mandarin or dialects but practice a lot in the chinese culture.
Originally posted by angel7030:
Picture, sign language and drawing are universal language, i dun believe that there is a language barrier if you are friendly in everywhere you go. Just dun show your middle finger.The term language is culture already differentiate btw culture and language, it is by understanding the language that you get to know better of the culture, both them must interwind and evolve together. But without knowing the language, you can also adopt to the culture, like some ang mo also practice chopstick and bowl to eat food, especially on chinese foods, but they do not neccessary need to know the culture. Yes, language and culture works hand in hand, but to me, Language is not Culture hor
If culture is defined as a set of practices, ideas and values people create to deal with real-life problems, then why shouldn't lanaguage be considered a part of culture?
Originally posted by Arapahoe:I can only said this to you..........Ma loa BOOMZ!
Such ignorant presumption.......I am quite sure i walked more places in Taiwan alone than the time you spend in Taiwan....perharp u should come to my place in Shin Chu....introduce u to taiwan Lao Tai....
I ignore her most times.
She has 16000+ posts, so far from my limited sample size, about 90% are one-liners and remarks that are not useful at all.
Originally posted by Arapahoe:To all readers….please just because he barks doesn’t mean that you should hastily Jump…
I was just wondering if generally Singaporean learned the right lesson coming out of this rare acknowledgement. Or it is his subtlety of charting new direction for Singapore?
I just thought that this is not about the right brain vs left brain or adopting English as priority....but rather how policies was set without much questioning and debate....or examine….the system..So stop repeating the past hast decision. .....there are hardly any debate of the direction of What Singapore should Take....
So what if we took the wrong path in English? I mean if today America or Europe still dominate the future economies would he make such revision remarks?
GCK Said Singapore should be made relevant but should relevant means "common" Does Singapore really want to be seen the homogenous as the rest of the region? By the way PRC has an image problems it isn't well like....Should Singapore be Unique...differentiate from the main competitors in the region?
The future language isn't about Mandarin or English bilingual.........U got to be able to understand at least 3 APEC languages.......
I was once in a meeting with Spanish, English, Korean....and the common language in that meeting was Spanish.
........so asked yourself these questions....
1) Do you really want to sound like a PRC when u speak English? When your MNC counterpart could not distinct you to be PRC or Singaporean?
2) Do you really want to pronounce ph as phy because most chinese have a hardtime grasping the "H" and if you are old and your crown fall off....!!
3) Lastly after 40 years of independent Singapore finally reach a world stage where we are not mistaken to be in China....but the southern tip of Malaysia....So lets not confused the world again by projecting ourseleves as chinese from China.....Hellloooo!!!
We speak with a singlish accent so be it....we don't sound PRC so be it...
I encounter usually two standard remarks about Singaporeans in my work.
1. We speak too fast, so much so that our pronounciation is not done properly, and people tend to miss what we said
2. We tend to be lazy in the way we end our sentences and articulation of words. Most other native English speakers tend to give an energetic 'lift' to the end of their sentences, and to emphasize at times on certain words to drive through what they want to express.
Appropriate emphasis of words tend to help drive through understanding, because most times, people don't need to catch the entire sentence to understand, but just the key words.
That's basically 2 things about our 'Singlish'. It's not that I advocate us to sound like an American or English, etc, but it does us immense benefits if we learn to slow a bit, pronounce better, and make appropriate emphasis on words in our sentence. After all, language is mainly a tool for communications, it doesn't hurt to help others understand us better.
Most other native English speakers tend to give an energetic 'lift' to the end of their sentences, and to emphasize at times on certain words to drive through what they want to express.
I can't agree more with you. You would have studied and worked long enough in the western countries to be keenly aware of such subtle differences.
This the beauty of the spoken English language, isn't it? Of which we Singaporeans tend ignore or de-emphasis.
Originally posted by 4sg:I can't agree more with you. You would have studied and worked long enough in the western countries to be keenly aware of such subtle differences.
This the beauty of the spoken English language, isn't it? Of which we Singaporeans tend ignore or de-emphasis.
I can understand the economical value of being able to speak English so that native English speakers could understand us.
What i don't understand however, is why we seemed to have to be so ashamed that we are speaking it with a local flavour to it? Why do we have to look down on those who are not speaking the "proper English"?
I'm sure there would be Americans that would find it hard to understand the Scottish/Irish/Welsh English speakers, and British who would find it a little difficult to grasp what people living South of the Mason-Dixie Line are trying to say.
Why do we have to be so uptight and self conscious about our local flavour of English? The feeling is like we actually think Singaporeans who couldn't speak the "proper English" are somehow stupid or belong to an inferior class, to be despised and looked down upon when it's perfectly fine to use for communication with locals.
Are our English so horrible that a few conversations with native speakers wouldn't solve? What's the big deal with using Singlish that why we have to be so embarassed about it?
Originally posted by Stevenson101:What's the big deal with using Singlish that why we have to be so embarassed about it?
Because english is foreign alien language and singlish is a bastardised version of it.
So people feel ashamed of speaking a bastardised version of english.
Some more they don't see people on TV speaking singlish who are authoritative figures, so they don't have an example to follow.
They say "oh look at Lee Kuan Yew, he doesn't speak singlish, he speaks proper english, so singlish is not for high and mightly elites."
Actually the correct way should be for people to speak their native language, not go and speak foreign alien languages, then cannot speak properly then feel inferior.
That is a rubbish way of nation building but of course if the one making policies is a fucking anglo dog...
Let's take a look at other countries and what sort of language policy they have:
Tajikistan Moves to Ban Russian Language
DUSHANBE, July 23 (RIA Novosti) - Tajikistan's president has proposed
banning the Russian language from being used in public institutions and
official documents, a move he said would promote the development of
Tajik and bolster patriotism in the country.
"The dignity of a
nation is determined, above all, by how people preserve and respect
their language," Emomali Rakhmon said in a televised address late on
Wednesday...
http://tajikam.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125&Itemid=39
"The amendment to the act on the state language of the Slovak Republic, adopted on 30 June 2009, has led to strong reactions from the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and from politicians in Hungary itself," the authors explain.
The law originally stated that Slovak was the mandatory language of official contacts throughout the country....
http://www.euractiv.com/en/culture/slovak-hungarian-dispute-slovakia-language-law/article-186732
Other countries, the main, the majority language they enforce while colonial, alien languages they destroy.
In Singapore the reverse is true.
The majority language they suppress and seek to destroy, while the colonial minority language used by a handful of loyal dogs, they enforce.
The main reason for this rubbish situation is due to politics.
Originally posted by Stevenson101:I can understand the economical value of being able to speak English so that native English speakers could understand us.
What i don't understand however, is why we seemed to have to be so ashamed that we are speaking it with a local flavour to it? Why do we have to look down on those who are not speaking the "proper English"?
I'm sure there would be Americans that would find it hard to understand the Scottish/Irish/Welsh English speakers, and British who would find it a little difficult to grasp what people living South of the Mason-Dixie Line are trying to say.
Why do we have to be so uptight and self conscious about our local flavour of English? The feeling is like we actually think Singaporeans who couldn't speak the "proper English" are somehow stupid or belong to an inferior class, to be despised and looked down upon when it's perfectly fine to use for communication with locals.
Are our English so horrible that a few conversations with native speakers wouldn't solve? What's the big deal with using Singlish that why we have to be so embarassed about it?
Whether we are ashamed or not is besides the point. The point being, it's not really an accent issue, but more a laziness issue that resulted in our lazy style of English. Even if I speak with proper emphasis on words, my accent is STILL singaporean. That's how my colleagues see it. The way we speak is still predominantly Singaporean flavour.
The only difference is in speaking properly, and not in a slid-shod manner much like how we dress up in Singapore.
The point being, it's not really an accent issue, but more a laziness issue that resulted in our lazy style of English.
I don't think it is due to laziness but rather due to the bullshit education system.
Originally posted by Stevenson101:It's rather strange though, one thing i noticed is that Cantonese teenagers continues to speak their dialect among themselves it has always given me the impression that Cantonese is the dominant dialect group, which isn't true.
But it's rarely the case with the Hokkien or Teochew.
While i can agree that we have a part to play with the decline in dialect, i don't think the answer's as straight forward as being completely due to LKY's efforts.
Not really, I realised that I tend to spew more vulgarity when I speak in teochew or hokkien in cantonese.
There is an ongoing story written by a forumer in Miss Tiny TV forum and many forumers like the story that is written in a mixture of English and Chinese and it is fun.
Back in the early 71 Singapore chinese businessman travel to China via HKG or Macau and as they entered into China they stamped their passport onto a pcs of paper as it was illegal to travel to communist state....
That was how cross border procurement was done in the early days for private chinese businessman from Singapore....infact we trade all the way to Warsaw in the Cold war....did we speak great Russian or Polish? Nope.....with the Polish it was bottle of Black Label and club soda....with Ice. Why I know cause my family did that....
I am sure that back in the 70s when MNC from the US and Japan and European came to invest in Singapore knowing that Singaporean wasn't really speaking proper English....
International Trade is all about comparative advantage model....language help but Singapore adapt technology fast and gain the economies of scale...
So why suddenly perfecting mandarin become such an issued of advantage in terms of comparative advantage between Singapore and PRC?
Back to the word from the OLD Horse....What can we do differently that the region is not doing.....think harder...
Originally posted by Arapahoe:
I have a question so now that he admit it was a mistake ? Any room to file for Class Action ? For those borned in the 60's that suffer the consequences? ....
Those get arrested by Coldstore in the 60s also cannot sue and going into class action, who are you to question about Class action on LKY?? Guards!!!, get this burger out of my court room!!
Originally posted by SBS2601D:
If culture is defined as a set of practices, ideas and values people create to deal with real-life problems, then why shouldn't lanaguage be considered a part of culture?
My argue is language is not a culture, people here do not agree and see as negative stupid remarks because they all think highly of themselves and forget to listen to a kid.
There many english speaking countries in this world, but their cultures are all different. Language therefore a setting for communication, but if you tell me about accent, like singlish or those scottish accent, yes it is a culture, a culture created by the people, the language itself is innocent. However having said that, language work hand in hand with culture, it does not exist apart from culture of any particular race/tribe of people.
This my arguement in way I look at it, not wrong nor not right. I hope look at it objectively and not at my particular personal issue.
I can understand the economical value of being able to speak English so that native English speakers could understand us.
What i don't understand however, is why we seemed to have to be so ashamed that we are speaking it with a local flavour to it? Why do we have to look down on those who are not speaking the "proper English"?
Why do we have to be so uptight and self conscious about our local flavour of English? The feeling is like we actually think Singaporeans who couldn't speak the "proper English" are somehow stupid or belong to an inferior class, to be despised and looked down upon when it's perfectly fine to use for communication with locals.
Are our English so horrible that a few conversations with native speakers wouldn't solve? What's the big deal with using Singlish that why we have to be so embarassed about it
Originally posted by angel7030:
Those get arrested by Coldstore in the 60s also cannot sue and going into class action, who are you to question about Class action on LKY?? Guards!!!, get this burger out of my court room!!
Are you serious in having your relevant statement made in this Forum - when you cannot even understand a simple sentence made by Arapahoe, and develop your argument into your characteristic nonsensical garbage that only a 'hum' is good at ?
No one will want to comment on your pathetic "hum" English skills in spellings and sentence structures - can you even make any sense of what you want to say to be relevant in anyway to Arapahoe's post ?
Are you thinking your sentences in your Taiwanese "hum" dialect and writing it out in exact word-by-word translation into English ?
Was Arapahoe questioning the reasons for taking Class Action on LKY, or was he asking the possibility of a Class Action being taken against LKY ?
If you cannot even understand the meaning of what Arapahoe said, it is due as much to your flippant ways to simply make a hurried reply - just to score another hit for your record busting vanity.
For the information of your "hum-burger" - the "burger" in your statement is what you eat; and it should be that you will want to have the guards to get the "bugger" out, as you have been buggered by that bugger, which caused you to be the "hum" in the "hum-bugger" that you have now become.
Originally posted by angel7030:
My argue is language is not a culture, people here do not agree and see as negative stupid remarks because they all think highly of themselves and forget to listen to a kid.There many english speaking countries in this world, but their cultures are all different. Language therefore a setting for communication, but if you tell me about accent, like singlish or those scottish accent, yes it is a culture, a culture created by the people, the language itself is innocent. However having said that, language work hand in hand with culture, it does not exist apart from culture of any particular race/tribe of people.
This my arguement in way I look at it, not wrong nor not right. I hope look at it objectively and not at my particular personal issue.
What should be done to a kid who does not listen to adults and think so highly of itself and insist to impose its will with its stupid remarks - that can only be caused by its persistent behavior like a stubborn and useless "hum" in its tight shell ?
If "language is not culture", and "accent is culture" - which direction does a Taiwanese "hum" intend to lead the discussion to ?
If "language is not culture" as so loudly declared by the Taiwanese "hum" - after having said that - how did the "hum" so brilliantly decide that "language work hand in hand with culture" ?
How does the brilliance of a "hum" English intend for others to understand that - having said all that - "language is not part of culture" and that "language work hand in hand with culture" - "it does not exist apart from culture of any particular race/tribe of people".?
The brilliant intelligence of a Taiwanese "hum" is clearly brighter when its idiocy shine through the fog of its mischievious "hum" brain.
Originally posted by Arapahoe:So why suddenly perfecting mandarin become such an issued of advantage in terms of comparative advantage between Singapore and PRC
I remember a few years back, when I tried to penetrate the Japan market with my partners, there were places whereby gaijin ( foreigners) arent allowed to enter. My money was spurned. Not an issue to me afterall, its their loss.
However, after I practiced speaking the jap lingo, not as good as a native speaker of course and limited to basically my trade's biz, doors that were once closed were opened to me.
It seemed ridiculous to me, an educated and pragmatic biz person, to believe that such simple stuff as speaking their lingo would help rather than the funds my partners were putting in. It was a lesson I learnt, never to be forgotten as my partners expanded to the world.
Similarly, China is now a raging economic juggarnaut. We are similar in many ways with them, and for us to perfect mandarin is not an issue. It is in our genes and heritage, and the best position to tap into their wealth for our ourselves and our country.
Furthermore, be realistic, it is the old guards whom are holding the reins of power. They are chinese speakers. It is only a few China CEOs that speaks perfect trade english. The larger power holders are mainly mandarin and even dialect speaking. As for the harvard educated yuppies, they are still puppies where power and money is concern.
Thus the need to perfect our mandarin to talk to the leaders who controls all, and make them comfortable with us without interpreters, an added advantage we will have over what other non-chinese speaking bizmen from foreigns can offer.
This is only my insight, and sigh ( always have to have a disclaimer)...I dont claim I am right, and what is written here is only for consideration, and not action if they choose not to.
Originally posted by soul_rage:
I ignore her most times.She has 16000+ posts, so far from my limited sample size, about 90% are one-liners and remarks that are not useful at all.
I know.... she is everywhere in this forum but really ends up "NO WHERE" ....she remind me of an Old recorder player where the cassette tape got stuck and the word kept replay....de de de.......Boomz......de de de....Boomz.... : )