The “Lah” in Singlish for our family
Posted: November 29, 2007When Singaporean speaks, most of them speak in Singlish. What is Singlish ? It is a term when English, local slangs and words are all mixed up in a sentence. To many foreigners, it seems that we are speaking local dialect and not English.
Since Sammi started to learn how to talk. We are very conscious to speak proper English in front of her. This is especially so enforced when we were staying in China, Shanghai. It was not a problem for us as most of the time we were speaking mainly to local Chinese in Mandarin or to some of our friends who are non Singaporean in proper English. Her nursery teacher from Fortune Kindergarten, Ms Julie Lawrence is from Australia. So she speaks British and Australian English too. Thus, Singlish is not an issue at all.
Things started to change when we were back home this Feburary 2007. She started to notice that her friends in the kindergarten (here in Singapore) speaks differently from her. She came back home one day and asked , ” What is blur ? Why do my friends end with ” hall” and “lahs” at the end of their sentences ? “ I told her they are speaking Singlish. She thinks it is funny and she started to imitate them. Slowly, she began to change and speak like them.
I started my family policy of fine for speaking Singlish. Singapore is well-known as a ” Fine” country. Since we are back home in Singapore, we do as what we Singaporeans and our Government does. ” Fine 10 cents, Fine a dollar.” Each time, if we (as parents) speak in Singlish, we will give my Sammi 50 cents or a dollars for each Singlish phrase. If Sammi speaks Singlish, she will have to take out from her piggy saving box and give us 10 cents (10 cents to her is a lot to her). Just this evening, when driving back home, I was on the phone with my maid telling her to warm up our dinner within 15 minutes time. I ended my conversation with a ” Lah”. She caught me there and I was ” fined” and donated 20 cents to her. But she counted the ” lahs” throughout my conversation and asked for 3 coins. Quietly, I gave her 3 20 cents coin, guilty that I had indeed spoken more than 1 “lahs” and “halls”. Then, the driver, the daddy, tried to trick her to get the coin back. So he started to sing ” Lah, lah lah, Lah , lah ,lah .” Sammi join in the game. She said “I will not say lah. I will sing. Do Re Mi Fa So La.” So smart of her ! We cannot ” fined” her when she sings that. She manage to use her wit to say “Lah” without get ” fined”. Both Daddy and I started to laugh and say ” You are so smart. Now, I really cannot get your coins back.” This make us to be more conscious of how we bahave and what we speak infront of her. Children imitates fast. Parents sometimes did not realize that we do accidentally speak the wrong words or use the wrong emotions and it does have impact on the child.
