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Tamils - a Nation without a State
Singapore -
சிங்கப்பூர்
- an estimated 200,000 Tamils live in Singapore -
Ethnologue report for Singapore Republic of Singapore. National or
official languages: Bengali, Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Tamil, English.
3,476,000 (1998 UN).... 90,000 Tamil speakers in Singapore (1985), 3.5% of
the population, out of 111,000 in the ethnic group (1993).
�In terms of numbers, the Ceylonese, like the
Eurasians, are among the smallest of our various communities.
Yet in terms of achievements and contributions to the growth and
development of the modern Singapore and Malaysia they have done
more than warranted by their numbers. In the early days of
Malaysia�s and Singapore�s history the civil service and the
professions were manned by a good number of Ceylonese. Even
today the Ceylonese community continues to play a prominent role
in these and other fields of civil life. For example in
Singapore, today, the Speaker of Parliament is a Ceylonese. So
is our High Commissioner in Great Britain. So is our Foreign
Minister. In the Judiciary, in the civil service, in the
University, in the Medical Service and in the professions they
continue to make substantial contributions out of all proportion
to their numbers. They are there not because they are members of
a minority community but on the basis of merit. The point is
that the Ceylonese are holding their own in open competition
with communities far larger than them. They have asked for no
special favour or consideration as a minority. What they have
asked for � and quite rightly � is that they should be judged on
their merits and that they be allowed to compete with all other
citizens fairly and without discrimination. This, as far as the
Singapore government is concerned, is what is best for all of
us. I believe that the future belongs to that society which
acknowledges and rewards ability, drive and high performance
without regard to race, language or religion.� Prime
Minister Lee Kuan Yew
 From
Schiffman, Harold F. (2007) "Tamil Language Policy in Singapore: the
Role of Implementation." In Viniti Vaish and Liu Yongbing (eds.) Language,
Capital, Culture: Critical Studies of Language in Education in Singapore.
Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
"How endangered is Tamil in Singapore?
According to Fishman�s graded intergenerational disruption scale
(GIDS), an eight-point scale of endangerment, with stage 8 the point
of no return, Tamil can be located at Stage 4, �where the regional
or minority language gains some official recognition and moves into
mainstream formal education.� This stage presupposes that the
minority language is actually used in the home and is transmitted
intergenerationally, which is true for Tamil (and indeed other
languages in Singapore) to some extent, but as we know from other
studies, Tamil may indeed be lacking this support in many Singapore
homes. But what is important here would be to determine whether
measures taken by the Singapore state to strengthen the domains of
Tamil, such that it moves up the ranks, e.g. to Stage 1, which is
the highest level of vitality, or whether other measures taken by
the state actually weaken the support for Tamil, without appearing
overtly to have any relationship to language maintenance.
Grin goes on to state that for minority languages to be used, there
must be �capacity, opportunity and desire� to do so. This is where
problems with Tamil maintenance in Singapore appear most strongly,
because while the school system gives children the capacity to use
the language, they need opportunities to do so, and with the lack of
a territorial domain for Tamil, and given the small size of the
population, opportunities are few and far between. And finally,
desire, the weakest link. When Tamils are interviewed on this issue,
we find that little incentive to use the language exists. The
language has no economic value, and other opportunities to actively
use it are few and far between�even religious use may be largely a
matter of passive observation of religious practices, especially in
Hinduism. Since young people lack also the incentive or opportunity
to create their own slang the way teenagers in other linguistic
cultures do, they are forced either to speak like their elders, or
simply opt out of using the language. As Grin puts it,
�Typically, minority language speakers are bilingual. This implies
that in principle, they have a choice to carry out their various
activities through the medium of the majority language or of the
minority language. If there is a choice, one of the conditions for
the choice to be made in favour of �doing things through the medium
of the minority language� is therefore people�s desire (or
willingness) to do so.� (Grin 2003:44)
As Grin goes on to say, minority language speakers are more
dependent on the state (than are majority language speakers) to
provide for the three conditions of capacity, opportunity and desire
to be present. Here is where things begin to get troublesome: Grin
feels that the state needs to be sure desire is facilitated, but
most polities I am aware of see this as something the minority
language community needs to recognize for itself, and that it is not
the task of the Singapore state to provide motivation to its
minorities. In the Tamil community, as far as I am aware, when
desire or lack of it is discussed, the older generation generally
faults the younger generation for lack of desire (especially lack of
love for Tamil), and the younger generation of course rolls its eyes
and replies that the older folks �just don�t get it.�
But perhaps the more serious problem here is the economic issue.
Tamil has no economic value in Singapore, since almost no jobs exist
for people who know Tamil, or know it better than they know English.
To this the older generation, imbued with a love of Tamil that seems
to be difficult to instill transgenerationally, reply that younger
Tamils should love Tamil for reasons that are difficult to explain,
or are just simply intangible. This situation calls to mind another
linguistic minority situation I have studied, that of
German-Americans in 19th century America (Schiffman 1976).
German-American church denominations tried to maintain the German
language through the establishment of German-language schools for
their parishioners� children, and requests from congregations to
deal with the fact that many younger members (known in German as die
Nachk�mmlinge) were becoming English speakers, were denied, ignored,
or stonewalled. The German-born pastors and theologians simply could
not fathom how their children and grandchildren did not nurture the
same love for the German language that they had brought with them
from Germany, and refused to allow the English language any domains
in these churches. This had the unfortunate effect of driving die
Nachk�mmlinge out of these churches and into membership in
English-speaking bodies, rather than making them love the German
language. Perhaps the requirement among Singapore Tamils that their
children should love the Tamil language as much as they do is having
the same effect�driving them into the embrace of English, which they
already learn in school, especially for the study of �practical�
subjects. The parallels between this situation and the
German-American case are striking, since those schools also tried
desperately to maintain some domains for German, falling back on a
formula that reserved German for religious subjects (Bible study,
hymn-singing, etc.) but English for math, science, and geography.
Grin again has pointed out the necessity of a cooperative approach:
There is no doubt that the behaviour of actual or potential language
users is crucial for the success of any policy measure. Language use
cannot be mandated, and there are many examples of well-intentioned
revitalisation policies that have failed to produce any results,
because of their top-down perspective, which ignored the role of
actors. This does not mean that the authorities must [�] make
language decisions in their place. However, should we not expect the
state to select measures in such a way that they actually engage
actual and potential users, and result in effective minority
language use? (Grin 2003:85)
One of the examples Grin cites here is that of Ireland, where
attempts at revitalization went on for decades after the
establishment of the Irish Republic, but were mostly unsuccessful,
and have now been largely abandoned. Irish citizens did not want to
give up English, and did not even feel tremendous enthusiasm about
learning Irish for sentimental reasons, even if they were forced by
their school systems to do so. As the European Union expands to take
in new members, as it recently did, it will be interesting to see
whether this new state can help its citizens to retain languages
with so few speakers as Estonian, Slovenian, and Latvian, when
knowledge of English or some other language will obviously prove
more �useful.� Given the strong role of English in Singapore, it is
also questionable whether efforts to get citizens to maintain
languages spoken by less than 4% of the population will be
successful in the long run..."
From
Language Shift in the Tamil Communities of Malaysia and Singapore:
the Paradox of Egalitarian Language Policy - Harold F.Schifmann 1996
Note: this paper was originally published in Language Loss and
Public Policy, I , Garland Bills (ed.), Southwest Journal of
Linguistics , Volume 14, Nos. 1-2, 1995.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the position of Tamil as an
ethnic minority and language in Malaysia and Singapore, and to draw some
conclusions about the role of language planning/policy planning in the
determination of linguistic outcomes, i.e. what happens as a result of (or even
in spite of) the language policies in effect in the two polities. Tamils are the
largest of the language groups that form the `Indian' minority in Malaysia and
Singapore, constituting around 9% of the population, or 1.5 million in the
former, and about 7% or 190,000, in Singapore.
Within this number, people classified as Tamil-speaking amount to
about 85% in Malaysia, and 65% in Singapore, or perhaps 120,000.
Some people estimate only 60%, or 115,000 speakers. But in fact,
with the declines in actual native speakers as evidenced by figures
in the 1990 Census (see tables), what the actual Tamil
population of Singapore might be is difficult to say with any
accuracy. Most of the time, declaration of `Tamil' is a declaration
of Tamil ethnicity, not linguistic habits. Below I will deal
with the subject of the increasing number of people classified as
Tamil who are not actually Tamil speakers.
In a recent compendium of articles on South Asian immigrants in
Southeast Asia (Sandhu and Mani, (eds.) 1993) over half of the
articles are devoted to the question of Indian communities in
Malaysia---nineteen out of a total of 37, the rest being devoted to
Brunei, Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore and
Thailand. All of them see the situation of Indians in Malaysia as
somehow problematical.
Contrast this with the articles on Singapore, where the future of Indians in
Singapore is described as ``not without promise." (Sandhu 1993:787, op. cit.) .
In fact the future of Indians in Singapore may be more secure than the languages
spoken by them; it is not clear what would happen if all Singapore Indians were
to become English speakers. whether it be the preferences given to Bumiputra
Malaysians2 over immigrant Indians, the socio-economic conditions
affecting plantation workers or the educational opportunities provided their
children. In Singapore the situation is less dire, but language shift,
especially among educated Tamilians, is proceeding apparently even faster than
in Malaysia.
I will try in this talk is to place the issue of Tamil language and language
maintenance within the larger sociolinguistic milieu in Malaysia and Singapore,
and see whether we can make a prognosis for the survival of Tamil, and indeed
the survival of a Tamil-speaking minority, in Malaysia and Singapore in the
twenty-first century.
Origins of the Tamil Community in
the area.
The Tamil situation in Malaysia and Singapore must be seen in the
context of an original colonial unity---after the Napoleonic Wars,
Britain ceded many of its colonial `possessions' in insular
Southeast Asia to the Netherlands in exchange for Dutch concessions
in South Asia and South Africa. But Britain maintained a presence in
the Straits of Malacca (Singapore, Penang, Malacca) as `trading
posts' of the East India Company, and expanded from there into all
of Malaya, and parts of Borneo. Tamils were brought to the area as
indentured laborers to do agricultural work of various sorts, but
eventually predominantly on rubber estates.
They were drawn from two different segments of Tamil society---the workers
were recruited from the most destitute landless laborers in Tamilnadu, while the
overseers were recruited from educated, English-knowing graduates of Jaffna
College, in what was then called Ceylon. It should be noted that the Jaffna
Tamil spoken dialect is not mutually intelligible with Indian Tamil, though both
share a diglossic `H' variety in Literary Tamil, and Jaffna Tamils learned to
speak enough Indian Tamil to be able to communicate.
These two groups were thus so different, both sociolinguistically and
socio-economically that they never developed any notion of having common
interests. Even today there is little intermarriage between their descendants,
and it is the Sri Lanka-descended Tamils who are most urbanized and educated.In
Sri Lanka itself, Jaffna Tamils have no common interests with so-called Indian
Tamils, who were brought from India in the 19th century to work on tea
plantations; the Sri Lankan census considers them to be different categories of
people, so that despite an actual population of approximately 25% Tamils (Jaffna
or Sri Lanka Tamils, Indian Tamils, and `Moors'), each group is treated
differently, and sees no commonality with the other.
After World War II, Singapore joined the Federation of Malaysia
but was `ejected' from it in 1965,Singapore rejected the
Malayocentric view of Malaysia, since its population was
predominantly Chinese in origin; in fact all of the larger cities in
Malaysia, especially the coastal ones, have Chinese majority
populations.
In Singapore, the interpretation is that Singapore was `expelled' from
Malaysia, while in Malaysia, Singapore is seen as having `withdrawn' from the
Federation. so for three decades their language policies have
diverged---Malaysia has moved toward a Malay-dominant policy, while Singapore
enshrines Chinese, Malay and Tamil as languages given special rights (alongside
English). Language policy in Malaysia is a topic that cannot be openly discussed
without fear of being charged under the Sedition Act of 1948.
The policy, as stated in the Constitution (Amendment) Act, 1971, is that the
status of Malay as official and other languages as tolerated, ``may no longer be
questioned, it being considered that such a sensitive issue should for ever be
removed from the arena of public discussion." (Suffian bin Hashim, 1976:324). It
is only one of those taboo issues (the place of Islam, the special status of
Malays) that may not be discussed in Malaysia, for fear of disturbing certain
ethnic sensibilities. Most of the writing on the topic of language policy,
therefore, consists of filiopietistic articles extolling the virtues of the
system, its natural fairness, its commitment to building up the national
culture, and so forth.
It can be described, but it cannot be criticized, so criticism of it only
occurs outside the country. In Singapore, the language policy is openly
discussed, and may be criticized, but rarely is, because it appears on the
surface to be egalitarian, and therefore to not deserve any criticism.Singapore
Tamils rarely criticize the language policy, because it seems so much fairer
than Malaysia's policy; instead they lay the blame internally, at the feet of
the Tamil teachers, the young people, their parents, the English language, the
curriculum developers, or the kali yuga. Were they to assess the
situation correctly, they would instead blame the housing
policy.
My original research goal was to establish how the Tamils of
Malaysia and Singapore were maintaining their language in the face
of two differing policies, the former (Malaysia) emphasizing
integration through Bahasa Malaysia and Islam, and the latter
(Singapore), with a supposedly open, tolerant and `egalitarian'
policy.
Since the Tamils are known for their intense language loyalty back in their
South Asian homeland, I was expecting to find that their love of the language
and intense language maintenance efforts, manifested in India and Sri Lanka with
strong opposition to Hindi, Sanskrit and English.
The current antipathy is strongest against Hindi and is known as Hindi
etirppu; the opposition to Sanskrit was stronger several decades ago, and
the opposition to English is mainly to English loan words being borrowed into
Tamil (
angilak kalappu), not to English as an instrument or as a
language per se. The opposition to Sanskrit has had the effect of ridding the
written language of almost all traces of loan words from that language; in the
spoken language, where no overt rules are prescribed, Hindi, Sanskrit, English,
Portuguese and other loan words abound. would result in effective language
maintenance in both contexts, but more so in Singapore, where Tamil actually has
`rights'. "
more
From
National University of Singapore -
South Asian Studies
Publications of Dr Subramanian Thinnappan Books and
monographs
Dhandayudham, Thinnappan, Tamil Kavikkovai, (Kuala Lumpur: University of
Malaya, 1973) (in Tamil).
Thinnappan, Phonetics and Speech Training in Tamil. A package consisting of
one Textbook for Primary Schools, one Textbook for Secondary Schools, Teachers
Guide Audio Cassette tapes and Transparency masters (Singapore: Curriculumn
Development Institute of Singapore, 1983) Dheivanayagam, Thinnappan,
Govindasamy, Manual for the Teaching of the 13 Modified Letters in the Tamil
Script Occasional Paper, No.15. (Singapore: Institute of Education, 1984)
Thinnappan, Ramiah, Govindasamy, Functional objectives in language learning
Tamil Language A Report on Phase 1 of the Project Institute of Education,
(Singapore 1989). Thinnappan, Ramiah, Govindasamy, Functional objectives in
language learning Tamil language. A Report on Phase II of the project. Institute
of Education, (Singapore 1990)
Thinnappan, Singapooril Tamil Moliyum Ilakkiyamum (Tamil Language and
Literature in Singapore) (Devakottai: Theen Valliyammai Publishers, 1993)
Swami Siva Nandhi Adikalaar,Loganathan,Thinnappan (eds), Saivite Hinduism
(London: Meikandar Aadheenam World Saiva Council, 1994) Thinnappan, SP.
Kaniniyum Tamil Karpittalum (Computer and Teaching of Tamil) (A Collection of 10
Research papers) Pulamai Publications, Madras (S.India) 1995 . Thinnappan,
Ramiah, Govindasamy, Seet, An Attitudinal Study of a Cross Section of Tamils in
Singapore towards Tamil Language: Perception and Practice, Research Report SOA,
(Singapore: NIE 1995)
Chapters in books
Thinnappan, 'Tolkaapiyattil ilakkana kuriyittyccorkal', in Agesthialingom and
Murugaiyan (eds), Tolkappiya Moliyiyal (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai University,
1972) Thinnappan, 'Do type interrogative in Dravidian', in Prabakara Wariyar
(ed), Malayala Bhasa: pathannal (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai University, 1976)
Thinnappan, 'Case system and Sandhi'. in Agesthialingom (ed), Dravidian Case
System (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai University, 1976) Thinnappan, 'Alapetai in
Tamil', in Agesthialingom and Subrahmaniyam (eds), Dravidian Linguistics
(Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai University, 1977) Thinnappan, 'Concepts of
Grammar', in Agesthialingam and Kumaraswami Raja (eds), Tolkappiyam Studies in
Early Dravidian Grammars, (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai,1977) Thinnappan,
'Nagarathars' way of Letterwriting', in Agestialingom and Karunakaran (eds),
Sociolinguistics and Dialectology (SeminarPapers) (Annamalai Nagar: Annamalai
University, 1980) Thinnappan, Govindasamy, 'The Bilingual Ability
(English/Tamil) of a sample of Primary 3 pupils', in Ho Wah Kam (ed), Research
Papers (Singapore: Institute of Education, 1987) Thinnappan, 'Cinkappuuril
Tamil Kalvi (Tamil Language Education in Singapore)', in Sambasivanar (ed),
Veezhchiyutra Tamizhagathil (Madurai: Tamil Maarudham, 1995) Thinnappan,
'Ikkala nookkil moli karralum karpittalum (Teaching and learning of a language
from the Modern point of view)', in Karunakaran and Shanmugam (eds), Working
Papers in Linguistics and Literature Vol 2 (Coimbatore: Bharathiar University,
1995) Thinnappan, 'Tamil mozhi oor aRimukam, Tamil language: An Introduction',
in The Handbook of Tamil Culture and Heritage (Woodbridge: International Tamil
Language Foundation, 2000) Thinnappan, 'Nataraja Thaththuvam Dance of Siva
Nataraja', in The Handbook of Tamil Culture and Heritage (Woodbridge:
International Tamil Language Foundation, 2000)
Thinnappan, 'Ungal cinthanaiththiranum padaippaaRRalum vaLara - Ways to
increase your capacity to think and create', in The Handbook of Tamil Culture
and Heritage (Woodbridge: International Tamil Language Foundation, 2000)
Journal Articles Thinnappan, 'A Modern Evaluation of Neminatam', in
Journal of the Annamalai University (Humanities) Vol XXVII, (India, 1970)
Thinnappan, 'A Contrastive Study of Tamil and Malay Phonology (Consonant)', in
Tamil oli (Malaysia, 1972) Thinnappan, 'Writing of Text Books in Tamil � Some
Problems', in Pulamai (India, 1988)
Thinnappan, 'Kaninivali Tamil (Tamil Through Computer), in Kalanciyam 5:3
(India, 1990). Thinnappan, 'Some Aspects of Singapore Tamil' , in Pulamai 16:2
(India,1990) Thinnappan, 'Karpittal Kotpadukalum moli karpittalum (Teaching
Theories and Language Teaching)', in The Journal of Tamil Learning, Vol. 1:1 (
Madurai: International Council for Tamil Learning, 1993) Thinnappan,
'Kaninivali Tamil Karpithal (Teaching of Tamil through Computer)', in Tamil
Marutham, 4:3 (India,1994) Thinnappan,' Karral karpittalil Cintanaippanku
perum Cirappu � (Importance of Thinking Skills in teaching and learning)', in
Pulamai 23:1 (India, 1997) Thinnappan, 'Cinkai Tamil Ilakkiya Munnodi
Ci.Na.Sadhasiva Pandithar (S.N Sadhasiva Pandithar, Pioneer of Singapore Tamil
literature (1887))', in Pulamai, 24:1 (India, 1998) Thinnappan, 'S.N.Sadhasiva
Pandithar and his works - A Pioneer for Singapore Tamil literature', in Singa,
issue 27 (Singapore, 1998) Thinnappan, 'Kudhiraip pandhaiya laavaNi - oor
aayvu ( A Study of Kudhiraip pandhaiya laavaNi)' , in KOLAM, Vol 5&6,
(Singapore, July 2000) Thinnappan, 'KuRal kaattum Kudumbam (Family depicted in
Thirukkural)' 4 parts, in Namkudumbam (May-July 2000)
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