In 1796, William Jones, a famous linguist, said that the ancient Indian Sanskrit (SANSCrit), with Greek, Greek, Persian, Germanic, etc., has a close relationship.This ancestral relationship is obviously reflected in the basic words and grammatical structures of these languages.This major discovery not only paid a sensation that only attached importance to the linguistic world of the European language department, but also opened a vast world of linguistic research in the 200 years of language research.

The concept of

Family of Languages ​​is the result of the founding of language researchers after Jones.The "language system" of linguistics refers to the genealog relationship between language like a family.A "linguistic group", that is, a group of language that is related to each other is called "language".Human language has a long history. It is not easy to make thousands of languages ​​in the world.

Based on the historical records of existing language materials and languages, linguists have summarized more than 5,000 languages ​​in the world into 10 prodigal systems: 1. Indo -European language department; 2. Altai language; third, Ural language department;Fourth, Niger -Congo language; 5. The Department of Chinese and Tibetan; 6. The Department of Malaysian -Polunian; Seventh, Dravida; 8. Asian and African language, also known as the Flash Language Department;Tuyu lines; ten, non -, American language department.(See linguistics and modern science)

It is worth noting that Singapore Chinese is not an independent language system.In the Han Tibetan language, Singapore Chinese Chinese was not listed as a local dialect variant.The linguistic community has not given Singapore a new positioning to Singapore.

The historical origin of the Chinese ethnic group identity

Since the beginning of the Xiaeshang era, which has historical records, the Central Plains land has the gathering of the Huaxia ethnic group.During the Spring and Autumn Period, Zuo Chuan? Ten years of Dinggong recorded: "The descendants do not seek summer, and they are not chaotic." Zuo turned to Xianggong for fourteen years: "I have a diet, not the same as Hua."It can be seen that the name of the Huaxia ethnic group has clearly named Zhou Qin's unification world.The common words of the Huaxia group in the spring and autumn are called Ya language.In the Han and Tang Dynasties, the national Weiyuan was broadcast, and the name of the Chinese group was changed to Han and Tang people.As the name of the Huaxia group, the Han nationality has been retained in use.In the Tang Dynasty, the state of the Tang Dynasty was not under the Han Dynasty. Many local dialects still retained the title of Tangshan today, and said that the Han nationality was the Tang Dynasty.The Chinese language of the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasty is the northern dialect, known as the official dialect.It was renamed Mandarin until the Republic of China.

In 1912, the government of the Republic of China was established, referred to as China for short.Mandarin becomes common Mandarin.The connotation of the Chinese name has changed, and it was promoted from the narrow Han nationality to all other 56 ethnic groups.Only the Han nationality is purely a Chinese group.In the past 200 years, a large number of Huaxia ethnic groups have moved to all parts of the world, and there have been 60 million people so far, and Southeast Asia accounted for most.For the huge overseas Chinese group, China has always called them overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese.The Huaxia groups moved to all over the world are mostly self -proclaimed by Chinese, Chinese or Chinese.In 1954, the Chinese government clarified the dual nationality of overseas Chinese. In addition to the overseas Chinese who were willing to retain Chinese nationality, other overseas Chinese stipulated that other overseas Chinese were attributed to citizens moved to the local government and loyal to the local government.Although citizenship changes, ethnicity still retains Chinese or Chinese identity.The schools built by Chinese people to cultivate Chinese children have always been called Chinese schools.The teaching medium is mainly Chinese, which is based on Mandarin.

It can be seen that Chinese and Chinese are moving to the name of the identity name of the Chinese ethnic groups from the combination of historical origin of Chinese people, and they are the cognition and consensus of most Chinese ethnic groups.

The duality of the Chinese application of Singapore

Chinese is one of the official languages ​​of Singapore, and it is also a common language between different dialects of Chinese society.Although the Chinese language system in Singapore is based on the Mandarin language system, due to the historical evolution of the language itself, and the changes in the environmental environment, especially the objective factors such as the family structure, the education system, and the social and cultural conceptLeveling academic discussions and standard terms of industrial and commercial communication; the other is the daily life of daily life that is affected by multiple cultural factors.The former and Mandarin language system standards are not much different. The latter is similar to Pidgin English (Pidgin English), which is mixed and accommodated to many non -standard Chinese language components, forming a special style that is quite different from the Mandarin language system. We may wish to wishIt is called secular Chinese.

The research of various experts and scholars, the characteristics of Singapore Chinese, are mainly reflected in the three aspects of voice, vocabulary, and sentence structure.There are some typical examples below.

1. Voice

Singapore Chinese voice system is basically no difference from Mandarin.Due to the profound influence of dialects, Singapore Chinese has no rolling tongue and no sound, and rarely uses rhyme.Minnan's front throat sounds are not distinguished from the back -forehead throat sound, so the Chinese of Fujian Singaporeans often mix N / NG.Qiong Mi mixed the H audio of H sound and the F sound of round lips.The voice position and pronunciation method of R / N / L. Singapore Chinese also confuses.Singapore Chinese also often adds special tone words in front of the sentence and at the end of the sentence, such as God, Alamak, 啰, La, 乜, etc., to express different wishes and emotional colors.

2. In terms of words

There are several obvious vocabulary characteristics in Singapore Chinese.The first is transliteration words, such as bus (bus), TAXI, Lorry, sofa (SOFA), Boycott and so on.The second is cultural borrowing words, such as Pasar, Laksa, Sarong, Curry, Teh Tarik, Lima Kaki, KarangGuni) Wait.Third, dialect conversion words, such as eurongs, crazy heads, red hair, wind, eating wind, showering, dark stuns, frying squid, eating snakes and so on.The fourth is innovative vocabulary, such as group houses, waves, computers, picking up, traffic jams, bicycles, hawkers centers, dead fires, Yama guys, refrigerators, etc.Fifth, use phrases, such as Menglai, eating light, dare to make, stirring shit sticks, chopped vegetable heads, eating heads, nonsense, etc.

Three, Sentences

Some sentence structures in Singapore can see the differences from Mandarin from different words and sentence components.Basically, there is not much difference between the two -primary / preferred / guest sentence patterns, but if the sentence adds a fixed / shape / supplement, the Chinese language in Singapore obviously shows the traces of the influence of dialect preface.Here are some examples:

Word Order:

More/less (read a few more times/say a few words)

first/early/talent (he went first/I came early/the news was just received)

The structure of the dynamic supplement is overlapping, which means emphasizing:

(see tightly/eat light/lying on/jogging)

Comparison or completion:

Over/(liao) (Brother is higher than my brother/I have been to Hong Kong/I have already explained it)

Professional or negative:

Yes/No (he has at home/I listen without)

Questioning method :

No (High, unhappy/good or good -looking/I don't understand)

The above examples can be aware of the uniqueness of Singapore Chinese, and there are some differences in the level of voice, vocabulary, and sentence structures as standard Chinese (Mandarin).Singapore scholars have made a comprehensive and in -depth analysis of the uniqueness of Chinese language. Especially whether Singaporean Chinese, like other dialects, is a standard Chinese variant, and the opinions are quite different.

Agree with Chinese is a scholar who is a variant. Most of the syntax structures that are transformed from Chinese vocabulary and expressing special words in the synonym, indicating that Singapore Chinese has a variant: "Chinese and local Chinese dialects and the integration of foreign languages, etc.Factors are Chinese variants that are rich in local colors and are recognized by local Chinese."When dealing with differences, our countermeasures are to emphasize not only as much as possible to Mandarin, and try to keep the common Chinese core based on the standards of Chinese. At the same time, strengthen exchanges and make the language more natural."Zhou Qinghai's discussion about Chinese variants in 2008)

Key factors for language variants

Language is the wisdom crystallization of human civilization and the most important communication channel for human ideology.In the long river of human history, the language has been developing along the route of differentiation and integration.The so -called differentiation refers to the turmoil of the community due to the dramatic changes in the living environment of the human society, or the community turmoil due to politics and war.After that, due to the barrier of mountains and rivers and traffic, the original unified language was divided into different local dialects.For example, the unified language of the Huaxia group in the Zhou Qin era was elegant, and later differentiated into seven major local dialects.Each local dialect has evolved, forming a language system of local dialects. Linguistics, the language of these local language is called the language variant of the standard language.

Human beings communicate information through language, mainly depending on the three components -voice, words, and syntax frameworks that express language.Therefore, to determine whether Singapore Chinese is a standard Chinese language variant, it is necessary to review these three levels to determine the possibility of language variants.

First, let's take a look at the possibility of Singapore Chinese voice variant.

Singapore Chinese voice system, both phonetic and pronunciation, is exactly the same as the voice system of Mandarin.Students have always used Chinese Pinyin to assist and grasp the pronunciation standards.When using transformed dialect words, even the secular speaking is performed in accordance with the pronunciation of Mandarin.On the other hand, there are many differences in the dialect variant of the dialect, not only the pronunciation method, but even the tone is different from Mandarin. For example, the tone of the language. There are 9 in Cantonese, 7 Fujian, 8 Hakka dialect, and 5 in Qiongzhou dialect.There are only 4 tones in Chinese. Except for rolling tongue and priority sound, they need to be accustomed to skilled. Other phonetic positions and pronunciation methods are easy to control. Therefore, the voice part of Singapore Chinese does not exist.Essence

Secondly, look at the possibility of Singapore Chinese sentence variant.

According to the statistics of 2020, more than 70 % of the family terms of young Chinese people in Singapore are English.Chinese is just a mandatory language, which is the LERENED LANGUAGE in the day after tomorrow, not a mother tongue.Students learned from elementary school, they have fully followed the Mandarin language system and trained students to master the laws of Chinese clauses.Therefore, Chinese language is not uncommon in terms of dialect expression.There are only a few families with dialects. The Chinese language of students due to the interference of dialect transformation, the law rules that are inconsistent with the preface of Mandarin.The Chinese sentence method changes from simple sentences to multiple sentences.A few cases of the word order are only a small part of the Mandarin grammar system.Through the practice of correction of the sick sentence, teachers can correct such sentence errors in students.Special writing textbooks for these individual cases, ignoring the overall standard Chinese sentence system, seems to have a flaw due to small loss and comprehensive.

Finally, we review the possibility of Singapore Chinese word variant.

The dialect of vocabulary, some people think that it is a powerful basis for forming a Singapore Chinese variant.Seriously, Singapore Chinese is mixed with a lot of non -speaking vocabulary, which adds special places to Singaporean Chinese, especially low -level worldly Chinese.However, the possibility of variants may be considered from the number of vocabulary in the Chinese language and the negative Chinese, and the conclusion may not be sufficient.

The Time Singapore's unique dictionary (1999) compiled by Wang Huidi included a total of 1560 entries.In these entries, some have been shaped, semantic and application methods have been widely accepted. It has become a common term for graphic media and network platforms. It is a normative word for the fusion of Chinese dictionary.在1560个词条里，除了音译词和不同民族的文化借词外，很多是方言转化的音译词，如吃风、冲凉、头疯、暗捶、吃蛇，暗牌、吃头路、吃老本、The semantics are very accurate and clear; however, if some dialect conversion words are limited to the use of a small number of dialects, the use rate of words is not extensive and common, and the possibility of the Chinese variant as Singapore is greatly reduced.

Modern Chinese, commonly used vocabulary published in 2011, contains a total of 75,000 commonly used Chinese vocabulary. Some mixed dialect words have been included by the integration of Chinese dictionaries.In comparison, the weight of the Chinese dialect conversion words in Singapore is less than 0.02%of the common Chinese words.I would like to ask, the 1560 dialect conversion words can replace the complete system of 75,000 Chinese vocabulary, and is it a Singapore Chinese variant alone?

Cantonese, Fujian, Hakka, and Qiongzhou dialect have many sayings, slang, post -rest and proverbs, which reflect the colorful life ideology of the ethnic group.Some sentences cannot be expressed in Chinese characters at all. They can only be passed on by spoken language. This is the result of the mutation of local language differentiation and development, forming dialect variants with obvious differences from Mandarin.Singapore Chinese does not have self -and unique slang, sayings, proverbs, and rest. Naturally, there are not enough conditions to develop into Singapore Chinese variants.

The finalization and standardization of language

Dialectian Yuan Jiazhen said: "The differentiation and development of language are the basic movement of language development. Differentiated is the dispersion or separation of centrifugation. The integrity is a centralized or unified." Chinese dialects are described as Singapore Chinese Chinese Chinese language.Dialects conversion vocabulary is the result of language differentiation.

These dialects transform the vocabulary, plus more transliteration and foreign cultural borrowing words. In the process of long -term language development, can it be a standard vocabulary for the general China -General call?This depends on whether these phonetic translations, cultural borrowings and dialect transformation words can be styled and standardized.The so -called finalization is that the word itself must have a specific, clear, and clear semantic concept. Most people generally understand, accept and apply, and flat media and network platforms often cite it. Over time, it has naturally become a standardized vocabulary.

According to the 1957 census, the proportion of Chinese language in Singapore is 30%of Fujian dialect, 17%in Chaozhou dialect, 15.1%in Guangzhou, 5.2%in Hainan dialect, 4.6%of Hakka, and 0.1%Chinese.Those dialect conversion words that are limited to the popular ethnic groups will be possibly disappeared due to the development of society at any time.Dialect transformation words that are widely used and widely used by all Chinese nationalities are used after all time and standardization, and after a long -term integration and development process, can they be included in the standard Chinese vocabulary of Chinese dictionary in Greater China.

To sum up, Singapore Chinese is a common language of Chinese people in Singapore. It is supplemented with Mandarin. There is no enough conditions to evolve by themselves and become the possibility of local variants.

(the author is a retired language culture worker)