Talk:Singapore English

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Revision as of 02:41, 19 March 2007 by imported>John Stephenson (article checklist)
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Article Checklist for "Singapore English"
Workgroup category or categories Linguistics Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status External article: from another source, with little change
Underlinked article? No
Basic cleanup done? Yes
Checklist last edited by John Stephenson 03:41, 19 March 2007 (CDT)

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SCE as a creole

I have discussed this issue with Anthea Fraser Gupta, a leading expert in creole languages and particularly Singapore Colloquial English. She tells me that there is little evidence that SCE is a creole; rather it's a mixed variety. It never went through a proper pidgin stage. I also contacted Mark Sebba, another well-known creolist, and he didn't support the creole view either. So in the long term I intend to move this page away from making the claim, as found throughout much of the Internet, that SCE is a creole.

Also, I don't want to sound like a crusty old fuddy-duddy, but if you examine the talk page and logs for the Wikipedia version of this page, you'll find that it was mostly written by a 17-year-old who hasn't studied the subject as yet in a higher education institution. Now, don't get me wrong; in many ways it's a nice page, and more power to him for spreading knowledge. But there really is very little evidence for the creolist view. John Stephenson 00:08, 14 February 2007 (CST)

This should be retitled

This article should be retitled as 'Singaporean English' to reflect the nationality tag. - (Aidan Work 04:39, 19 February 2007 (CST))

The majority of researchers refer to it as 'Singapore English', i.e. the varieties of English spoken in Singapore. If you do a Google search, this is far more common than the alternative. Could put in a redirect, though. John Stephenson 21:16, 19 February 2007 (CST)