In 1979 PM Lee Kuan Yew started the “Speak Mandarin” campaign to counteract the then predominance of using Chinese dialects by the Chinese to communicate between themselves, which caused a split not only between the races, but also between the Chinese population originating from different provinces in Southern China and living in separate “kanpongs” at the time.
These dialects (Hokkie, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese and Hakka) are not mutually understandable, which made “Pasar Malay” or “Singlish” the media for communication between the dialect groups, while Malays and Indians communicated internally in their own languages and in Malay or English with Chinese Singaporeans.
English was and is the language of education, public service and business and spoken by the vast majority of Singaporeans of all ages. (ALL under the age of 50 today)
With the opening up of China it became clear to the visionary Lee Kuan Yew that to speak, read and write Mandarin would give Singaporeans an edge, while maintaining English as the main language of education and business, which he succeeded in but maybe too well, hence the speech by PM Lee Hsian Loong today:
While he strived to make Singapore a homogeneous society, he also wanted each ethnic group to maintain their own culture and language, but being at least bilingual.
He therefore also mandated the teaching of “Mother Tongue” in primary and secondary schools, based on their ethnic background.
I.e. Chinese = Mandarin, (regardless of dialect group), Malays and others Austronesian speakers (Indonesians etc.) = Bahasa Malayu, Indian = Tamil (no matter which Indian ethnic group the come from)
Eurasian would be judged by which language they spoke at home. “Others” would be exempt, unless they requested one of the offered “Mother Tongues”.
his is still the case today, but English has taken over more and more among all ethnic groups.
