Singaporeans are known to be bilingual in both English and a second language due to the education system. Some are even trilingual, in a foreign language or a dialect as well. We can switch to different languages while communicating with different people. That enables comprehensibility from others.
Koo Tsai Kee, a columnist, wrote an article about this in Today dated 17 July 2006. I quote "See how monolingualism can limit our interactions with other people?" "...expanding (one's) linguistic horizons" is the way to an increase in social relations.
Yes, though English speakers are "renowned for their inability to learn foreign tongues", Singapore is a "communication hub....in languages." We can at least "pick up functional" languages to interact with others.
Being well-versed in a language other than English gives rise to cultural closeness as well. Knowing Mandarin, Tamil or Malay enables one to have a greater degree of bonding with his ethnicity and experience the same beatings of the heart with those of his race.
Also, Latin was the language used before vernacular English replaced it and is now hardly used. More languages may very well erode with time. We should indeed prepare for this phenomenon with multilingualism.
No comments:
Post a Comment