In 2009, SingaporeFormer Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once expressed in an activity to promote Mandarin that he would increase the popularization of Chinese in Singapore.
"In two generations, Chinese will become our mother tongue."
At that time, Lee Kuan Yew was obviously very confident in the promotion of Chinese in Singapore.
Some Chinese people are happy about this news. After all, it is a good experience to see other countries using their own language.
However, there are still some people who remind everyone not to forget that it was Lee Kuan Yew himself who overcame all the opposition in Singapore, where Chinese accounted for more than 70%, to establish English as the common language in Singapore.
So why was Lee Kuan Yew, who was of Chinese descent at that time, unwilling to make his mother tongue the official language of Singapore?
Singapore’s changing lingua franca
In fact, Singapore has many choices when it comes to determining its lingua franca.
This is mainly because there are many ethnic groups living in Singapore.
Singapore is a country of immigrants. With the opening of Singapore more than 200 years ago, Malays, Chinese, Indians, Europeans and Americans all traveled across the ocean to come here.
They speak their own language and live together on this land.
Due to language barriers, there will be certain obstacles in communication between various ethnic groups. Therefore, finding a common language is what Singaporeans have to do.
Over the course of its long history, Singapore's common language has been changing.
9th century, Singapore was under British colonial rule, so Singapore used English as its official language at that time, and important documents such as laws and official documents were all written in English.
Although Chinese, Malay and Hindi are all spoken and account for a high proportion, they have never reached the status of English.
In the middle of the last century, after the British colonists left this land, this country once promoted the Malay language to the highest status.
This was mainly because Singapore at that time hoped to join the similar Federation of Malaysia.
In order to achieve this goal, the government vigorously promotes Malay, changed its name to: "Mandarin", and regularly holds "Mandarin Week".
However, the Singapore government's efforts did not achieve its original purpose. In 1965, Singapore became independent and officially separated from the Federation of Malaysia.
For other countries, getting rid of the rule of other countries and embarking on the road of independence is a matter worth celebrating, but for Singapore at that time, it meant facing greater challenges.
Singapore's "Father of the Nation" Lee Kuan Yew always handled national affairs with caution when the country first became independent.
He knows that in the face of the complex international situation, Singapore must first ensure internal harmony and stability.
Therefore, determining the national common language is the first major issue he has to deal with after taking office.
This thing seems simple, but in fact it involves a lot.
Whether Chinese, Malay or Indian, each ethnic group has its own national imprint, and they all hope to use their mother tongue as the universal language of Singapore.
Therefore, no matter which language among the three major ethnic groups is chosen as the lingua franca, it will inevitably cause dissatisfaction from other ethnic groups.
So how did Lee Kuan Yew choose?
There are several points to note when choosing a universal language. It must have high popularity, is easy to learn, is easy to understand, and most importantly, it must not trigger nationalist sentiments among all ethnic groups in the country.
Therefore, the Lee Kuan Yew government finally decided to use English as the common language of Singapore.
This is actually easy to understand, because English is a global language and has a high usage rate in the world.
Moreover, during the British colonial era, English was once the common language of Singapore. It is very popular in Singapore, and its promotion is not difficult and costly.
In addition, English is not the mother tongue of any of the three major ethnic groups in Singapore: Chinese, Malays, and Indians.
By identifying English as the lingua franca, we can avoid making the various ethnic groups in the country feel superior to others because the national lingua franca is their mother tongue.
When the government announced that the country’s common language would be English, it indeed won the approval of the majority of the people.
After the common language was determined, the Lee Kuan Yew government also determined Chinese, Malay, Tamil and English as the official languages based on the actual situation of the country.
The government encourages all ethnic groups to retain their own languages after they have become proficient in English.
In this way, all ethnic groups feel that their national culture is respected.
Singapore has thus formed a unique bilingual policy.
People of all ethnic groups can speak English and their own ethnic languages.
not only maintains a common language to facilitate national communication, but also retains the mother tongue of each ethnic group, respects ethnic diversity, and maintains the unity of all ethnic groups in the country.
Lee Kuan Yew’s language policy can be described as far-sighted.
However, some people still raised questions about him: "Obviously, the number of Chinese in Singapore has remained at more than 70% all year round, so why not use Chinese as the common language of Singapore?"
Chinese Lee Kuan Yew, why not Strongly promote Chinese?
In fact, many people who support the Chinese language have placed their hopes on the "Father of the Nation" Lee Kuan Yew. After all, he is also a Chinese.
Lee Kuan Yew's great-grandfatherLee Muwen immigrated to Singapore from Taipo, Guangdong in 1862.
At this time, he still had a deep attachment to his hometown, so after accumulating enough savings in 1882, he returned to his hometown and donated the title of "中书科中书".
This is a kind of award given by Qing Dynasty to the people, and it has no actual power. The title of
has been the glory of the Li family for a long time.
Growing up in such a family environment, Lee Kuan Yew was exposed to Eastern civilization from an early age.
However, since Lee Kuan Yew entered the British school Raffles Institution in 1935, he received British education until he graduated from university.
The education a person receives during his teenage years will have a great impact on his life.
Lee Kuan Yew is no exception.
Compared with his great-grandfather Li Muwen, fourth-generation immigrant Lee Kuan Yew does not have such a deep attachment to China. He didn't even speak Chinese until he was thirty.
While studying in the UK, many people would naturally think that Lee Kuan Yew was Chinese, which caused a lot of trouble in his life.
The incident of mistaken identity made Lee Kuan Yew more determined to become a "Singaporean" when he grew up.
This may be one of the reasons why Lee Kuan Yew tried his best to prevent the mother tongue of any of the three major ethnic groups from becoming the first language in the future.
If any of these three languages is designated as the first language, it may be more difficult for Singaporeans to take off the national label.
They will be considered as "Chinese", "Indian", "Malay" instead of: "Singaporean".
As a person with extremely high political wisdom, Lee Kuan Yew knew that once the national label is strengthened, it will be difficult for them to identify with the country "Singapore".
It is obvious that Lee Kuan Yew himself does not want to be regarded as a "Chinese" by others. In comparison, he prefers to be regarded as a "Singaporean."
In addition, Lee Kuan Yew's attitude towards China may also have influenced His decision-making.
In the ten years after Singapore became independent, Lee Kuan Yew was extremely wary of China.
He is afraid of China's hidden huge potential. He is worried that China will interfere in the internal affairs of small Southeast Asian countries. He is also afraid that Chinese people in the country will secretly contact China and then do something detrimental to Singapore.
Lee Kuan Yew, who is wary of China, is bound to not want Chinese to continue to occupy a lofty position in Singapore.
This will cause dissatisfaction among other ethnic groups and may also expand China's influence in Singapore.
These two points are what Lee Kuan Yew does not want to see.
However, Lee Kuan Yew rarely mentioned the reason for being afraid of China. He mostly mentioned the difficulty of learning Chinese.
As for the difficulty of learning Chinese, Lee Kuan Yew himself had a profound experience.
In 1955, Lee Kuan Yew ran for election on behalf of the local Chinese community. His political opponents publicly criticized him for not being able to speak Chinese, so how could he represent the Chinese community?
After that, Lee Kuan Yew put a lot of effort into learning Chinese.
Therefore, I also intuitively realized the three difficulties of Chinese.
First: The Chinese language has profound cultural heritage, and has developed a very profound language system during five thousand years of accumulation. So Chinese is difficult to learn.
Second: There are many dialects in Chinese, and many dialects are difficult to understand.
Third: It is difficult to write Chinese characters. To fully master Chinese characters, it will take more time to learn than other languages.
Lee Kuan Yew knows that compared to English, these three learning difficulties of Chinese are simply a huge disadvantage.
So he designated Chinese as Singapore's "second language."
However, although Chinese has not achieved the same high status as English in Singapore, the influence of Chinese in the country cannot be underestimated.
Lee Kuan Yew: Mandarin Chinese will become the country’s “leading” language
Singaporeans and officials often organize Chinese promotion activities.
Lee Kuan Yew himself was often involved.
Although Lee Kuan Yew did not list Chinese as an official common language, he contributed a lot to the popularization of Chinese in Singapore.
In 1979, Lee Kuan Yew launched the " Speak Chinese Movement".
This activity aims to reduce the use of Chinese dialects and allow everyone to speak Chinese as commonly as possible.
At the same time, the Singaporean government is also actively promoting simplified Chinese characters and Chinese Pinyin. Both policies have increased the popularity of Chinese characters.
In the process of promoting Chinese language, Lee Kuan Yew is also actively improving relations with China.
In the 1980s, Lee Kuan Yew visited China many times, visited Chinese leaders and established good relations with them.
On October 3, 1990, China and Singapore issued a joint communiqué, officially establishing diplomatic relations.
China’s influence in Singapore has also increased.
Lee Kuan Yew was very optimistic about China's development prospects, and he actively promoted friendly cooperation between the two countries.
In this historical background, Chinese has also become increasingly important.
In order to promote the Chinese language, Singapore has also filmed a large number of Chinese film and television works.
These works are well-made and play a great role in spreading Chinese culture and promoting the Chinese language.
In 2009, Lee Kuan Yew stated at an event to promote Mandarin Chinese that Chinese would become the country’s “leading” language.
He once wrote in his memoirs: "In two generations, Mandarin will become our mother tongue."
However, we cannot just think that the status of Chinese in Singapore can surpass English.
Entering the new century, China's comprehensive national strength has greatly improved, and Singapore has also seen good prospects for cooperation with China.
It can be said that during this period, Chinese language was promoted far and wide in Singapore.
Lee Kuan Yew himself was happy to see this happen: "At the beginning of independence in 1965, we decided to implement the policy of Chinese as a second language. It was correct."
However, we must not think that the status of Chinese in Singapore will surpass English.
Under Singapore’s language policy, Chinese should only be ranked second for a long time.
In 2019, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recalled at the "40th Anniversary Celebration of the Chinese Language Movement": In the past, Chinese Singaporeans would only speak English on official occasions and use Chinese in private, but now this phenomenon has been reversed.
It can be seen that the Chinese proficiency of Singaporean Chinese is generally declining. After all, they only use Chinese to communicate when necessary.
This has to make people feel a hint of "forced".
However, this is understandable. In the final analysis, language policy still serves the national interest.
Today’s Singaporeans have a higher sense of national identity than their national identity.
The country’s language policy is unsurprisingly successful.
Under such a language policy, people of all ethnic groups in Singapore can live in harmony. They are on an equal footing. They can communicate with each other in English and retain their own language and living habits.
And we can see Lee Kuan Yew's vision as a politician through Singapore's language policy: not to be trapped in narrow nationalism, but to put national interests first.
This should be the pattern and wisdom of an excellent politician. It is not difficult for us to understand why Lee Kuan Yew is known as the "Father of the Nation" in Singapore.
