so i asked my husband what his first language was, and he said english, so um. i guess i got that wrong. in singapore we're all educated in english as a first language and have to take a second language as well. usually that second language is chosen along racial/cultural lines - generally the Tamils study Tamil, the Chinese Mandarin, the Malays Malay, and i guess that would be the language we would consider "ours". but then that depends on the family, and whether they choose to speak that language at home or not.
some people are more comfortable with one language than another, but we're all more or less required, at least in the workplace, to communicate in english. i would think my husband considers himself bilingual, his communication with his family switches between english and tamil, and again this is a family to family basis, i know a lot of people in the older generation only speak Mandarin/Malay/Tamil and no English whatsoever, but the younger Singapore born at least speak English well enough to share a conversation with someone whose second language may be different. i would say it's kind of, um. possibly complicated? we're an ex-British colony barely 40 years into independence, and the decision made for us to be educated in English was made back then by a Prime Minister who i suppose saw the language as a means for us to advance economically, so technically English isn't a language that was ours to begin with, but the further we go along, the less we're comfortable with the languages that are supposed to be ours. my nephews for example, refuse to speak Tamil at all, although they have to learn it in school. mostly because their parents chose to speak to them in English for some reason, but then more and more parents are doing that, so um, eventually English will probably be "ours", like it is, i guess "mine", although because i'm Indian (Bengali), the language that should be "mine" is Bengali or Hindi. neither of which i speak, so there we go.
um, that possibly made no sense whatsoever? *scratches head*
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some people are more comfortable with one language than another, but we're all more or less required, at least in the workplace, to communicate in english. i would think my husband considers himself bilingual, his communication with his family switches between english and tamil, and again this is a family to family basis, i know a lot of people in the older generation only speak Mandarin/Malay/Tamil and no English whatsoever, but the younger Singapore born at least speak English well enough to share a conversation with someone whose second language may be different. i would say it's kind of, um. possibly complicated? we're an ex-British colony barely 40 years into independence, and the decision made for us to be educated in English was made back then by a Prime Minister who i suppose saw the language as a means for us to advance economically, so technically English isn't a language that was ours to begin with, but the further we go along, the less we're comfortable with the languages that are supposed to be ours. my nephews for example, refuse to speak Tamil at all, although they have to learn it in school. mostly because their parents chose to speak to them in English for some reason, but then more and more parents are doing that, so um, eventually English will probably be "ours", like it is, i guess "mine", although because i'm Indian (Bengali), the language that should be "mine" is Bengali or Hindi. neither of which i speak, so there we go.
um, that possibly made no sense whatsoever? *scratches head*