Singlish
English is one of the official languages of Singapore (the other three are Mandarin, Malay and Tamil). Practically everybody in Singapore speaks fluent English. The only problem: the average English-speaker won’t understand a word they’re saying. For one, everybody has a really strong Chinese-like accent. Additionally, there are some “interesting” local variations on grammar and vocab as well as Hokkien, Malay and Tamil words interspersed with English. For example, to ask for approval you say simply can?; to give your approval you answer can! For emphasis, you can use confirm as in he confirm very blur one. That, btw, translates to he’s not very smart. Believe me, it is hard to understand Singlish.
For this very reason, the Singapore government is scared of Singlish — they fear that Singapore as an investment destination will suffer because nobody understands the locals. This is quite funny — the government even runs a public “Speak good English!” advertising campaign. They also make sure that all official communication is spoken in perfect British English, for example the announcements on subways (including the mandatory please mind the gap) or the newscasters on tv. All this cannot, however, belie the fact that it is really hard to understand people around here — after three weeks in the country, I am still hardly used to it.
