Singapore Tamil Youth Conference 2016 Toolkit Toolkit Final as of 17082016 | Page 9

Topic of Interest: Even though there is significant amount of effort put in by Tamil Language Council in
promoting Tamil through Tamil Language Festival, how can we further improve their initiatives?
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Table 3: Language most frequently Spoken at Home
by Resident Population 5 Years old and Over
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Despite the efforts being put in by the community organizations, there is still a
decrease in the frequency of Tamil usage at home from 42.9% to 36.7%. This is a
6.2% decline over 10 years. Though TLC was founded 10 years ago to combat this,
we should not be quick to point fingers. We have to see this decline in context with
other factors.
From Table 3, Malay language has declined by 8.9% with Chinese dialects dropping
by 11.5% and Mandarin language increase by a paltry 2.6%.
There has a been a general decrease in all languages except Mandarin. But the
small increase is minimal despite the existence of Mandarin language councils.
The general decline can be attributed to the emphasis of importance of English in
the real world and as well as community factors that are unique to each linguistic
community.
With regard to the importance of English, there is not much we can do as it is
necessary for daily living and within context of the financial world, English still exists
as the lingua franca. However, we can still solve the second issue: “community
factors.”
Conceptual Differentiation
Even though is possible to decouple language from the community, there is still a strong correlation between the two.
Most of the Tamil speaking people are part of the Tamil community and not outside of it. Thus, it is important to note who the
target audience is. It is unclear whether the focus is on increasing Tamil usage frequency generally (including those who are
not of Tamil descent) or specifically within the Tamil community.
This phenomenon occurs when the community organizations are focused on their given roles and inadvertently ignore the
larger picture in front of them.
Another important link that they have to recognize is the fact that the usage of Tamil language is closely linked to the socio-
economic status of the Tamil community.
Ignoring the problems, status of the Tamil community within Singapore is being wholly committed to just improving Tamil is
similar to trying to cure the symptoms but ignoring the disease or in other words focusing on the downstream effects but
ignoring the upstream effects.
Upstream Problems – Mr. Viswa Sadasivan’s Insights
Poor emphasis on
education Apart from certain groups, generally Tamils emphasize less on education. This had led to Tamils
lagging behind in terms of economic benefits and social status that comes with higher pay and
higher economic and financial standing.
Intergenerational
mobility Tamils started behind in terms of resources as most of them at the advent of Singapore were
laborers. This difference between Tamils and the other races or other Indian subgroups became a
larger “gap” as time went on and others progressed even faster. This increasing “gap” can be
contributed to many factors but the predominant reason is the “poor emphasis on education.”
Threats from
external factors
Tamil has poor economic value unlike Mandarin. It does not have a cool factor like Bollywood’s Hindi
as well. These factors erode the need for the usage of Tamil.
Impact on Tamil
• The 3 main problems mentioned before mutually reinforce each other and had eventually led to a situation where Tamil
has a poor status.
• It is logical to say that when a language is associated with a segment of society rife with problems (poor socio-economic
status, low education, etc…) people will be unwilling to learn the language.
• Thus, the decline in Tamil is not a isolated problem, it has its roots in the very fabric of our community and is indicative of
a much more sinister phenomenon that is running through.
Possible improvements
Two-pronged approach
First, continue with the downstream efforts.
Those efforts have been effective insofar as
exposing Tamil to young students and
inculcating knowledge of Tamil.
Second, start focusing on the upstream community effects. Due to the
strong correlative effect that the Tamil community problems have on the
fluency of Tamil, it would be a mistake to ignore these problems or to
justify ignoring it stating that it is another organization's job.
Each community organization can either on its own venture forth to tackle the community problem as part of this two
pronged approach. However, this would lead to inefficiencies as two organizations may overlap in their efforts. Thus, this
write-up suggests that a collaboration should be created between the community organizations.
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