Singapore Tamil Youth Conference 2018 Toolkit Toolkit 2018 Final | Page 17

of local Tamils and their voice as a
minority community in Singapore.
Singapore
only
because
of
governmental multilingual policy”
(Jegathesan, 1993).
• Some have questioned why Tamil is the
• The promotion of Tamil language as an
sole Indian official language of Singapore
in the presence of non-Tamil Indian
languages (NTIL) such as Hindi. A few
have pushed to make Hindi an official
language of Singapore. This has led to a
fear about the status of Tamil language in
the future.
official language and a mother tongue in
schools was viewed as a way to foster
interracial bonds by creating a sizeable
stake for every significant ethnic gro up in
the community.
• An erosion of the Tamil language could
then potentially lead to the ethnic Tamil
community sharing less affinity with
Singapore and other Singaporeans
• Language is essential to maintaining the
multiracial compact of the Singaporean
identity as well.
• “Will
we ever become completely
homogeneous, a melange of languages and
cultures? No. Why did we take this route?
Because we have no other choice. If we have
only English and we allowed the other
languages to atrophy and vanish, we face a
very serious problem of identity and culture.”
- Former Prime Minister Mr. Lee Kuan
Yew on the rationale for the government’s
bilingualism and language policy.
• The freedom to pursue and promote each
race’s mother tongue was viewed by the
government as a way to foster a common
Singaporean identity while maintaining
individual culture and language distinctions
(Singh, 2017).
o “The Tamil language, without its
numeric strength, symbolic status or
economic power, is recognised in
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