Let’s master English, while preserving mother tongues

In his commentary, “Can English be a Singaporean mother tongue?” (July 15), Mr Luke Lu argued that, without acknowledging English as one of our mother tongues, Singapore has no prospect of developing a Singaporean “core”. I disagree.

Developing a Singaporean core requires integrity, loyalty, empathy, wisdom and courage, rather than an adopted mother tongue. That many young Singaporeans are more proficient in English than British children does not make us Englishmen.

Political and economic realities led us to choose English as our lingua franca after Singapore achieved independence, while preserving our mother tongues, Chinese, Malay, Tamil and others, to build a sense of belonging to our roots and increase our self-respect.

Bilingualism has been the foundation of our survival and economic success. If English were our mother tongue, what other “mother” tongue should students choose to study?

Our mother tongues retain important links to our cultural and linguistic heritage as we work, communicate and enjoy living in a multiracial society where English language is dominant.

There are economic advantages in an increasingly global society if one can speak and write in several languages. Many countries adopt a bilingual education system, which prepares students to tap the international connectivity in global trading systems.

The choice of English as the first or second language of major economies is probably due to its relatively easy-to-learn characteristics and its common usage in diplomacy, science and technology, academia and international finance after World War II.

The key in this century is mastery of English as a vehicle to communicate, while preserving our mother tongues.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew summed it up at the launch of the English Language Institute of Singapore in 2011: “We are the only country in the region that uses English as its working language, the main medium of instruction in schools.

“This has given our young a strong advantage of growing up in a multicultural, multilingual society, all speaking the international language of commerce and trade, English, and their mother tongues, Chinese, Malay, Tamil and others, as their second languages.”