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In the 19th century and the 20th century one finds the Singapore society witnessed large-scale migrations. The ensuing society became a multi-cultural society as people came with their own culture. There are four official languages in Singapore - English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. While the national language is Malay and English is the business language. The government has promoted the official languages in order to foster national unity and a national identity. The multicultural society has led the government to initiate the teaching of the mother tongue at school to continue the traditions and customs. The language is also influenced by other languages and nothing can better highlight this than Singlish that is a combination of English and other languages. This Singapore language is a dialect of English but the slang and the syntax are different. The populaces use their own languages to communicate with their fellow beings. The Malays use their own language, the Chinese use their different dialects, the Indians use Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telegu and Hindi. As a result one finds that everyone speaks more than one language. The Singapore Government has promoted Mandarin to do away with the different dialects of Chinese so as to foster Chinese culture. But this has not come without any reactions as some thought that the Chinese culture can better be fostered through dialects like Hokkein, Teochiu and Cantonese. Now English has become one of the important Singapore language as this also the global language. The government has taken several measures to promote English and this has helped Singapore to move with the times. It has helped to keep in step with the global economy.
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