Singaporean Hokkien is the largest non-Mandarin Chinese dialect spoken in Singapore. As such, it exerts the greatest influence on Colloquial Singaporean Mandarin, resulting in a Hokkien-style Singaporean Mandarin widely spoken in the country.

Influences on phonology

Some Hokkien Singaporeans are unable to accurately pronounce the sounds of Standard Mandarin due to influences from their

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

mother tongue. These include

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...

s such as ''f, z, zh, s, r''. They also pronounce some

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

s and rhymes such as ''i, e, en, eng'' differently. In terms of tone, they often bring the

checked tone A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a sy ...

() of Hokkien into Mandarin.

Hokkien-derived vocabulary

The use of Hokkien vocabulary in Singaporean Mandarin can be categorized as such: #Use of Hokkien words in lieu of standard Mandarin words (

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...

s) #Use of Hokkien monosyllabic words in lieu of standard disyllabic Mandarin words (

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...

s) #Replacing of Mandarin morphemes with Hokkien morphemes #Use of Hokkien

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

(in vocabulary) in lieu of standard Mandarin word order #Modifying the meaning of Mandarin word using Hokkien words (loaned meaning)

Hokkien borrowings

Some Hokkien words with the same meaning are used to replace standard Mandarin words.

Monosyllabic borrowings

Some Hokkien mono-syllabic words are used instead of two-syllable words in Mandarin.

Omission of Mandarin words' suffixes

The suffix of certain Mandarin words might be omitted in colloquial Singaporean Mandarin due to the use of Hokkien mono-syllabic words. For instance, the suffix " " is commonly omitted in colloquial Singaporean Mandarin.

Replacing Mandarin morpheme with Hokkien morpheme

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...

in Mandarin is removed from a two-syllable word, leaving a one-syllable word, which is used in Hokkien.

Same meaning, different word order

Some multi-syllable words in Standard Mandarin might be used with a different word order (reversed or changed) in Hokkien, and the latter's word order is adopted into Singaporean Mandarin.

Modifying the meaning of Mandarin using Hokkien words

Certain words in Standard Mandarin have a different meaning in Hokkien, and this difference is adopted by Singaporean Mandarin. Some examples of these are listed below.

Influences on grammar

Singaporean Hokkien has influenced Singaporean Mandarin Grammar in 5 main areas.

Word order

The word order refers to the order or sequence of how words are arranged in combination. Because of influence from Singaporean Hokkien, the word order in certain phrases are replaced by that of Singaporean Hokkien, or are simultaneously used with that of Singaporean Mandarin.

"Verb/object + complement" structure

In Standard Mandarin, certain object in

predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...

structure are put after a

complement A complement is something that completes something else. Complement may refer specifically to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-clas ...

. However, the "

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

/ object +

" structure is used in Singaporean Mandarin. Examples are shown in the table below:

Changes in overlapping word order

Overlapping word order in Singaporean Mandarin sometimes differ from that of Standard Mandarin. Examples are shown in the table below:

Overlapping of words

Certain mono-syllabic

adjectives In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...

and

verbs A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descrip ...

or two-syllable

and

in Singaporean Hokkien have entered into Singaporean Mandarin. These are used together with their counterparts in Standard Mandarin. Examples are shown in the table below:

Omission

Certain components of a sentence that are used in Standard Mandarin are omitted in colloquial Singaporean Mandarin, due to Hokkien influence on the latter.

Omission of directional verbs

Certain directional verbs are omitted or dropped in Singaporean Mandarin. Examples are shown in the table below:

Omission of the word "得"

The word "得" used in the sentence structure between a

and a

has been omitted in colloquial Singaporean Mandarin Examples are shown in the table below:

Omission of certain numbers

Certain numbers, which are expressed in Standard Mandarin, are omitted in colloquial Singaporean Mandarin. Examples are shown in the table below:

Word groupings and arrangements

Certain word groupings and arrangements in colloquial Singaporean Mandarin sentences are greatly influenced by Hokkien.

Use of the words "有" and "無"

In Mandarin, the words "有" and "無" generally do not act as complementary

. But due to influence from Hokkien, colloquial Singaporean Mandarin uses them as complementary

. Examples are shown in the table below:

Use of the word "到" in lieu of "得"

In a "

" sentence structure, standard Mandarin uses the word 得 to link the verb and complement. Singapore Mandarin, due to influence from Hokkien, uses the word 到 instead. Examples are shown in the table below:

Use of the word "去"

Certain Singapore Mandarin sentence structures use the word as the resultative complement, where another character (such as ) might be used in Standard Mandarin. Examples are shown in the table below:

Use of Hokkien classifiers

A classifier ( measure words) which is used with a certain noun in Hokkien might also be used similarly in Singapore Mandarin with the same noun, whereas another classifier might be used for that same word in Standard Mandarin. Examples are shown in the table below:

Sentences

Certain sentence structures used in Singapore Mandarin are influenced by Hokkien, and differ from their Standard Mandarin counterparts. Some cases are listed in the following sub-sections.

Use of the word "有"

The word "" (yǒu) is usually added in front of a

to indicate an existing action or completed status.

Use of the word "會"

The use of word "" (huì) iterally "can"is used in colloquial Singaporean Hokkien, and such a use has entered Singapore Mandarin. The sense of as "can" in Standard Mandarin is generally limited to knowledge or skilled ability, such as ability to speak a language, but in Singaporean Mandarin it is broader and closer to the meaning of "" in English, which indicates possibility or ability generally.

Pronunciation of the word "了"

The word "" is often pronounced as "liǎo" instead of "le".

Use of the Hokkien sentence-final particles "嘛", "啦" or "咧"

Colloquial Singaporean Mandarin often involves the addition of Hokkien sentence-final particles such as "" (ma), "" (la) or "" (lēh).

References

新加坡闽南话与华语 (Singaporean Hokkien and Mandarin)