For all the elite contempt directed toward Singlish (both during and after the British colonial era), the language is rich, diverse and has ingenuous features. Proving Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal structures of grammar, Singlish assimilates with ease words, phrases and grammatical rules of a discrete set of languages. The achievement of Singlish is its ability to weave together languages from different continents and different language groups. It is also a testament to the flexibility and dexterity of the English language to accommodate and morph as needed. (Bhabha, 1994)
The Singlish language offers value as an instrument for national social integration and collective expression. This is especially so for the language is predominantly used and developed by the working class. Considering that the British colonial experience has had a greater impact (mostly negative) on the working classes than the elites, it makes a case for how Singlish can be an apt medium for expressing the post-colonial consciousness. Detractors of Singlish only need look at the success of Indian-English literature, which has produced several outstanding writers and scholars both during and after British presence in India. Having adapted British English to their own local cultural sensibilities and aesthetics, Indian English is now a vital part of world literature. Indeed, in what is an interesting reversal of role, English literature emerging from India has revitalized and renewed interest in the written word across Anglophone countries. A leading champion of this cause, Sir Salman Rushdie, makes this salient observation:
“What seems to me to be happening is that those people who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly re-making it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it–assisted by the English language’s enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its front…. The children of independent India seem not to think of English as being irredeemably tainted by its colonial provenance. They use it as an Indian language, as one of the tools they have to hand … English literature has its Indian branch. By this I mean the literature of the English language. This literature is also Indian literature. There is no incompatibility here. If history creates complexities, let us not try to simplify them.” (Herther, 2009)
What is true of Indian English is also true of Singlish. Rushdie’s observation can even be extended to Spanglish (a combination of English and Spanish) and Chinglish (the emerging creolization of English in China). While Singlish can be studied in the postcolonial discourse, Spanglish and Chinglish are apt for study in the backdrop of globalization, which creates a subtle form of cultural imperialism. As Rushdie contends, “these new Englishes are a therapeutic act of resistance against the dominance that English has imposed over the years through past colonization and, now, through globalization.” (Herther, 2009)