I came across this banner in a Singaporean high school during this CNY trip. The above is in "Singlish", a patois of Chinese, English and Malay that serves as lingua franca for many Singaporeans, and the bottom is in correct English, which the government is trying to encourage people to use.
Being the weirdo linguist that I am, I have to admit to more than a little affection for Singlish. It's "language in evolution", as I like to call it. It's also amazing how adaptable English is as a language. Try doing Chinese with English grammar and sentence structure.
2 comments:
Sometimes poor English can be understood even if it is incorrect. But I really could not figure this one out.
Translate it, word for word, into Chinese. The "one" is just an expletive, almost like "di", "gar", etc (not lah, they'll just say that) in Chinese.
Got -- "yau"
people -- "yan"
sit -- "chor"
one -- "gar"
Got it? :-)
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