Broadly speaking, Singaporean English accents are based on the
sound systems of standard
non-rhotic Southern British English accents, as is often the case with dialects of English spoken in Commonwealth nations aside from Canada. Like many of these dialects, the vowels in and are distinct in Singapore English, and the word
plant is generally pronounced with the vowel ,
rather than the vowel . Broadly speaking, Singaporean and
Malaysian English accents share a number of similarities, in terms of intonation, vowel realisation and non-rhoticity. Nowadays, the accents of many Singaporeans reflect a compromise between local characteristics and
standard language given that English has been institutionalised in the country for decades. Accents vary significantly, depending on age, upbringing and the race or
heritage language of the speaker. Chinese, Malay and Indians have identifiable and distinctive ethnic accents that may be more or less pronounced depending on the speaker.
Rhoticity Singapore English is predominantly non-rhotic, like
Australian and
Nigerian accents (and most postcolonial dialects of English), so most speakers will leave out the
r sound in words like
far. Rhoticity is generally uncommon, and if adopted, seldom consistent, even in environments where a
linking r could occur, e.g.,
my brother is and
my sister is. In a 2018 study,
r sounds were dropped at the end of syllables more than 90% of the time in conversational speech, while linking
r was used less than 20% of the time. Cases of
intrusive r (e.g., pronouncing
drawing as
draw-ring) were negligible. • While previous research has categorised as a back vowel , more recent studies suggest that
-fronting is now prevalent among younger speakers, and that it is more accurate to classify this variant of as a near-back or centralised vowel.
– merger • The vowels in and are seldom distinguished in conversational speech, meaning
kettle and
cattle,
better and
batter, and
wreck and
rack have identical pronunciations. Any distinction is less likely between words ending in
stop consonants, like
met and
mat, though
bed and
bad are kept distinct (see ). • For nearly all speakers,
next and
text do not rhyme, owing to a vowel split affecting the
lexical set. The word
next is realised with the raised vowel, which is distinguished from the low-mid vowel in
text.
Low central vowels • For the vast majority of speakers, and have identical or near-identical vowel qualities, in the vicinity of
open central. • Due to its retention from older
Received Pronunciation, the
– split appears to be somewhat conservative in Singapore. Generally speaking, words from the
lexical set, like
ask,
last and
half, are realised with the broad vowel—the
a in
father—so
ant and
aunt do not sound the same. Usage of the broad extends to
plastic and
elastic, while in
contemporary Southern English accents a flat would be expected. • The flat or vowel, on the other hand, has been reported to occur quite commonly in words that end in
-sp, like
gasp and
clasp, and rarely, in
dance and
can’t. • Words like
fire and
hour are normally broken down into two syllables.
Vowel length As in most varieties of English,
free vowels are shorter when there is a following final consonant (i.e., in
closed syllables), so
bee has a long vowel while
beat has a relatively shorter one.
Variation in unstressed vowels Some words ending in
-a, like
koala and
umbrella, exhibit
free variation between final and in colloquial speech, while words ending in
-er can only end in . Dental fricatives may undergo
th-fronting at the end of words, so
teeth sounds like
teef, and
breathe like
breve.
Stop consonants Stop consonants in Singapore English are usually
not released at the end of words, and voiceless stops can be
aspirated or unaspirated in initial positions—how strongly a stop is aspirated can be determined by its
place of articulation, the
heritage or home language of the speaker and the level of formality of the conversation. In general, speakers with strong Malay or Tamil accents are less likely to aspirate initial stops, while Chinese Singaporeans are more predisposed to using aspiration. While it is not conventional to weaken
t and d into alveolar taps in words like
little and
ladder, doing so may convey a higher level of
sociolinguistic prestige.
T-flapping has nevertheless been reported at higher incidences in compound numbers (e.g., in
forty-five) and across word boundaries (e.g.,
get up).
Pronunciation of final "l" Final "l" sounds, as in
mail and
railway, are categorised into three principal realisations in Singapore English—vocalised, clear and dark "l"s—with each variant showing strong correlations with race, language proficiency, education and social class within the
sociolinguistic landscape of Singapore. •
L-vocalisation is common among Chinese Singaporeans, and is strongly associated with the older and middle-aged Chinese demographic. • The use of
clear"l"s at the end of words is widely regarded as a hallmark of the stereotypical Malay accent, it sees the greatest incidence among Malay Singaporeans. Clear"l"s, however, also regularly occur in the speech of many Indian Singaporeans. •
Dark "l"s are not tied to any particular ethnic accent or identity, and they are more likely to be recognised as a "pan-Singaporean" feature, perhaps indicating a higher level of English proficiency. Moreover, the diphthong is
monophthongised into before a vocalised "l", so
Nile and
now are similar-sounding.
Final consonant cluster reduction Certain final
consonant clusters tend to be
reduced in conversational speech, so
list drops its final and
ask loses the , however speakers are seldom consistent in doing so. To give other examples—the clusters , as in
environment and
end, are both reduced to , while the sequences , as in
jump,
act and
lift, drop their rightmost consonants. The sequence , as in
old, is also commonly reduced to . Since those who vocalise their "l"s tend to drop them completely after mid central and back vowels,
old may be further reduced to , with both the
l and
d dropped, e.g.,
old show becomes (see ). This does not apply to the past tense ending
-ed.
Pronunciation of r The most common and predominant realisation of the
r sound in Singapore English is the
postalveolar approximant , the same realisation found in most native varieties of English worldwide. The
alveolar tap or
trill is an alternative realisation of
r among Malay and Indian Singaporeans and older speakers in general. A rare and emergent variant of
r, indicative of
R-labialisation and described as a
labiodental approximant, has also been reported.
Terminal devoicing and other irregularities Some degree of
final-obstruent devoicing has been reported to occur in Singapore English, though it is not universally observed. The effect of this is that the
s in
scissors might be devoiced, giving . Newer studies dispute the idea that devoicing leads to ambiguity, and argue that underlying voicing is still recoverable from factors like the length of the consonant involved and the duration of the preceding vowel—
pig may have a slightly longer vowel than
pick for example. Conversely, there is an opposite tendency to voice
coronal fricatives between vowels in some words like
December →
Deember and
pressure →
pre[zh]
ure, and even across word boundaries, so
this is becomes
thi is, though this tendency seems to be somewhat sporadic, with regard to which words are affected.
Lexical incidence Words generally follow the pronunciation patterns of Southern British English accents, so
figure is pronounced , and the words
new and
due do not exhibit
yod-dropping. Nonetheless, there are several exceptions—for one,
want and
what both use the open central vowel, which is consistent with the English spoken in North America, but not in Southern England and Australia, where would be expected. • Speakers are more likely to use the vowel for
won (
win in the past tense) than the vowel, so that it rhymes with
con and no longer sounds like
one. •
Twelve is sometimes pronounced "chwelve".
Stress and intonation , and
L* is a
pitch accent falling on stressed syllables. The gradual downwards movement of pitch towards the end of the sentence is represented by the
boundary tone L%. Prefixes with stress constitute their own phonological words, so the
re in
reenact Tone letter| is high-pitched. In words where the prefix is unstressed or less salient, like
unfortunate Tone letter| and
nonsense Tone letter|, the prefix is not treated as a separate unit with stress and is therefore not assigned high pitch. In this model, phonological words (e.g.
cran and
berry in
cranberry) and prefixes with stress are analysed as belonging to separate accentual phrases. Wider pitch range is associated with the introduction of a topic near the start of a sentence. Elsewhere in the sentence, differences in pitch are less prominent, so low, mid and high tones may collapse into roughly the same pitch level. The end of a sentence is marked by a subtle drop or leveling out in pitch. == Spelling and vocabulary ==