Our Singlish still got a future or not? The kids will tell you

Despite worries about forgotten phrases, young Singaporeans are proving to be passionate guardians of our cherished local lingo.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

In Singapore, if you're feeling particularly pugnacious - itching to stir up some fuss at a stale dinner party, revive a fading family gathering, or jolt awake a sleepy WhatsApp group - you could always talk politics or food. Both reliably spark strong opinions, though admittedly they're a bit predictable.

Here's something better: Singlish. Or more broadly, the colourful universe of Singaporeanisms - those uniquely local phrases, expressions and linguistic ticks we pinjam from everywhere: Malay, Hokkien, Teochew, Tamil. It's guaranteed to get everyone piping up; even the quiet ones have something to say.

The debates are endless: whether Singlish is a social glue or a liability, whether code-switching is as easy as Singlish enthusiasts claim.

Extremists on both ends dig in deep. On one side, you have the King's English chauvinists - still, after all these years, even after seeing the Singlish-themed floats at the SG50 National Day Parade in 2015 - waging their own insurrection to kill off this local lingo.

They remain convinced that we must at all times speak as though we hail from SW1 London, not Ah Hood Road. At the other extreme are those who speak so much Singlish you begin to wonder whether they still remember how to construct a standard sentence.

It becomes a real issue when some genuinely struggle to transform a simple "you got bring anot?" into "Did you remember to bring it?"

Then there are the cheem types, thoughtfully ruminating over the technicalities of whether Singlish is best described as a creole, a pidgin, a patois, or simply a demotic spin on English. It's one of those conversations where you throw up your hands and say: "Catch no ball!"