BY VIRTUE of its common usage and history, Singlish has become much more than a 'substandard and undesirable variant of English' for those who associate it with the Singapore they know and grew up in.

I am a Singaporean living overseas, and the over-the-top Singlish of The Mr Brown Show never fails to evoke a smile and a twinge of homesickness in me.

Unfortunately, Singlish can propagate poor English among Singaporeans.

Perhaps one solution is to officially classify Singlish as a dialect of English. Just as speakers of different Chinese dialects find it hard to understand one another, Singaporeans will be more aware that other English speakers might have problems understanding them if they do not speak proper English.

We do not need to stamp Singlish out, but we do need to know it has limitations.

Loh Shan Ming

This article was first published in The Straits Times.