Editing Singapore English (section)

== English language trends in Singapore ==
In 2010, speakers of English in Singapore were classified into five different groups: 
# Those who have no knowledge of English (extremely few people, most of whom were born before the 1940s);
# Those who regard English as a foreign language, have limited command of, and seldom speak the language (mostly the older age groups);
# Those who learnt English at school and can use it but have a dominant other language (many people, of all ages);
# Those who learnt English at school and use it as their dominant language (many people, of all ages);
# Those who learnt English as a native language (sometimes as a sole native language, but usually alongside other languages) and use it as their dominant language (many people, mostly children born after 1965 to highly educated parents).<ref>{{cite book|last=Foley|first=Joseph|title=English in new cultural contexts: reflections from Singapore|year=1998|publisher=Singapore Institute of Management|location=Singapore|isbn=978-0195884159|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cLVZAAAAMAAJ|access-date=7 June 2013|chapter=4}}</ref>

{{As of|2015}}, English is the most commonly spoken language in Singaporean homes. One effect of mass immigration into Singapore since 2000, especially from China, has been an increase in the proportion of the population to whom English is a foreign language. The most recent trend in Singapore favours an increasing use of English as well as stability in the use of Mandarin at the expense of other [[varieties of Chinese]] (apparently as the Chinese population switches first to Mandarin, then to English) while the use of Malay slowly erodes.

{|class="wikitable" style="margin:1em; text-align:center;"
|+ Language most frequently spoken at home (%)<ref name="Census 2010">{{cite book|url=http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/popn/C2010sr1/cop2010sr1.pdf|title=Census of Population 2010 Statistical Release 1: Demographic Characteristics, Education, Language and Religion|publisher=Department of Statistics, Ministry of Trade & Industry, Republic of Singapore|isbn=978-981-08-7808-5|date=January 2011|access-date=28 August 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110303155259/http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/popn/C2010sr1/cop2010sr1.pdf|archive-date=3 March 2011}}</ref>
!Language!!1990!!2000!!2010!!2015!!2020<ref>[http://www.singstat.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-library/publications/publications_and_papers/GHS/ghs2015/ghs2015.pdf General Household Survey 2015] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170120210625/http://www.singstat.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-library/publications/publications_and_papers/GHS/ghs2015/ghs2015.pdf |date=20 January 2017 }} p. 18</ref>
|-
|English||18.8||23.0||32.3||36.9||48.3
|-
|Mandarin||23.7||35.0||35.6||34.9||29.9
|-
|Chinese dialects|| ?|| 23.8||14.3||12.2||8.7
|-
|Malay||14.3||14.1||12.2||10.7||9.2
|-
|Tamil||2.9||3.2||3.3||3.3||2.5
|-
|Others|| ?|| 0.9||2.3||2.0||1.4
|}

In 2010, 52% of Chinese children and 26% of Malay children aged between 5 and 14 speak English at home, as compared to 36% and 9.4% respectively in 2000.<ref>{{cite web|last=Musfirah|first=Hetty|title=Latest census show more younger Singaporeans speaking English at home|url=http://news.xin.msn.com/en/singapore/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4584547|publisher=xinmsn news|access-date=7 June 2013|date=18 January 2011}}{{Dead link|date=November 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>