Reflections | In ancient China, an emperor enforced the Chinese language to strengthen his state, what is Singapore’s reasoning?

A young Chinese Singaporean recently posted on social media that a mainland Chinese tourist he was trying to help in Singapore verbally shamed him for not being able to speak Mandarin properly. In retaliation for her rudeness, he gave her the wrong directions, which isn’t a nice thing to do to a guest, no matter how nasty she was. The attitude that informed her scolding of the young man is typical of many Chinese, as well as a segment of Chinese Singaporeans: that people of Chinese ancestry have a moral obligation to know the language.

Even though the argument isn’t very convincing (we don’t expect Irish-Americans to know Irish, for example, nor British people of German ancestry the German language), all Chinese Singaporean schoolchildren must learn Mandarin as a second language for about 10 years. Just how successful this form of bilingual education is depends on who you ask.

Singapore’s regulation of language education policies in schools isn’t exceptional – all governments do the same. What makes it unique is the multilingual country’s strict enforcement of the learning of “mother tongues” (whatever that means) along ethnic lines. Chinese Singaporeans can’t study Malay, Tamil or any other language, even if they want to. The same applies to Singaporean schoolchildren of other ethnicities; only in rare cases are exceptions made.

One of the most drastic attempts to prescribe a nation’s linguistic milieu occurred in the Northern Wei dynasty founded by the Xianbei people. In the late 5th century, some 60 years after the Northern Wei had unified northern China, Emperor Xiaowen initiated a series of reforms aimed at strengthening his state. Besides agricultural, political and legal reforms, he also launched a radical and far-reaching sinicisation programme.