Chee Hong's remarks on dialects attract criticisms again – 6 years on

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

When he wrote that fateful letter to the press in March 2009, the then Principal Private Secretary to the late and former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Chee Hong Tat, was lambasted for it.

Now, six years on, he is once again chastised by the public after The Online Citizen (TOC) and other sites highlighted his remarks on the learning of dialects in Singapore. (See here.)

Mr Chee, who has been unveiled as a PAP candidate for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC in the upcoming elections – had written a letter to the Straits Times Forum page in 2009 to rebut what a Dr Ng Bee Chin – head of the Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at the Nanyang Technological University – had observed, that young children are not speaking dialects anymore.

Dr Ng noted that languages die off quickly when people don’t use them. She said that it only took one generation for a language to die out.

However, Dr Ng did not advocate that dialects be taught in schools or in the classrooms.

Nonetheless, her comments seem to have touched a raw nerve with Mr Chee, who promptly wrote his response to the press.

“It would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin,” he said in his letter.

His remarks soon drew widespread condemnation, with many bloggers at the time taking him to task.

In an article titled “Where’s the diplomacy“, blogger Ian Tan asked:

http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2015...in-6-years-on/


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