“…While currently the language of 54 per cent of the Indians, the choice of Tamil as representative of the community was historically affected by political concerns domestically as well as in the region. Scholars (PuruShotam, 2000;Rai, 2009;Solomon, 2012) have highlighted that the decision for Tamil was influenced by 'a gathering momentum of Tamil cultural revivalism' (PuruShotam, 2000, pp. 45-46) in the southern states of post-independent India grappling with resistance to the adoption of Hindi as the national language.…”
Section: The Institution Of Community Languages (Pre-1965)mentioning
“…While currently the language of 54 per cent of the Indians, the choice of Tamil as representative of the community was historically affected by political concerns domestically as well as in the region. Scholars (PuruShotam, 2000;Rai, 2009;Solomon, 2012) have highlighted that the decision for Tamil was influenced by 'a gathering momentum of Tamil cultural revivalism' (PuruShotam, 2000, pp. 45-46) in the southern states of post-independent India grappling with resistance to the adoption of Hindi as the national language.…”
Section: The Institution Of Community Languages (Pre-1965)mentioning
“…While the majority of Indian immigrants to Singapore in the colonial period came from Tamil Nadu, significant populations hailed from a range of other Indian states and spoke a variety of languages (Chew, : 48–51). Tamil language education first came to prominence in Singapore as a result of Tamil social reform organizations begun in the 1930s that promoted literacy; the institutions and political influence established as a result of this movement are what led Tamil to be selected as Singapore's official Indian language (Solomon, ). Today, 37.7% of Singapore's Indian population speaks primarily Tamil at home, 12% speaks another Indian language, while 44.3% speaks primarily English (Singapore Department of Statistics, ).…”
Section: Race and Mother Tongue Education In Singaporementioning
The multiethnic population of Singapore speaks a wide variety of languages, only four of which hold official status. We consider sociolinguistic issues that arise in connection with Singapore's Mother Tongue (MT) education policy, in which children are assigned a course of language study based on their racial heritage. A survey of Singaporeans from various backgrounds indicates that those of mixed and/or minority heritage do not identify strongly with their assigned MT. Respondents of Chinese heritage differ considerably in their attitudes by ethnolinguistic background; overall, they show more ambivalence towards their assigned MT than respondents of Malay and Indian heritage. Our findings reflect the legacies of Singapore's government language campaigns, as well as a growing enthusiasm among Singaporeans for languages that index distinctive regional ethnic identities.
“…While Tamil is not an accurate language indicator of the heterogeneous Indian languages spoken in Singapore, 2 the rise in Tamil consciousness may be traced back to the formative years of the nation-state. Exploring the Tamil reform movement that was put into motion by G Sarangapany in colonial Malaya, John Solomon highlights how the working-class Tamil-speaking majority successfully carved a Tamil cultural separatism that remains relevant today (Solomon, 2012: 269). This pan-Tamil identity matched well with the Singapore’s government vision of multiculturalism that gave this otherwise marginalized working-class community constitutional rights as an officially recognized ethnic minority.…”
Section: Tamil Consciousness As An Ethnocultural Marker: Towards Ethnmentioning
Drawing on two beauty contests Ratu Suria (2012) and Miss Vasantham (2004–present) from the minority Malay and Tamil television stations in Singapore as case studies, this article seeks to map out the contours of ethnocultural scripting of gender and femininity. Rather than finding idealized beauties, these contests have brought to the surface anxieties of ethnocultural incompleteness. More importantly, they also reveal the extent of ethnocultural mobility in the contestants negotiating the ideological contours required by the state-supported minority television stations towards an idealized multicultural minority beauty.
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