Expats in Singapore say Singlish is ‘weird’ but ‘efficient’ because questions can be summed up with just one word: “can?”

SINGAPORE: YouTuber Max Chernov posted two recent TikTok videos about Singlish—the variety of English that sets Singapore apart. In a clip from earlier this month, Mr Ron Kaufman, a New York Times bestselling author, said Singaporeans are “the most efficient on the planet in terms of use of language.”

Mr Kaufman, a speaker, writer, and consultant from the United States who’s made his home in Singapore for the past eight years, told the story of a Singaporean woman who made a pitch in a work meeting. “And I realized she just distilled the question, ‘So what do you think of what it is that I’ve proposed, and should we be able to proceed?” with just “Can or cannot?”… and a Singaporean recently pointed out that you can make that one-third even more efficient, just by saying, ‘Can or not?’”

@max_chernov_sg

Can you speak like a Singaporean? #singapore #expatlife #fyp #lifeinsingapore #singlish #asia

♬ original sound – Max Chernov – Max Chernov

Commenters on the video, viewed over 581,000 times, pointed out that the question may be made even more efficient with just “Can?”

One netizen explained the “Can?” phenomenon: “Because Singlish was from hawker culture and in the rush hours talking more than 5 words is not logical.”

On Thursday (Nov 23), Mr Chernov posted another clip of an Australian man named Benji, who has also lived in Singapore for the past eight years.

And while the clip opens with Benji saying, “Singlish is weird,” he shows how he’s adopted it into his daily and even working life. He pointed out that Singlish combines different languages such as Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Tamil with English but called it “quite nice, actually.”

@max_chernov_sg

Can you speak like a Singaporean? #singapore #singlish #expatinsingapore #fyp #lifeinsingapore

♬ original sound – Max Chernov – Max Chernov

He added that he’s learned it along the way, and everyone learns “Can lah” straightaway. When Mr Chernov asked if Benji had picked up any words in Singlish, Benji taught and said, “Can.”

“That’s my favourite,” replied Mr Chernov.

Benji went on to say that on the app Slack, which his company uses to talk to people around the world, people ask him something, and he types out the answer “Can.”

“And they’re like, ‘What?’ I’m like, ‘I mean yes, yes, okay!”

Watch Benji’s interview in full here:

And Mr Kaufman’s interview in full here:

Read related: UK man in SG can’t understand Singlish, says it’s “heavily” modified “almost unrecognisable” /TISG