Is that native Singapore language?

Singlish has truly developed into its own breed of language that non-native speakers cannot understand.

I was talking to this Singaporean guy at Church this evening. It seems he missed the clock adjustment thing and as expected missed Mass. So there I was, informing him of the fact that he should have adjusted his clocks yesterday and Robert (from Poland) overheard.

And so during fika, Robert asked if we were talking in some Singapore language. After telling him that we were conversing in English, he had this bewildered look on his face. It was like, 'Are you serious? English? I didn't understand a single word.'

Hilarious! You should have seen the look on his face! We had a really good laugh after he got over his initial shock.

But seriously, I didn't even use pure Singlish. Our conversation was not even peppered with the typical Singlish words, but with Singaporean accent and bad Singlish grammar (i.e. Closer to proper English grammar than Singlish grammar. If I used proper Singlish grammar, I'll call it good Singlish grammar.). Imagine if I used real Singlish tonight. How much will he understand?

Singlish has certainly graduated into a language in its own right. Now we start building a culture of our own.

Perhaps I should be glad that I'm able to switch to standard English when conversing to non-Singaporeans. Perhaps I should be glad that I'm capable of making myself understood by speaking in proper English. Or perhaps it's just me, because I'm the Grammar God. *grin*