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University Of Singapore

University of Singapore

The National University of Singapore (Abbreviation: NUS; Chinese: 新加坡国立大学; pinyin: Xīnjiāpō Guólì Dàxué; Abbreviated 国大; Malay: Universiti Nasional Singapura; Tamil: சிங்கப்பூர் தேசிய பல்கலைக்) is Singapore's oldest university, and remains the largest in the country in terms of student enrolment and curriculum offered. The university's Kent Ridge campus is located in the southwest of the Republic of Singapore at Kent Ridge, bounded by the Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE), Clementi Road, Buona Vista Road and Kent Ridge Park, with an area of approximately 1.5 square kilometres. In 2005, it won the rights to operate in the Bukit Timah campus and plans to move its law school there by 2006. NUS celebrates its 100th birthday in 2005. In celebration of this milestone, the university has been holding a year long centennial anniversary programme beginning 25 June 2005.

History

2005 The university traces its origins to the founding of The Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School in 1905, a realization of a dream by the city's founder, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, way back in 1823. Its name was changed to King Edward VII Medical School in 1912 and to King Edward VII College of Medicine in 1921. In 1929, Raffles College was established to promote Arts and Social Sciences at tertiary level for Singapore students, and exactly two decades later, was merged with King Edward VII College of Medicine to form the University of Malaya. In 1959, the University of Malaya was redivided into two divisions, University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur and University of Malaya in Singapore. The latter division finally split to form the University of Singapore in 1962. The present institution was formed with the merger of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University in 1980.

Faculties and schools

NUS currently has 13 faculties and schools, spread across the widest range of disciplines compared to any other Singapore educational institution. In addition, it has several teaching centres and four Overseas Colleges in various parts of the world.

Internationalization

The University attempts to internationalize itself by building a global network through overseas colleges, teaching and research partnerships with other institutions, supporting international Student Exchange Programmes (SEP), and the establishment of alumni associations around the world. As of 2005 the University has more than 140 SEP-partener universities in over 20 countries, most of which are in Asia, North America and Europe, and four Overseas Colleges (NOC) in Stockholm, Silicon Valley, Bio Valley (in Philadelphia) and Shanghai. NUS is the chairmember and secretariat of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities and a founding member of Universitas 21. In addition, NUS is a member of:
- the ASEAN University Network
- the Association of Commonwealth Universities
- Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning
- LAOTSE, an international network of universities in Europe and Asia.

People

Student enrolment

NUS is the largest university in Singapore in terms of student enrolment. As of 30 September 2004, the total student population stands at 31,346, of which 22,751 are undergraduate students and 8,595 graduate students. Amongst graduate students, 4,112 are on coursework studies, while 4,483 are on research. Students enrolled in NUS come from diverse backgrounds, with 8,600 international students from 77 countries studying in the university in 2004. It also hosted 730 international exchange students in the academic year of 2003-2004, and sent 540 of its own students abroad. In the same year, 95 of its students are hosted in four NUS Overseas Colleges.

Staff

NUS employed 6,655 staff members as of October 2004, of which 2,078 are faculty members, 1,153 are research staff, 870 administrative and professional staff, and the remaining 2,554 general staff. Amongst faculty members, academics from the ASEAN region, Australia, the People's Republic of China, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States dominate the sizeable pool of international staff members, although they are not evenly distributed across the university's faculties and schools.

Campus

NUS's Kent Ridge campus has 6 libraries and 35 lecture theatres. 6 halls of residences and 3 student residences offer a total of over 6,000 students accommodation in campus. In addition, 4 museums, full facilities for the performing arts, sports and recreational facilities, and a satellite imagery receiving station are sited in the sprawling campus spread over a hilly terrain, with wireless internet access available campus-wide.

Libraries

- C J Koh Law Library [http://libpweb.nus.edu.sg/llb/index.html]
- Central Library [http://libpweb.nus.edu.sg/clb/index.html]
- Chinese Library 中文图书馆 [http://libpweb.nus.edu.sg/chz/index.htm]
- Hon Sui Sen Memorial Library [http://libpweb.nus.edu.sg/hlb/index.html]
- Medical Library [http://libpweb.nus.edu.sg/mlb/index.html]
- Science Library [http://libpweb.nus.edu.sg/slb/index.html]

Museums

- Lee Kong Chian Art Museum
- Ng Eng Teng Gallery
- South and Southeast Asian Gallery (National University of Singapore)
- Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research

Accommodation

Halls of residence
- Eusoff Hall [http://www.eusoff.nus.edu.sg]
- Kent Ridge Hall [http://www.kentridge.nus.edu.sg]
- King Edward VII Hall [http://www.kevii.nus.edu.sg]
- Raffles Hall [http://www.raffles.nus.edu.sg]
- Sheares Hall [http://www.sheares.nus.edu.sg]
- Temasek Hall [http://www.temasek.nus.edu.sg] Student residences
- Kuok Foundation House [http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/housing/acc/kfh.html]
- Prince George’s Park Residences [http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/housing/acc/pgpr.html]
- Ridge View Residences [http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/housing/acc/rvr.html] Off-campus
- Gillman Heights [http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/housing/acc/gh.html]
- Off-Campus Accommodation System (OCAS) [https://aces01.nus.edu.sg/prjvao/jsp/ocDefault.jsp]

Rankings and evaluation

- In 2000, NUS was ranked as the 5th best multidisciplinary universities in Asia by AsiaWeek magazine (now defunct).
- In 2004, NUS was ranked 18th in The Times Higher Education Supplement's inaugural global ranking of universities, one of only 3 Asian universities (the other two being the University of Tokyo and Peking University) to be ranked among the top 20 [http://newshub.nus.edu.sg/headlines/0411/ranking_05nov04.htm].
- In 2005, NUS was ranked 22th by the Times of London. It slipped 4 places compared to its ranking in 2004, although still retained its position as the third highest ranked Asian university, when the ranking criteria was amended to include employers' review (which NUS did not do well in), and reduce the weightage for peer review (which NUS did well).
- In 2005, NUS was ranked between the top 101st to 152nd universities of the world in Academic Ranking of World Universities conducted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University [http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_101-202.htm].
- In 2005, NUS Business School was ranked 30th by Financial Times for its Executive Master of Business Administration programmes. Its reputation abroad has helped attract students from around the world, with international students making up 27% of the total student population in 2004.

External links

- [http://www.nus.edu.sg University Web site]
- [http://www.nus.edu.sg/identity/intro/evolution.htm Official timeline]
- [http://www.nus.edu.sg/centennial/ Centennial Celebrations]
- [http://www.nussu.org NUS Student Union]
- [http://www.catholic.org.sg/nuscss/ NUS Catholic Students Society]
- [http://www.nuschoir.org NUS Choir]
- [http://www.nes.org.sg NUS Entrepreneurship Society]
- [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/macNUS/ NUS Mac Users Group]
- [http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/linuxNUS/ NUS Linux Users Group]
- [http://www.nussu.org NUS Student Union]
- [http://www.pharmacy.nus.edu.sg/asc/ AAPS-NUS Student Chapter]
- [http://scicblc.nus.edu.sg NUS Science Computing Based Learniing Centre(CBLC)] Category:Universities in Singapore ms:Universiti Nasional Singapura

Abbreviation

Abbreviation (from Latin brevis "short") is strictly a shorter form of a word, but more particularly, an abbreviation is a letter or group of letters, taken from a word or words, and employed to represent them for the sake of brevity. For example, the word "abbreviation" can be abbreviated as "abbr." or "abbrev."

Types of abbreviations

Apart from the common form of shortening one word, there are other types of abbreviations. These include apocopations, syllabic abbreviations, acronyms, initialisms and portmanteaux.

Syllabic abbreviations (SAs)

A syllabic abbreviation is an abbreviation formed from (usually) initial syllables of several words, such as Interpol = International + police. Syllabic abbreviations are usually written using lower case, sometimes starting with a capital letter, and are always pronounced as words rather than letter by letter. Syllabic abbreviations should be distinguished from portmanteaus.

Usage of syllabic abbreviations in different languages

Syllabic abbreviations are not widely used in English or French. On the other hand, they prevailed in Germany under the Nazis and in the Soviet Union for naming the plethora of new bureaucratic organizations. For example, Gestapo stands for Geheime Staats-Polizei, or "secret state police". Similarly, Comintern stands for the Communist International. This has caused syllabic abbreviations to have negative connotation, notwithstanding that such abbreviations were used in Germany even before the Nazis came to power, e.g., Schupo for Schutzpolizei. Syllabic abbreviations were also typical for the German language used in the German Democratic Republic, e.g. Stasi for Staatssicherheit ("state security", the secret police) or Vopo for Volkspolizist ("people's policeman"). East Asian languages whose writing uses Chinese-originated ideograms instead of an alphabet form abbreviations similarly by using key characters from a term or phrase. For example, in Japanese the term for the United Nations, kokusai rengō (国際連合) is often abbreviated to kokuren (国連). (Such abbreviations are called ryakugo (略語) in Japanese). The classic example is, of course, shogun. The syllabic abbreviation is frequently used for universities: for instance, Beida (北大, Běidà) for Peking University (Beijing) and Tōdai (東大) for the University of Tokyo.
Usage of syllabic abbreviations in organisations
Syllabic abbreviations are prefered by the US Navy as it increases readability amidst the large number of initialisms that would otherwise have to fit into the same acronyms. Hence DESRON 6 is used (in the full capital form) to mean "Destroyer Squadron 6," while COMNAVFORLANT would be "Commander, Naval Force (in the) Atlantic."
Style conventions
In modern English there are several conventions for abbreviations and the choice may be confusing. The only rule universally accepted is that one should be consistent, and to this end publishers express their preferences in a style guide. Questions which arise include the following:
- Use of upper or lower case letters. If the original word was capitalised, then the first letter of its abbreviation should retain the capital, for example Lev. for Leviticus. When abbreviating words spelt with lower case letters, there is no consistent rule.
- Use of periods (full stops) and spaces, for example when abbreviating United States, should one write "US", "U.S." or "U. S."? Spaces are generally not used between single letter abbreviations of words in the same phrase, so one almost never encounters "U. S.". In American English, the period is usually added if the abbreviation may be interpreted as a word, though some American writers do not use a period here. There is no stop/period between letters of the same word, for example St. and not S.t. for Saint. In modern British English abbreviations are written with full stops if the word has been cut at the point of abbreviation (e.g., "Street" – "St[reet]" – becomes "St."), but not otherwise (e.g., "Saint" – "S[ain]t" – becomes "St"). Thus in the United Kingdom, titles such as "Doctor", "Mister" and "Mistress" are abbreviated as "Dr", "Mr", and "Mrs" respectively, but in Canada and the U.S. as "Dr.", "Mr." and "Mrs." respectively.
- Acronyms that were originally capitalized (with or without periods) but have since "stood the test of time" by entering the vocabulary as generic words are no longer abbreviated with capital letters nor with any periods—e.g., sonar, radar, laser, and scuba.
- Whether to add an apostrophe for a plural where the plural is not formed by doubling up the last letter: should one write CDs or CD's? The apostrophe is not needed grammatically but sometimes is added to make it clear that the s is not part of the abbreviation. Because the apostrophe most often represents possession or a contraction, some style guides prefer that it not be used at all with abbreviations, but only with individual letters—"Dot all your i's and cross all your t's!" or "Mind your p's and q's!"—or numbers—"The dyslexic student mixes up his S's and 5's." Thus numbers, such as decades, that are understood to represent other concepts, are not written with apostrophes either—e.g., "The U.S. enjoyed an economic boom in the 1990s and the Roaring ’20s", referring to decades, or "I am going to the bank to exchange four 5's for two 10's", where the 5's and 10's refer to banknotes. Conventions followed by publications and newspapers:
- Publications based in the United States tend to follow the style guides of the Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press. The U.S. Government follows a style guide published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.
- There is some inconsistency in abbreviation styles, however, as they are not rigorously defined by style guides. Some two-word abbreviations, like "United Nations", are abbreviated with uppercase letters and periods, and others, like "personal computer" (PC) and "compact disc" (CD), are not; rather, they are typically abbreviated without periods and in uppercase letters. A third variation is to use lowercase letters with periods; this is used by Time Magazine in abbreviating "public relations" (p.r.). Moreover, even three-word abbreviations (most U.S. publications use uppercase abbreviations without periods) are sometimes not consistently abbreviated, even within the same article.
- The New York Times is unique in having a consistent style by always abbreviating with periods: P.C., I.B.M., P.R. This is in contrast with the trend of British publications to completely make do without periods for convenience.
- Many British publications follow some of these guidelines in abbreviation:
- For the sake of convenience, many British publications, including the BBC and The Guardian, have completely done away with the use of full stops or periods in all abbreviations. These include:
- Social titles, like Ms or Mr (though these would not have had full stops in any case — see above) Capt, Prof, etc.;
- Two-letter abbreviations for countries (US, not U.S.);
- Words are seldom abbreviated with lower case letters (PR, instead of p.r., or pr)
- Abbreviations beyond three letters (full caps for all except initialisms);
- Names (e.g., FW de Klerk, GB Whiteley, Park JS). A notable exception is the Economist (e.g., Mr F. W. de Klerk)
- Scientific units.
- Acronyms are referred to with only the first letter of the abbreviation capitalised. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation can be abbreviated as Nato, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome as Sars. Initialisms (which are similar to acronyms but which are not pronounced as words) are always written in capitals, for instance the British Broadcasting Corporation is abbreviated to BBC, never Bbc.
- When abbreviating scientific units, no space is added between the number and unit (e.g., 100mph, 100m, 10cm, 10ºC). Miscellaneous and general rules
- Plurals are often formed by doubling up the last letter of the abbreviation. Most of these deal with writing and publishing: MS=manuscript, MSS=manuscripts; l=line, ll=lines; p=page, pp=pages; s=section, ss=sections). This form, derived from Latin is used in Europe in many places: dd=didots. "The following (lines or pages)" is denoted by ff. One example that does not concern printing is hh=hands.
- A doubled letter also appears in abbreviations of some Welsh names, as in Welsh the double "l" is a separate sound: "Ll. George" for (late British prime minister) Lloyd George.
- Some titles, such as "Reverend" and "Honourable", are spelt out when preceded by "the", rather than as "Rev." or "Hon." respectively. This is true for most British publications, and some in the United States.
- It is usually advised to spell out the abbreviation where it is new or unfamiliar to the reader (e.g., UNESCO in a magazine about music, because it more frequently refers to another entity in another context, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
History
After World War II, the British greatly reduced their use of the full stop and other punctuations after abbreviations in at least semi-formal writing, while the Americans more readily kept its use until more recently, and still maintain it more than Britons. The classic example, considered by their American counterparts quite curious, was the maintenance of the internal comma in a British organization of secret agents called the "Special Operations, Executive" – "S.O.,E." – which is not found in histories written after about 1960. But before that, many Britons were more scrupulous at maintaining the French form. In French, the period only follows an abbreviation if the last letter in the abbreviation is not the last letter of its antecedent: "M." is the abbreviation for "monsieur" while "Mme" is that for "Madame" and "Mlle" for "Mademoiselle". Like many other cross-channel linguistic acquisitions, many Britons readily took this up and followed this rule themselves, while the Americans took a simpler rule and applied it rigorously. Over the years, however, the lack of convention in some style guides has made it difficult to determine which two-word abbreviations should be abbreviated with periods and which should not. The U.S. media tend to abbreviate two-word abbreviations like United States (U.S.), but surprisingly, not personal computer (PC) or television (TV), which is a source of confusion. Many British publications have gradually done away with the use of periods in abbreviations completely.
Examples

- List of classical abbreviations
- List of mediaeval abbreviations
- List of abbreviations in use in 1911
- List of acronyms and initialisms
- The abbreviations used in the 1913 edition of Webster's dictionary
Abbreviation types

- Acronym and initialism
- Apocopation
- TLA
- Syllabic abbreviation
- Portmanteau
See also

- List of syllabic abbreviations
- Neologism, word, term, or phrase which has been recently created
- Internet slang, list of computing and IT abbreviations, list of medical abbreviations, list of government and military acronyms, abbreviations used in CIA World Factbook,
- ISO language code, ISO country code.
- Ditloid
External links

- [http://www.abbreviationz.com/ AbbreviationZ] acronyms, abbreviations & Initialisms directory.
- [http://www.acronyma.com/ Acronyma]—large database of acronyms and abbreviations (over 450,000 entries)
- [http://www.acronymfinder.com/ Acronym Finder]—searchable acronyms and abbreviations site (over 400,000 entries) Category:Abbreviations ja:略語 simple:Abbreviation

Pinyin

Pinyin (Chinese: 拼音, pīnyīn) literally means "join (together) sounds" (a less literal translation being "phoneticize", "spell" or "transcription") in Chinese and usually refers to Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (汉语拼音, literal meaning: "Han language pinyin"), which is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin. Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the government in the People's Republic of China. It superseded older transcriptions like the Wade-Giles system (1859; modified 1912) or Bopomofo. Similar systems have been designed for other Chinese spoken variants and non-Han minority languages in the PRC. Since then, pinyin has been accepted by the Government of Singapore, the Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and most international institutions as the preferred transcription system for Mandarin. In 1979 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese. It is important to maintain the distinction that pinyin is a romanization and not an anglicization; that is, it is equally applicable for transcription into any language that uses a Roman alphabet, but that the precise pronunciation need not match that of any of these languages. For example, the sounds indicated in pinyin by b and p are distinguished from each other (by aspiration) in a manner different from that of both English (which has voicing and aspiration) and of French (which has voicing alone). Other letters, like j or q indicate a combination of sounds that do not correspond to any exact sound in English. Some of the transcriptions in pinyin such as the ang ending, do not correspond to English pronunciations, either. Pinyin has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese language text into computers.

Pronunciation

The primary purpose of pinyin in Chinese schools is to teach Mandarin pronunciation. Many in the West are under the mistaken belief that pinyin is used to help children associate characters with spoken words which they already know, but this is incorrect as many Chinese do not use Mandarin at home, and therefore do not know the Mandarin pronunciation of words until they learn them in elementary school through the use of pinyin. Pinyin uses the Roman alphabet, hence the pronunciation is relatively straightforward for Westerners. A pitfall for English-speaking novices is, however, the unusual pronunciation x, q, c and z (and sometimes i) and the unvoiced pronunciation of d, b, g, j. More information on the pronunciation of all pinyin letters in terms of English approximations is given further below. The pronunciation of Chinese is generally given in terms of initials and finals, which represent the segmental phonemic portion of the language. Initials are initial consonants, while finals are all possible combinations of medials (semivowels coming before the vowel), the nucleus vowel, and coda (final vowel or consonant).

Initials

In each cell below, the first line indicates IPA, the second indicates pinyin. ^- and are interchangeable.

Finals

In each cell below, the first line indicates IPA, the second indicates pinyin for a standalone (no-initial) form, and the third indicates pinyin for a combination with an initial. Other than finals modified by an -r, which are omitted, the following is an exhaustive table of all possible finals. ¹ It is of interest to point out that the only syllable-final consonants in standard Mandarin are -n and -ng, and -r which is attached as a grammatical suffix. If you see a Chinese syllable ending with any other consonant, it is either a dialect (notably Cantonese), or a non-Pinyin Romanization system (where final consonants are used to indicate tones) is being used. ¹ /ər/ (而, 二, etc.) is written as er. For other finals formed by the suffix -r, pinyin does not use special orthography; one simply appends -r to the final that it is added to, without regard for any sound changes that may take place along the way. For information on sound changes related to final -r, please see Standard Mandarin.
² "ü" is written as "u" after j, q, or x.
³ "uo" is written as "o" after b, p, m, or f.
⁴ It is pronounced when it follows an initial, and pinyin reflects this difference.
In addition, ê is used to represent certain interjections.

Rules given in terms of English pronunciation

All rules given here in terms of English pronunciation are approximate.

Pronunciation of initials

Pronunciation of finals

The following is an exhaustive list of all finals, with or without final -r. To find the pronunciation of a final: #Look for the entire combination rather than the individual letters. For example, look for ian, not i + a + n. #For syllables starting with y- or w-, change the y- to i- and w- to u-, then take the i- and u- as part of the final. (E.g. yan -> ian, where "ian" is the final.) If this results in ii-, uu-, and iu-, change those to i-, u-, and ü- respectively. (E.g. yin -> in, wu -> u, yue -> üe) #If the initial is j-, q-, and x-, and the final starts with -u-, then change the -u- to -ü-.

Orthographic features

Pinyin differs from other romanizations in several aspects, such as:
- w is placed before syllables starting with u.
- y is placed before syllables starting with i and ü.
- ü is written as u when there is no ambiguity (such as ju, qu, and xu), but written as ü when there are corresponding u syllables (such as lü and nü)
- When preceded by a consonant, iou, uei, and uen are simplified as iu, ui, and un (which do not represent the actual pronunciation).
- Like zhuyin, what are actually pronounced as buo, puo, muo, and fuo are given a separate representation: bo, po, mo, and fo.
- The apostrophe (') is used before ɑ, o, and e to separate syllables in a word where ambiguity could arise, e.g., pi'ao (皮襖) vs. piao (票), and Xi'an (西安) vs. xian (先).
- Eh! alone is written as ê; elsewhere as e. Schwa is always written as e.
- zh, ch, and sh can be abbreviated as ẑ, ĉ, and ŝ. However, the shorthands are rarely used due to difficulty of entering them on computers.
- ng has the uncommon shorthand of ŋ.

Tones

ŋ The Pinyin system also incorporates suprasegmental phonemes to represent the four tones of Mandarin. Each tone is indicated by a diacritical mark above a non-medial vowel. Many books printed in China mix fonts, with vowels with tone marks rendered in a different font than the surrounding text, a practice that tends to give such Pinyin texts a typographically ungainly appearance. This style, most likely rooted in early technical limitations, has led many to believe that Pinyin's rules call for this practice and also for the use of "" (with no curl over the top) rather than the standard style of the letter "a" found in most fonts. The official rules of Hanyu Pinyin, however, specify no such practice. Note that tone marks can also appear on consonants in certain vowelless exclamations. # The first tone is represented by a macron (ˉ) added to the pinyin vowel: #:
# The second tone is denoted by an acute accent (ˊ): #:
# The third tone is symbolized by a caron (ˇ, also known as a reverse circumflex). Note, it is officially not a breve (˘, lacking a downward angle), although this misuse is somewhat common on the Internet. #:
# The fourth tone is represented by a grave accent (ˋ): #:
# The fifth or neutral tone is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark: #:

:(In some cases, this is also written with a dot before the syllable; for example, ·ma.) Since most computer fonts do not contain the macron or caron accents, a common convention is to postfix the individual syllables with a digit representing their tone (e.g., "tóng" (tong with the rising tone) is written "tong2"). The digit is numbered as the order listed above, except the "fifth tone", which, in addition to being numbered 5, is also either not numbered or numbered zero, as in ma0 (吗/嗎, an interrogative marker). These tone marks normally are only used in Mandarin textbooks or in foreign learning texts, but they are essential for correct pronunciation of Mandarin syllables, as exemplified by the following classical example of five characters whose pronunciations differ only in their tones: The words are "mother", "hemp", "horse", "admonish" and a question particle, respectively.

Rules for placing the tone mark

The rules for determining on which vowel the tone mark appears are as follows: # If there is more than one vowel and the first vowel is i, u, or ü, then the tone mark appears on the second vowel. # In all other cases, the tone mark appears on the first vowel (y and w are not considered vowels for these rules.) The reasoning behind these rules is in the case of diphthongs and triphthongs, i, u, and ü (and their orthographic equivalents y and w when there is no initial consonant) are considered medial glides rather than part of the syllable nucleus in Chinese phonology. The rules ensure that the tone mark always appears on the nucleus of a syllable.

Miscellanea

An umlaut is placed over the letter u when it occurs after the initials l and n in order to represent the sound [y]. This is necessary in order to distinguish the front high rounded vowel in lü (e.g. 驴/驢 donkey) from the back high rounded vowel in lu (e.g. 炉/爐 oven). Tonal markers are added on top of the umlaut, as in lǘ. However, the ü is not used in other contexts where it represents a front high rounded vowel, namely after the letters j, q, x and y. For example, the sound of the word 鱼/魚 (fish) is transcribed in pinyin simply as yú, not as yǘ. This practice is opposed to Wade-Giles, which always uses ü, and Tongyong Pinyin, which always uses yu. Whereas Wade-Giles needs to use the umlaut to distinguish between chü (pinyin ju) and chu (pinyin zhu), this ambiguity cannot arise with pinyin, so the more convenient form ju is used instead of jü. Genuine ambiguities only happen with nu/nü and lu/lü, which are then distinguished by an umlaut diacritic. Many fonts or output methods do not support an umlaut for ü or cannot place tone marks on top of ü. Likewise, using ü in input methods is difficult because it is not present as a simple key on many keyboard layouts. For these reasons v is sometimes used instead by convention. Occasionally, uu (double u) or U (capital u) is used in its place. See also:
- Postal System Pinyin (unrelated)
- Combining diacritic marks Unicode #U0300

Pinyin in Taiwan

The Republic of China on Taiwan is in the process of adopting a modified version of pinyin (currently Tongyong Pinyin). For elementary education it has used zhuyin (also known as bopomofo), and for romanization there is no standard system in general use in Taiwan despite many efforts to standardize on one system. In the late-1990s, the government of Taiwan formally decided to move from zhuyin to pinyin. This has triggered a very heated discussion of which pinyin system to use: hanyu pinyin of People's Republic of China or some other system. Much of the controversy centers on issues of national identity because of political interests. Proponents for adopting pinyin maintain that it is an international standard that is already used throughout the world. Proponents for adopting a new system maintain that Taiwan should have its own identity and culture separate from the People's Republic of China. A new system Tongyong Pinyin was created in Taiwan in 1998. Tongyong Pinyin is mostly similar to Hanyu Pinyin with a number of changes in the letters and digraphs representing certain sounds. In October 2002, the ROC government adopted Tongyong Pinyin through an administrative order that local governments can override. Localities with governments controlled by the Kuomintang, most notably Taipei City, have overridden the order and converted to Hanyu Pinyin (although with a slightly different capitialization convention than the Mainland). As a result, English signs have inconsistent romanization in Taiwan, with many places using Tongyong Pinyin but some using Hanyu Pinyin, and still others not yet having had the resources to replace older Wade-Giles or MPS2 signage. This has resulted in the odd situation in Taipei City in which inconsistent pinyin are shown in freeway directions, with freeway signs, which are under the control of the national government, using one pinyin, but surface street signs, which are under the control of the city government, using the other. As of 2003, no form of pinyin is used in elementary education on Taiwan to teach pronunciation. Although the ROC government has stated the desire to use romanization rather than zhuyin in education, the lack of agreement on which form of pinyin to use and the huge logistical challenge of teacher training has stalled these efforts.

Other languages

Pinyin-like systems have been devised for other variants of Chinese. Guangdong Romanization is a set of romanizations devised by the government of Guangdong province for Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka (Moiyen dialect), and Hainanese. All of these are designed to use letters in a similar way to Pinyin. In addition, in accordance to the "Regulation of Phonetic Transcription in Hanyu Pinyin Letters of Place Names in Minority Nationality Languages" (《少数民族语地名汉语拼音字母音译转写法》) promulgated in 1976, place names in non-Chinese languages like Mongol, Uyghur, and Tibetan are also officially transcribed using Pinyin. The pinyin letters (26 Roman letters, ü, and ê) are used to approximate the non-Chinese language in question as closely as possible. This results in spellings that are different from both the customary spelling of the place name, and the Pinyin spelling of the name in Chinese:

Controversy

Debate continues about the actual suitability of pinyin as a Chinese romanization method. This argument revolves around pinyin's unconventional use of Roman letters, of which the phonological values of some phonemes are quite different from that of most languages utilizing the Roman alphabet. Some sinologists praise this as pinyin's flexibility in that it allows the entire Roman alphabet to be adapted to the Chinese sound system (compared to Wade-Giles, which leaves out or underuses many letters). Others point out that pinyin letter values are so unconventional that for a person unfamiliar with Chinese, they result in a larger number of mispronunciations when compared to Wade-Giles. However, as not only the PRC but by now most institutions and publications have adopted it, the debate seems increasingly obsolete. Pinyin, like all systems of romanization, has certain limitations that users should be aware of:
- Like the spelling systems of any other language, pinyin does not represent English pronunciation and should not be pronounced according to English conventions. Readers are advised to learn pinyin phonetic conventions, bearing in mind that many sounds have no equivalents in English.
- Chinese characters can indicate semantic cues. But since pinyin is based on the sounds of Mandarin alone, these semantic cues are no longer preserved. For speakers of other Chinese spoken variants, it becomes unsuitable for use in reading and writing because these sounds do not necessarily correspond to their speech.
- The phonotactics of spoken Mandarin dictate a relatively small set of possible syllables and there is a potential for homonyms. Because of this, pinyin can be ambiguous, especially when transcribing Standard Written Chinese, which uses formal constructions not often found in speech. However, this should not be an issue in the transcription of normal spoken Mandarin conversation since speakers would not use such ambiguous constructions in speech. Computer systems long provided the most convincing argument in favor of pinyin; early computers were able to display nothing but 7-bit ASCII (essentially the 26 letters, the 10 digits, and a handful of punctuation marks). Most contemporary computer systems are now able to readily display characters from not only Chinese, but from many other writing systems as well. In addition, multiple input method editors exist that use standard keyboards to type them (pinyin being one such method). Now, PDAs and digitizing tablets allow users to write characters with a stylus, which can then be stored and edited like any text. Thus, this justification is no longer as strong as it used to be. Nonetheless, pinyin has gained wide acceptance, and supporters believe it is useful for students of Chinese as a second language.

Reference

Yin Binyong 尹斌庸, Mary Felley: Chinese Romanization. Pronunciation and Orthography (Hanyu pinyin he zhengcifa 汉语拼音和正词法; Sinolingua, Beijing 1990), ISBN 7-80052-148-6 / ISBN 0-8351-1930-0.

External links

Auto-converters

- [http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/annotation.html Chinese characters to Pinyin (with tone marks and English meaning)]
- [http://www.pinyin.info/unicode/marks3.html Pinyin with tone numbers to Pinyin with tone marks] (can handle 5 for neutral tone)
- [http://www.foolsworkshop.com/ptou/index.html Pinyin with tone numbers to Pinyin with tone marks]
- [http://www.rikai.com/perl/HomePage.pl?Language=Zh Rikai.com] A web-mediator that adds mouseover pinyin readings to Chinese web-pages.
- [http://www.mandarintools.com/dimsum.html DimSum Chinese Reading Assistant] Add pinyin (or bopomofo, etc.) to text, web pages, or RTF files. Includes dictionary, flashcards.

Other

- [http://www.pinyin.info/ Pinyin.info] — very complete explanation of Unicode pinyin.
- [http://www.pinyin.info/unicode/unicode_test.html Pinyin info Unicode testpage]
- [http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/read.shtml Read/Write using Unicode]
- [http://research.chtsai.org/papers/pinyin-comparison.html Tongyong and Hanyu Pinyin]
- [http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/pronunciation.html Sinosplice - Pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese]
- [http://www.fdicts.com/dictlist1.php?k1=126 Fdicts] Simplified Chinese Dictionary
- [http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary]
- [http://www.mandarintools.com/pyconverter.html Chinese Romanization Converter] - Convert between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and other common Romanization systems. Category:Chinese language romanization Category:Latin-derived alphabets Category:Mandarin terms ko:병음 ja:ピン音 th:พินอิน

Malay language

Not to be confused with the Malayalam language, spoken in India. The Malay language, also known locally as Bahasa Melayu, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who reside in the Malay peninsula, southern Thailand, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau islands, and parts of the coast of Borneo. It is the official language of Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. It is also used as a working language in East Timor. It is practically the same as or mutually intelligible with Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia, but differentiated in name for political reasons. The official standard for Malay, as agreed upon by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, is Bahasa Baku, the language of the Riau Archipelago, long considered the birthplace of the Malay language. In Malaysia, the language is known as Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia, which means the Malay, or Malaysian, language. The latter term, which was introduced by the National Language Act 1967, was predominant until the 1990s, when most academics and government officials reverted to the older term, which is used in the Malay version of the Federal Constitution. Indonesia adopted a form of Malay as its official language upon independence, naming it Bahasa Indonesia. In Singapore and Brunei it is known simply as Malay or Bahasa Melayu. The reason for adopting these terms is political rather than a reflection of linguistic distinctiveness, as standard Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are mutually intelligible. However, many Malay dialects are not as mutually intelligible: for example, Kelantanese pronunciation is difficult even for some Malaysians to understand, while Javanese Malay tends to have a lot of words unique to it which will be unfamiliar to other speakers of Malay. The language spoken by the Peranakan (Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming Dynasty and local Malays) is a unique patois of Malay and the Chinese dialect of Hokkien, which is mostly spoken in the former Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. The use of this interesting language is dying out, however, with the Peranakan now choosing to speak either Hokkien or English. Malay is normally written using the Roman alphabet, although a modified Arabic script called Jawi also exists. It is an agglutinative language, meaning that the meaning of the word can be changed by adding the necessary prefixes or suffixes. Root words are either nouns or verbs, e.g. masak (to cook) yields memasak (cooks, is cooking, etc.), memasakkan (cooks, is cooking for etc.), dimasak (cooked - passive) as well as pemasak (cook - person), masakan (cooking, cookery). Many initial consonants undergo mutation when prefixes are added: e.g. sapu (sweep) becomes penyapu (broom); panggil (to call) becomes memanggil (calls, is calling, etc.), tapis (sieve) becomes menapis (sieves, is sieving, etc.) Another distinguishing feature of Malay is its use of measure words (penjodoh bilangan).

Extent of use

The extent to which Malay is used in these countries varies depending on historical and cultural circumstances. Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language) became the sole official language of Malaysia in 1968, but English is still widely used, especially by the second largest and third largest ethnic groups in Malaysia (Chinese and Indian), and because of its importance as the language of international business, and the situation in Brunei is similar. In Malaysia, the status of Bahasa Melayu as the national language is guaranteed by the Constitution (art. 152 of the Federal Constitution). In Singapore, Malay was historically the lingua franca among people of different races and nationalities. Although this has largely given way to English, Malay still retains the status of national language and the national anthem, Majulah Singapura is entirely in Malay. Most residents of the five southernmost provinces of Thailand — a region that, for the most part, used to be part of an ancient Malay kingdom called Pattani — speak a dialect of Malay called Yawi (not to be confused with Jawi), which is similar to Kelantanese Malay, but the language has no official status or recognition. By contrast, Bahasa Indonesia has successfully become the lingua franca for its disparate islands and ethnic groups, in part because the colonial language, Dutch, is no longer commonly spoken. (In East Timor, which was governed as a province of Indonesia between 1976 and 1999, Bahasa Indonesia is widely spoken, and recognised under its Constitution as a 'working language'.)

Phonology

Borrowed words

The Malay language has many words borrowed from Arabic (in particular many religious terms), Sanskrit, Portuguese, Dutch, certain Chinese dialects and more recently, English (in particular many scientific and technological terms). Some examples follow:
- bahasa - language (from Sanskrit)
- bendera - flag (from Portuguese bandeira)
- bihun - rice vermicelli (from Hokkien bi-hun)
- bomba - fire brigade (from Portuguese bomba, "pump")
- buku - book (from English)
- duka - sadness (from Sanskrit dukkha)
- dunia - world (from Arabic dunya)
- gereja - church (from Portuguese igreja)
- guru - teacher (from Sanskrit)
- kamus - dictionary (from Arabic)
- kapal - ship (from Tamil kappal)
- katil - bed (from Tamil kattil)
- kaunter - counter or desk (from English)
- keju - cheese (from Portuguese queijo)
- komputer - computer (from English)
- kongsi - share (from Hokkien kong-si)
- limau - lemon (from Portuguese limão, or directly from Arabic laimun)
- longkang - drain (from Hokkien long-kang)
- manusia - human being (from Sanskrit mannushya)
- mentega - butter (from Portuguese manteiga)
- mee/mi - noodles (from Hokkien miⁿ)
- misai - moustache (from Tamil meesai)
- roti - bread (from Sanskrit)
- sains - science (from English)
- sengsara - suffering (from Sanskrit samsara)
- syariah - Islamic law (from Arabic)
- sistem - system (from English)
- suka - happiness (from Sanskrit sukkha)
- tauhu - beancurd (from Hokkien tao-hu)
- teh - tea (from Hokkien tε)
- teko - teapot (from Hokkien tε-ko)
- had - limit (from Arabic hadd)
- waktu - time (from Arabic waqt)
- kuda - horse (from Urdu kudh)
- unta - camel (from Urdu unth)
- utara - North (from Sanskrit uttara)
- tarikh - date (from Arabic tarikh)
- zirafah - giraffe (from Arabic zarafah) Some Malay words have been borrowed into English. See the list of words of Malay origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project. Malay language has also heavily influenced the forms of colloquial English spoken in Malaysia (Manglish).

Some simple phrases in Malay

About 10% of Malay words are originated from Sanskrit and some Indian languages. For example the words
- Bumi - earth
- Sabun - Soap
- Putera - Prince (son)
- Mangga - Mango
- Buat - Do (Sanskrit wuat)
- Raja - King
- Maha - Great
- Maaf - Sorry

External link

- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=MLI Ethnologue report for Malay]
- [http://pgoh13.free.fr/malay_course.php Basic Course in the Malay Language (GOH Peng Joo)]
- [http://dictionary.bhanot.net/ Malay-English Dictionary (Dr Bhanot's)]
- [http://www.dicts.info/di1.php?k1=1&k2=224 Malay-English Dictionary (All Free Dictionaries)]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.com/definition/Malay-english/ Malay - English Dictionary (Webster's; from Malay to English only)]
- [http://www.toggletext.com/index.php Good Translation Service. English-Malay & Malay-English] Category:Malayo-Polynesian languages Category:Languages of Malaysia Category:Languages of Singapore Category:Austronesian languages ko:말레이어 ms:Bahasa Melayu ja:マレー語 th:ภาษามาเลย์

Tamil language

Singapore

The Republic of Singapore (Simplified Chinese: 新加坡共和国; Pinyin: Xīnjiāpō Gònghéguó, Malay: Republik Singapura; Tamil: சிங்கப்பூர் குடியரசு), is an island city-state in Southeast Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of the Indonesian Riau Islands. Its coordinates are , just 137 km north of the Equator. The name Singapore was derived from Malay word singa (lion), which itself is derived from the Sanskrit word सिंह siMha of the same meaning, and the Sanskrit word पुर pura (city) . Singapore developed from a small Malay fishing village to become a multicultural, major global city, while attracting controversy for some of its current government policies. Throughout history, it has been posssessed by multiple countries and empires and changed hands many times, including being in the possesion of Melaka and the Sultanate of Johore in ancient history, the British Empire in the colonial era, Japanese Empire in World War II and Malaysia after merger. It finally achieved independence in 1965. After independence, government-led rapid industrialisation and open policies inviting foreign investments stimulated rapid economic growth and the country is now regarded as a developed nation. Presently, Singapore can be politically analysed as a democratic socialist country and has an extensive welfare system, although de facto it has a dominant-party system. The nation regards itself as multiracial, and the majority of the population are ethnic Chinese, with ethnic Indians, Malays and Eurasians being a significant minority. Singapore has little natural resources, so its economy must on exports of electronics and manufacturing from her port. More than 90% of Singapore's population lives in housing estates constructed by the Housing Development Board and nearly half utilises its public transport system daily. As a result of public transport and environmental initiatives by government ministries, Singapore's lack of pollution is a distinguishing characteristic from many other cities, and isolated to heavy industry located offshore in Jurong Island.

History

The first records of Singapore's existence are in Chinese texts from the 3rd century. The island was an outpost of the Sumatran Srivijaya empire and originally bore the Javanese name Temasek. Temasek rose to become a significant trading city, but subsequently declined. There are few remnants of old Temasek in Singapore other than archaeological evidence. In the 15th and 16th century, Singapore was a part of the Sultanate of Johore. During the Malay-Portugal wars in 1617, Singapore was set ablaze by Portuguese troops. 1617, erected at the spot where he first landed at Singapore. He is recognised as the modern founder of Singapore.]] In 1819, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, a British East India Company official, made a treaty with the Sultan of Johore and established Singapore as a trading post and settlement, and saw instant growth and immigration from various ethnic groups. Singapore was later made a crown colony by Britain in 1867. After a series of territorial expansions, the British Empire soon raised it as an entrepot town due to its strategic location along the busy shipping routes connecting Europe to China. During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Malaya and the surrounding region in the Battle of Malaya, culminating in the Battle of Singapore. The British were unprepared and swiftly defeated, despite having superior numbers of troops. They surrendered to the Japanese on February 15, 1942. The Japanese renamed Singapore as Syonan-to ("Light of the South") and occupied it until the Japanese defeat September 1945. In 1959, Singapore became a self-governing crown colony with Lee Kuan Yew from the People's Action Party (PAP) as the first Prime Minister of Singapore following the 1959 elections. After a national referendum in 1962, Singapore was admitted into the Federation of Malaysia along with Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak as a state with autonomous powers in September 1963. After heated ideological conflict developed between the state government formed by PAP and the Federal government in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore was expelled from the federation on August 7 1965. It gained official sovereignty two days later on August 9 1965 with Malaysia the first country to recognise it as an independent nation, the date becoming Singapore's National Day. Singapore's National Days are celebrated with annual parades and other festivities. National Day]] National Day] The fledgling nation had to struggle for self-sufficiency, and faced problems including mass unemployment, housing shortages and the lack of land and natural resources, like oil. During Lee Kuan Yew's term as prime minister from 1959 to 1990, his administration curbed unemployment, raised the standard of living, developed Singapore's economic infrastructure and overcame problems such as lack of housing, social stability and an independent national defence. This elevated Singapore into developing nation and subsequently to developed status. On 26 November 1990 Goh Chok Tong became prime minister. Under his tenure the country tackled the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the SARS outbreak in 2003 as well as terrorist threats posed by the Jemaah Islamiah (JI). Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, became the third prime minister on 12 August 2004 after securing the confidence of a majority of Parliament, which is still dominated by the PAP.

Politics and government

: Singapore is a republic with a Westminster system of a unicameral parliamentary government, with the bulk of the executive powers resting in the hands of a cabinet of ministers led by a prime minister. The office of the president was, historically, a ceremonial one as head of state, but the Constitution was amended in 1991 to create the position of a popularly elected president and also to grant the president veto powers in a few key decisions such as the use of the national reserves and the appointment of key judiciary positions. The legislative branch of government is the Parliament. Politics of Singapore have been dominated by the People's Action Party (PAP) since its independence in 1965. Critics have called Singapore a de facto one party state and have accused the PAP of taking harsh actions against opposition parties to impede their success, including gerrymandering and the filing of civil suits against the opposition for libel or slander. The media arm of the Government applies a somewhat monopolistic grip on the local mainstream media, often subjecting it to stringent censorship, as a result, opposition political parties in Singapore hardly get any mention or coverage. Critics claim that Singaporean courts have been favouring the government and the PAP in these lawsuits, although there were a few cases in which the opposition won. They consider the form of government in Singapore to be closer to authoritarianism rather than true democracy, and could be considered an illiberal democracy or procedural democracy. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Singapore has what many consider to be a highly successful and transparent market economy. PAP's policies contain certain aspects of socialism, which includes large scale public housing programme, public education system and the dominance of government controlled companies in the local economy. Although present in almost all segments of Singaporean society, the government has a clean, corruption-free image, and has consistently been rated as the least-corrupt country in Asia and amongst the top ten cleanest in the world by Transparency International since its first annual survey conducted in 1995. Although Singapore's laws are inherited from British and British Indian laws, the PAP has also consistently rejected wholesale Western democratic values, with former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew citing incompatibilities with "Asian values". Singapore's position is that there should not be a "one-size-fits-all" solution to a democracy. Most recently, the PAP has relaxed some of its socially conservative policies and encouraged entrepreneurship. Singapore enjoys one of the lowest crime rates in the world, as its laws are generally strict, and which has often been cited by foreign companies as one of the reasons for investing in Singapore. As the tiny city-state is a multi-racial society, materials that may breed ill-will among its population or cause religious disharmony are not tolerated, even on the Internet. In September 2005, three bloggers were charged with sedition for posting racist remarks targeting minorities, after admitting their guilt, the punishments handed down ranged from serving community service and fines to the maximum imprisonment of a month. Some offences can lead to heavy fines or caning; laws provide for capital punishment in Singapore in cases of first-degree murder and drug trafficking. According to an Amnesty International report, 400 people were hanged between 1991 and 2004, which the report claimed is "possibly the highest execution rate in the world" per capita. However, the Singapore Government responded to AI's report in January 2004 on its Home Affairs website [http://www2.mha.gov.sg/mha/detailed.jsp?artid=990&type=4&root=0&parent=0&cat=0&mode=arc] and reiterated capital punishments as a sovereign right for the most serious crimes, a stance in common with democracies like Japan [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050917a2.htm] and the United States.

Geography

United States. ([http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=1.352692,103.804321&spn=0.473579,0.633396&t=k&hl=en details])]] Singapore is a diamond-shaped island with surrounding smaller islands. There are two connections from Singapore to the Malaysian state of Johor — a man-made causeway (known as the Causeway) to the north, crossing the Tebrau Straits, and Tuas Second Link (called Linkedua Expressway in Malaysia), a bridge in the western part of Singapore that connects to Johor. Of Singapore's dozens of smaller islands, Jurong Island, Pulau Tekong, Pulau Ubin and Sentosa are the larger ones. The highest point of Singapore is Bukit Timah Hill, with a height of 164 m (538 feet). Bukit Timah Hill]] The urban area used to be concentrated on the southern part of Singapore around the mouth of the Singapore River, while the rest of the land was tropical rain forest or used for agriculture. Since the 1960s, the government has constructed new towns in outlying areas, resulting in an entirely built-up and urban landscape with a few exceptions, such as the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. In addition, Singapore has reclaimed land with earth obtained from its own hills, the seabed and neighbouring countries. As a result, Singapore's land area grew from 581.5 km² in the 1960s to 697.2 km² today, and may grow by another 100 km² by 2030. Without natural freshwater rivers and lakes, the primary domestic source of water in Singapore is rainfall, collected in reservoirs or catchment areas. Rainfall supplies approximately 50% of Singapore's water; the remainder is imported from Malaysia. In addition to existing catchment areas, recycled water facilities (called NEWater) and desalination plants, more NEWater and desalination plants are being built or proposed to reduce reliance on foreign supply. Singapore has a tropical rainforest climate with no distinct seasons, under the Köppen climate classification. Its climate is characterised by uniform temperature and pressure, high humidity and abundant rainfall. Temperatures range from 23ºC to 35ºC. On average, the relative humidity is around 90 percent in the morning and 60 percent in the afternoon. During prolonged heavy rain, relative humidity often reaches 100 percent.

Economy

relative humidity and hub of economic transactions in Singapore, and is also the home of the Singapore Exchange, Asia-Pacific's first demutualised and integrated securities and derivatives exchange.]] Singapore has a highly developed market-based economy in which the state plays a major role. It has one of the highest per capita gross domestic products in the world and is considered one of the "East Asian Tigers". Domestic demand is relatively low, and the economy depends heavily on exports produced from refining imported goods in a form of extended entrepot trade. This is especially true in electronics and manufacturing. Singapore was hit hard in 2001 by the global recession and the slump in the technology sector, which caused the GDP that year to contract by 2.2 percent. The Economic Review Committee (ERC), set up in December 2001, made key recommendations in remaking Singapore's economy. Singapore introduced the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on April 1, 1994, starting at 3 percent. This has substantially increased government revenue as well assisted in maintaining the stability of the government's finances to spend on reforming the economy into more services and value added goods instead of relying on electronics manufacturing. The taxable GST is now at 5 percent, with the last increase in 2004. The economy has since recovered in response to improvements in the world economy, and grew by 8.4 percent in 2004. In the longer term the government hopes to establish a new growth path that will be less vulnerable to the external business cycle than the current export-led model, but is unlikely to abandon efforts to establish Singapore as Southeast Asia's financial and high-tech hub. The per capita GDP in 2005 is US$28,228. Recently, in September 2005, the unemployment rate was 3.3 percent.

Tourism

value added : Singapore as a travel destination has become noted among many international travellers, making tourism one of the largest industries in Singapore. Much of its attraction can be attributed to its cultural diversity that reflects its rich colonial history and Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and Arab ethnicities. For many years considered to be the business hub of Southeast Asia, Singapore has an expansive shopping precinct located in the Orchard Road district. Filled with many multi-story shopping centres, the area also has many hotels, and is centre of tourism in Singapore, as opposed to Raffles Place, which can be thought of as the financial heart. Other popular tourist attractions include the Singapore Zoological Gardens and its Night Safari, which allows people to explore Asian, African and American habitats at night, without any visible barriers between guests and the wild animals. The Singapore Zoo has embraced the 'open zoo' concept whereby animals are kept in enclosures, separated from visitors by hidden dry or wet moats, instead of caging the animals. Also famous is the Jurong Bird Park, wherein there are specimens of magnificent bird life from around the world, including a flock of one thousand flamingos. The tourist island of Sentosa, located in the south of Singapore, consists of about 20-30 landmarks, such as Fort Siloso, which was built as a fortress to defend against the Japanese during World War II. Guns from the World War II era can be seen at Fort Siloso, from a mini-sized to a 16-pound (7 kg) gun. Recently, the island has built the Carlsberg Sky Tower, which allows visitors to view the whole of Sentosa, as well as the Sentosa Luge, a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleighs supine and feet-first. Steering is done by shifting the weight or pulling straps attached to the sled's runners. Singapore will have two integrated resorts with casinos in 2009, one at Marina Bayfront and the other at Sentosa which the government announced during a parliament session on April 18, 2005.

Transport

2005 (MRT) system, one of three heavy rail passenger transport lines in Singapore.]] Singapore is a major transport hub in Asia and its history has been closely tied to the growth of its transport industry since its infancy. The transport industry contributes over 10% of gross domestic product despite an increasingly diversified economy. The Port of Singapore, managed by port operators PSA International and Jurong Port, is the world's busiest in terms of shipping tonnage handled. 1.04 billion gross tons were handled in the year 2004, crossing the one billion mark for the first time in Singapore's maritime history. Singapore also emerged as the top port in terms of cargo tonnage handled with 393 million tonnes of cargo in 2004, surpassing the port in Rotterdam for the first time. Singapore is ranked second globally in terms of containerised traffic with 21.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units handled in 2004, and retains her position as the world's busiest hub for transhipment traffic. She is also the world's biggest bunkering hub with 23.6 million tonnes of bunkers sold in 2004. Singapore is a major aviation hub and is an important stopover point for the "Kangaroo route" between Australasia and Europe. Singapore Changi Airport has a network of 77 airlines connecting Singapore to 178 cities in 56 countries. It is one of the top five airports in Asia in terms of passengers handled, with 30 million passengers passing through in 2004. It has been consistently rated as one of the best international airports by numerous international travel magazines . National carrier Singapore Airlines has also received several accolades internationally and is renowned for the image of the 'Singapore Girl', where air stewardesses are clad in traditional dress (Sarong Kebaya) while serving passengers. It will also be the first airline in the world to fly the new Airbus A380 commercially. In anticipation of rising demand in both the regular and low-cost sectors, a third passenger terminal and a low-cost terminal are currently under construction. These will increase the airport's total capacity to 66.7 million passengers annually by 2008. Domestic transport infrastructure is relatively efficient, and includes the heavy rail passenger Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system, the North-East Line, an autopilot extension of the MRT, the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) system, an extensive expressway and road system and a nationwide system of taxis and buses. The EZ-Link system allows, contactless smartcards to be used as stored value tickets for use in the public transport systems, and improves the convenience of the systems. Vehicles are subject to toll by an Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system during hours of heavy road traffic to regulate road usage. Recently, there have been complaints of rising public transport fares but the government asserts that this is due to the increase in global oil prices. Currently, fares are capped at $1.90 (~US$1.10) per ride. Electronic Road Pricing will allow it to handle up to 66.7 million passengers annually. Also in the pipeline is a new budget airline terminal to serve the rapidly growing budget airline industry.]]

Demographics

Electronic Road Pricing is the largest Hindu temple in Singapore. It is also one of the many religious buildings marked as national monuments for their historical value.]] : Singapore is the second most densely populated independent country in the world. Eighty-four percent of Singaporeans live in public housing provided by the Housing and Development Board (HDB). Singapore's population, though small at 4.42 million as of July 2005, is relatively diverse compared to most other countries, although neighbour Malaysia also features a multiracial population. The Chinese, who have constituted the majority of the island population since the colonial era, account for 76.8 percent of Singaporeans. Malays, who are the indigenous native group of the country, constitute 13.9 percent, though this number includes many Malay ethnic groups from other parts of the Malay archipelago including the Javanese, Bugis, Baweans and Minangs. Indians are the third largest ethnic group at 7.9 percent, consisting of several groups—Tamils, who form the largest Indian group, and others such as Malayalees, Punjabis and Bengalis. The rest are made up of smaller groups such as Arabs, Jews, Thais, Japanese, and the Eurasian community. Singapore is generally a multi-religious country, mainly due to its strategic location and the variety of religious beliefs that most Singaporeans hold. More than 40 percent of Singaporeans profess that they adhere to Buddhism. This is usually due to a lack of distinction between Taoism and Buddhism. Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and ancestral worship are merged into one by most of the Chinese population. Most Muslims are Malay but there are adherents among all races. Christianity in Singapore consists of Roman Catholicism and various denominations and its numbers hover at around 14% of the population. The government of Singapore has been careful to maintain ethnic harmony after racial riots erupted in the 1960s. Racial harmony has been emphasized in all aspects of society, including education, military and housing. So far the policy has been largely successful, and there have been few signs of ethnic tension since the early 1970s. Current issues include the ban on wearing the Islamic headscarf in public schools. In October 2005, a man was sentenced to one month in jail for making racist comments on an online blog. The national language of Singapore is Malay for historical reasons, and it is used in the national anthem. The official languages are English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. English has been promoted as the country's language of administration since independence, and it is spoken by the majority of the population, although with concurrent Speak Mandarin Campaigns, most public signs, advertising and print media tend to be in English and Chinese only. To promote Chinese culture and the use of Mandarin among the Chinese, the government has introduced a Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC). Historically, the Chinese immigrants often did not understand each other, having migrated from different parts of China, and were linguistically isolated into "dialects" such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Hokchia, Teochew, Hakka, Hokchiu and Hainanese. Malay was thus often used at that time as a common language. During the Speak Mandarin campaign however, Mandarin became a unifying factor at the cost of usage of Malay among the younger generation. Recently, there has been a "Speak Bahasa Melayu" campaign.

Culture

Hainanese As Singapore is a small and relatively modern amalgam of semi-indigenous Malay population with the majority of third generation Chinese and Indian and Arab immigrants with little intermarriage (although it exists and is most common between the Chinese and Indian races), there appears little in the way of specifically Singaporean culture. However, there exists a Eurasian community and a community of Peranakan or "Straits Chinese," of mixed Chinese and Malay descent. Singapore has also achieved a significant degree of cultural diffusion with its unique combination of these ethnic groups, and has given Singapore a rich mixture of diversity for its young age. One of the prime examples is in Singapore's cuisine, often a cultural attraction for tourists. The English used is primarily British English, with some American English influences. The local colloquial dialect of English is known formally as Singapore Colloquial English (though it is more commonly called "Singlish"), and has many creole-like characteristics, having incorporated much vocabulary and grammar from various Chinese, Malay, and Indian languages. Singlish is basically identical to Manglish (the English dialect of Malaysia), and is the usual language on the streets, but is frowned upon in official contexts. English use among the population generally became more widespread after the implementation of English as a first language medium in the Singapore education system, and English is the most common language in Singapore literature. Singapore literature Singapore also has several ethnic neighbourhoods, including a Little India and a Chinatown, which were formed under the Raffles Plan to segregate the new immigrants into ethnic ghettoes. Although the population is no longer segregated, these ethnic neighbourhoods retain selective elements of their specific culture. The usage of such neighbourhoods is mostly commercial or for a cottage industry specific to the culture of its ethnic neighbourhood, and does not play a big part in housing the population, although it is used for that purpose. Hence, these neighbourhoods have a diverse patronage who probably wish to either eat or buy something specific to that culture. In other parts of the country, segregation is discouraged and diversity encouraged. This can often be found in the policies of the Housing Development Board (HDB), which try to make sure there is a mix of all races within each housing district. The effect of this can be observed in all parts of the country; for example a store devoted to selling Malay food might be right next to stores selling Chinese or Indian goods. This, in return, is thought by some to foster social cohesion and national loyalty, crucial for sustaining Singapore's growth. There is an extremely strong emphasis towards racial harmony and the history pertaining to it, such as the 1964 Race Riots. Religious tolerance has been strongly encouraged since the British colonised Singapore; the Sri Mariamman Temple (a south Indian Hindu temple that was declared a national monument in the 1980s), as well as the Masjid Jamae Mosque that served Chulia Muslims from India's Coromandel Coast is situated along South Bridge Road, which is an old major road that runs through Chinatown. Among other religious landmarks is the Church of Gregory the Illuminator, that was built in 1836, making it one of the oldest religious buildings in Singapore. It has been preserved to the present day, and Orthodox services continue to be held in it. Although most religions are tolerated, some unorthodox groups are banned. Male homosexual intercourse is illegal in Singapore. This has been the subject of much debate both inside and outside the country, and there is no current legislative proposal to alter this. Under the Societies Act, the government has not allowed any gay rights group to form and openly address the issue. The Internet has resulted in a number of alternative communities like PLU (People Like Us), Sambal, Fridae, Red Queen, and others. However, the Singapore Government has considered homosexuality to be taboo, claiming that the population is predominantly conservative. Since the late 1990s, the government has been striving to promote Singapore as a centre for arts and culture, including theatre and music. This fits in with Singapore's status as a cosmopolitan and multi-racial society, often being called the "gateway between the East and West". The highlight of this plan is the Esplanade - "Theatres on the Bay", a centre for performing arts, opened in 2003. The Esplanade is also informally known as "The Durian", due to its resemblance to the pungent fruit. To attract more tourists, the government passed a bill on 17 April 2005 to legalise gambling. It has decided to build two "Integrated Resorts" (IRs), each with a casino component built-in, at Marina South and Sentosa respectively. The decisions to legalise gambling and to build the resorts came only after great controversy and debate. Bans on bar-top dancing and bungee jumping were also lifted despite their lukewarm demand.

External links

- [http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/sgp-summary-eng Amnesty International's 2005 report on Singapore]
- [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sn.html CIA World Factbook Entry for Singapore]
- [http://www.streetdirectory.com.sg Online map of Singapore]
- [http://www.gov.sg/ Singapore Government Online Portal]
- [http://www.sg/ Singapore Infomap]
- [http://www.visitsingapore.com Singapore Tourist Guide]
-
- [http://www.singapore.alloexpat.com/information_center_singapore.php AlloExpat - Singapore Information Center]

References

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- This article incorporates public domain text from the websites of Singapore Department of Statistics, United States Department of State, [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sgtoc.html the United States Library of Congress] & CIA World Factbook (2004).

Footnotes

# [http://www.bartleby.com/61/46/S0424600.html Singapore, bartleby.com] # [http://www.changiairport.com.sg/changi/level2_with_links.jsp;jsessionid=CUYCy26IIRpFk3sIMZSfQxwEyOMPDUihLomClhV1EsWtQ1dQ2TBB!-1022406898!-1062718459!7005!8005?ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395181062&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302024442&bmUID=1121245380514 Changi Airport, Singapore] Wikipedia:Footnote3 Category:ASEAN member states Category:Capitals in Asia Category:Cities and towns in Singapore Category:Coastal cities Category:Former British colonies Category:Island nations Category:Members of the Commonwealth of Nations Category:Republics zh-min-nan:Sin-ka-pho ko:싱가포르 ms:Singapura ja:シンガポール simple:Singapore th:ประเทศสิงคโปร์

Ayer Rajah Expressway

The Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE) extends from the western end of the East Coast Parkway in the south of Singapore to Tuas in the west near the Tuas Second Link to Malaysia. Together with the East Coast Parkway, it forms a second east-west link to complement the role played by the Pan Island Expressway. Construction on the expressway commenced in 1983, with the first two phases completed by 1988. This section involved the widening of several existing roads along the way, such as Ayer Rajah Road and Upper Ayer Rajah Road, as well as the construction of what was then the longest road viaduct, the Keppel Viaduct, from where the eastern end of the expressway commences. It extended for 13 kilometres and ends at the Teban Flyover with

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Ayer Rajah Expressway