ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on Spoken Tamil, the vernacular or Low variety in diglossic Tamil, and reveals variation within Spoken Tamil that has thus far been unexplored in scholarship on the language in Singapore. Furthermore, it conceptually emphasises the link between language, migration and identity construction, wherein differences in spoken varieties of Tamil can be explored through the lens of the different waves of immigration to Singapore. Drawing data from a sociolinguistic survey taken by 109 respondents, the chapter builds on the awareness and attitudes of respondents from the two immigration waves identified, the New Wave, and Old Wave, towards the spoken varieties of Singaporean Tamil, Indian Tamil and Literary Tamil. The results from the survey show that there are speakers of all the varieties listed above, solidifying their existence in Singapore’s Tamil linguistic landscape. The New and Old Wave respondents’ attitudes towards these varieties also show that they favour one spoken variety viewing it as ‘purer’ than the other. Awareness and attitudes towards these different spoken varieties thus begin to render visibility to a new kind of identity politics within the Tamil community that allude to hierarchies in spoken varieties of the vernacular rendering language a significant divider in the distinction between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ diaspora.