Jiak Ba Beh? A Taste of Singaporean Hokkien: An Introduction to Spoken Singaporean Hokkien

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Jiǎk° bà beh? Have you eaten yet? This once common Hokkien greeting among family and friends in Singapore is now rarely heard. Speakers of this this Chinese dialect-which some linguists consider a separate language language-are now far and few between. Over the past 40 years, English and Mandarin have become the most widely spoken languages in the city-state of Singapore. Resources for learning this language are practically nonexistent and generally are not friendly for English speakers. Jiǎk° Bà Beh? A Taste of Singaporean Hokkien is an introductory guide to spoken Singaporean Hokkien developed for people familiar with pinyin, the most widely used romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. By making Singaporean Hokkien learning resources more accessible, the author hopes to help preserve this dialect, which she, like some linguists, considers a language.