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Synopsis :

Recording contains only the English version of Prime Minister (PM) Lee Kuan Yew's opening address at the launch of 1984 Speak Mandarin Campaign telecast over SBC Channel 5. PM Lee launches the 1984 campaign to 'Promote the Use of Mandarin' on 21 September at the Conference Hall. He touches on several issues related to speaking Mandarin and the campaign, which includes:

1. one objective in such a ceremony is 'to give encouragement to those who want to push the language';
2. few children can 'successfully master two languages plus a dialect';
3. use 'Mandarin as the mother tongue in place of dialect' to ensure Singapore's bilingual policy can succeed;
4. Singapore has made progress since the launch of the campaign in 1979, citing Ministry of Education statistics showing more families with young children making the switch to Mandarin;
5. Singapore has one advantage in that 'no single dialect is the predominant mother tongue', but Chinese Singaporeans still have 'deep emotional ties to dialects' which 'hinder our complete acceptance of Mandarin'; citing statistics of  registration of children's names in dialects, Pinyin and western language;
6. environments influencing children's language habits: home environment is strongest factor, so home language will remain dialect for some time; next strongest factor are places such as playgrounds, shops, food centres, buses - continued use of dialects interfere with getting the children to use Mandarin;
7. government's 'one abiding reason' for 'persisting in bilingualism' is 'English will not emotionally acceptable as our mother language', whereas 'Mandarin is emotionally acceptable' and can also 'unite the different dialect groups';
8. to be able to speak Mandarin and read the Chinese script - 'psychological value cannot be over-emphasised';
9. language and culture are not identical although they are closely related;
10. government is 'resolved to ensure that Mandarin becomes the social language of Chinese Singaporeans';
11. one regret is he did not launch the campaign earlier, like 10 years ago.