A language crisis or something else?

House-visiting at my relatives during Chinese New Year can yield a harvest (i.e. ang paos and goodies) and also timely insights.

I am increasingly frustrated at my inability to communicate effectively with my Mandarin and dialect-speaking relatives (mainly the older folks from my Mum's side). Yes, some of my younger cousins can converse in English but prefer to speak in Mandarin, having been raised in a Chinese-speaking family environment.

It can't be a matter of language or some generational gap too as my cousin nicely pointed out today that my command of Mandarin is fine (which I strongly disagree) while I have no issues conversing with my English-speaking older relatives.

Methinks it is something else.

Having been raised in an upper middle-class family, taught in an almost exclusively all-English environment at home (although I speak to my Mum in a mixture of English and Mandarin) and school (minus the Mandarin classes), and exposed to ideas and principles like any member of the Western-educated intelligentsia (a general labeling that includes university students in Singapore) are, I feel continents apart from some of my folks.

There seems to be a chasm of thinking that divides the English and Chinese-speaking population, one based on family values and different language backgrounds that determine the type of literature one is exposed to, thereby shaping one's view of life and the world.

But the truth is that Mandarin is still the dominant language of the heartlands (which constitutes the majority of Chinese Singaporeans) while English, which is the language of government, business and education, constitutes only a minority of the population.

Having been trained almost exclusively in the latter, I believe I speak for most English-speaking Singaporeans who may feel this sense of alienation from the majority of the Chinese population who speak primarily Mandarin and dialects.

We are always so fixated about divisions along racial, religious and class lines. How about examining the divisions created by the family-language backgrounds that we all hail from?