82-546: The SAF Military Police Command ( Chinese : 新加坡武装部队宪兵指挥部 , Malay : Markas Polis Tentera Angkatan Bersenjata Singapura , Tamil : சிங்கப்பூர் ஆயுதப்பமட ராணுவ மபாலிஸ ) is the military police formation of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). Established as the Singapore Armed Forces Provost Unit ( SAFPU ) in 1966, its primary role is to police duties to uphold standards of discipline within
164-547: A family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
246-464: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
328-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
410-522: A 13-week training course for Military Police specialist ( non-commissioned officer ) cadets. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of
492-505: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
574-595: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
656-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
738-597: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
820-700: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
902-564: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
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#1732933792993984-542: A new camp along Choa Chu Kang Way . Keeping with tradition, the road leading to the camp is named Mowbray Road and the new camp itself is still called Mowbray Camp. The SAF Detention Barracks was opened on 29 March 1987 next to the new Mowbray Camp to replace all the different detention barracks previously operated by the SAFPU. The old Mowbray Camp at Ulu Pandan has since been handed over to the Singapore Police Force and
1066-538: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
1148-503: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
1230-610: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
1312-563: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
1394-596: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
1476-644: Is a Singaporean former lieutenant-general who served as Chief of Defence Force between 2003 and 2007. Ng received his secondary and pre-university education in Victoria School and Hwa Chong Junior College respectively. He received the Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Scholarship for his undergraduate studies in 1980, and graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in engineering from Christ's College, Cambridge . After applying for an Oxbridge Master of Arts , in 1987 his BA
1558-485: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
1640-573: Is currently used by the Protective Security Command (ProCom). On 1 September 2006, SAFPU was renamed SAF Military Police Command and officially inaugurated by Lieutenant-General Ng Yat Chung , the Chief of Defence Force . The SAF Military Police Command came under the command of HQ 2nd People's Defence Force and expanded to include the SAF Band , Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) headquarters, and
1722-595: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
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#17329337929931804-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
1886-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
1968-484: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
2050-496: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
2132-497: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
2214-540: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
2296-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
2378-735: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
2460-632: The 8th and 9th Battalions, Singapore Infantry Regiment in 2011. The SAF Military Police Command is headed by the Command Headquarters at Mowbray Camp . Its operational duties are subdivided into five categories – enforcement, ceremonial, security, incarceration, and criminal investigation – carried out by the Military Police Enforcement Unit (MPEU), Security Troopers from 8 SIR and 9 SIR, the SAF Detention Barracks, and
2542-610: The Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in
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2624-525: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
2706-680: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
2788-815: The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) headquarters at Bukit Gombak . The SAF Military Police Command operates the SAF Detention Barracks, currently the only military prison in Singapore. The Special Investigation Branch (SIB) carries out criminal investigations in the SAF and MINDEF for military-related offences, including drug offences, white-collar crimes and cybercrimes . The Island Defence Training Institute (IDTI) conducts training for both active and reservist Military Police personnel and Security Troopers. The Security and Policing Leadership School (SPLS), one of four schools in IDTI, conducts
2870-579: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
2952-505: The Singapore Police Force to arrest SAF personnel who have deserted or gone AWOL or committed other military offences. It has an Escort and Processing Office Platoon in charge of registering and detaining suspects in holding cells at Mowbray Camp. The MWDU is in charge of training sniffer dogs and guard dogs and carrying out operations involving these dogs. Lastly, there is a Special Security and Protection (SSP) Platoon that provides close protection cover for key appointment holders in
3034-473: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
3116-591: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
3198-636: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Ng Yat Chung Ng Yat Chung
3280-711: The Chief of Army on 1 April 2003 and succeeded Lim Chuan Poh as the Chief of Defence Force (CDF). As the CDF, Ng laid the blueprint for the 3rd Generation SAF by overseeing the development of new operational concepts to further integrate the Army, Navy and Air Force . He also commanded the SAF's humanitarian assistance and disaster relief response in Aceh and Phuket after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami , as well as similar missions to Yogyakarta and Phitsanulok in 2006. He retired from
3362-555: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
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3444-747: The Provost Company, which formally started operations at Beach Road Camp, where the first detention cells were located. At the time, the Provost Company was part of the Manpower Division and under the command of the 1st Singapore Infantry Brigade . When National Service started in 1967, the Provost Company grew in size and moved to Hill Street Camp in 1970. Two other companies, the Dog and Operations companies, were established at Hill Street Camp. The Provost, Dog and Operations companies merged in February 1971 to form
3526-518: The SAF Detention Barracks. The LECC also mounts the guard of honour contingent for military and state events. The Support Company has a Presidential Guards Platoon that serves as ceremonial sentries at the Istana , as well as performing the guard mounting ceremony outside the Istana on the first Sunday of every month. The platoon's members are also trained in Silent Precision Drills, and form
3608-811: The SAF Provost Unit (SAFPU) and moved to Mowbray Camp at Ulu Pandan Road in July that year. Two sub-units, the Security Company and the Special Investigations Branch (SIB), were added to the SAFPU in 1973. The following year, a sixth sub-unit, the 1st Reservist Provost Company, was formed in the SAFPU. Up to the late 1980s, the SAFPU operated four different detention barracks located at Tanglin (opened in 1972), Changi (opened in 1973), Nee Soon (opened in 1974) and Kranji (opened in 1977). The Operations Company took on ceremonial functions in 1980 and formed
3690-678: The SAF and Ministry of Defence (MINDEF). Security Troopers have replaced the Regimental Police in the Singapore Army. Security Troopers from the 8th Battalion, Singapore Infantry Regiment (8 SIR) provide security coverage at SAF camps, bases and military installations around Singapore, while Security Troopers from the 9th Battalion, Singapore Infantry Regiment (9 SIR) provide security coverage at key installations such as Changi Airport , Sembawang Wharves and Jurong Island . The SAF Military Police Command also provides security coverage at
3772-572: The SAF on 23 March 2007 and was succeeded by Desmond Kuek as the CDF. After leaving the military, Ng joined Temasek Holdings and was rotated in the company: Head of Energy & Resources; Co-Head of Australia & New Zealand & Co-Head of Strategy; Senior managing director. Ng joined the board of Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) as an Executive Director in May 2011 and was appointed Group President and Chief Executive Officer in October. On 9 June 2016, it
3854-413: The SAF, and to provide security coverage for key SAF military installations and the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) headquarters at Bukit Gombak . The Military Police Command also perform guard mounting at the Istana , and form the ceremonial guard of honour for state visits by foreign dignitaries and at other national events. Moreover, they maintain discipline within the SAF through enforcement and
3936-568: The Silent Precision Drill Squad (SPDS) which performs at the monthly Istana Change of Guards ceremony, as well as the National Day Parade and international military tattoos . The support company also includes a Traffic Platoon that performs escort duties and conducts patrols to ensure that SAF personnel driving military vehicles comply with traffic regulations. It also has a Security Operations Detachment that works closely with
4018-825: The Special Investigation Branch (SIB). The Military Police Enforcement Unit (MPEU) serves as the main enforcement arm of the SAF Military Police Command. It comprises three companies : the Law Enforcement and Ceremonial Company (LECC), the Support Company, and the Military Working Dog Unit (MWDU). The LECC routinely conducts spot-checks in SAF camps, bases, vessels, and on personnel returning from overseas deployment. They are also trained to conduct anti-riot operations in SAF camps and
4100-448: The decline of print advertising, SPH recorded its first-ever loss of S$ 11.4 million. At a press conference held on 6 May 2021, Ng and other SPH leaders announced that the company's media businesses, including major Singaporean broadsheets like The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao , would be spun off into a separate company limited by guarantee , operating as a not-for-profit entity . This move would remove shareholders' pressure on
4182-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
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#17329337929934264-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
4346-566: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
4428-540: The first guard of honour for the German ambassador to Singapore. The SAFPU brown uniform was first introduced in 1983. The following year, a 93-men unit drawn from the SAFPU formed the Silent Precision Drill Squad (SPDS), who trained under the guidance of foreign instructors for a performance during the 1984 National Day Parade at the Padang . The SPDS performed again during the 1986 and 1988 National Day Parades. They also served as
4510-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
4592-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
4674-599: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
4756-455: The guard of honour during the opening ceremony of the 1993 Southeast Asian Games . Starting in the mid-1980s, the SAFPU have been performing ceremonial sentry duties at the Istana , the official residence of the President of Singapore , and the monthly guard mounting ceremony outside the Istana. In 1995, President Ong Teng Cheong presented the SAFPU with its colours. The SAFPU has moved to
4838-581: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
4920-516: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
5002-556: The media unit to perform and be profitable. Ng took offence when a CNA Digital reporter asked whether restructuring SPH's media businesses meant that the company would pivot to prioritising editorial integrity over advertising interests. Ng's use of the word "umbrage" gained significant attention, with the word becoming the top searched term on Google in Singapore that day, spawning memes, parody advertisements, and merchandise. Ng subsequently apologised for any offence that might have been caused by his comment. After SPH delisted from
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#17329337929935084-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
5166-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
5248-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
5330-491: The operation of the SAF Detention Barracks, and search and rescue operations, amongst other duties. In wartime contingencies, the Military Police Command would be tasked with safeguarding prisoners-of-war , protecting rear echelon areas and headquarters, as well as securing important supply routes and relevant bases for Singapore. The SAF Military Police Command started on 26 August 1966 as a single company known as
5412-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
5494-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
5576-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
5658-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
5740-505: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
5822-511: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
5904-609: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
5986-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
6068-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
6150-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
6232-508: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
6314-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
6396-469: Was announced that Temasek would tender its NOL shares to CMA. Ng cited NOL's lack of scale as the primary reason for its sale. He subsequently received criticism for his failure to improve the company's performance over his years as CEO. On 19 May 2017, Reuters reported that CMA managed to turn NOL around, with NOL posting a $ 26 million net profit for Q1 2017. After the sale, Ng stayed on as Special Advisor from June 2016 to May 2017. On 20 July 2016, Ng
6478-466: Was appointed as an independent director of Singapore Press Holdings . On 1 September 2017, Ng was appointed CEO of SPH following his predecessor, Alan Chan's , retirement. On 12 October 2017, Ng announced a retrenchment exercise. Under his leadership, SPH's revenue had fallen from S$ 1,032 million in 2017 to S$ 865 million in 2020. In 2020, due to the confluence of factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and
6560-599: Was commissioned as an artillery officer in December that year. Throughout his military career, he held various appointments, including the following: Commanding Officer, 21st Battalion Singapore Artillery; Assistant Chief of the General Staff (Plans); Commander, 3rd Singapore Infantry Brigade; Head, Joint Operations Department; Commander, 3rd Division; Director, Joint Operations and Planning Directorate; Chief of Staff (Joint Staff); Chief of Army . He relinquished his appointment as
6642-476: Was converted into an MA (not an earned master's degree). He also holds a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University . He attended the six-week Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School , and graduated with a Master of Military Art and Science from the United States Army Command and General Staff College . Ng enlisted in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) in 1979 and
6724-481: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
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