Yes, there was a promotion to speak Mandarin, but suppression of dialects was never a major part of the campaign and Hokkien is still spoken by many Singaporean.
> but suppression of dialects was never a major part of the campaign
From the article:
The initial goal of the campaign was for all young Chinese to stop speaking dialects in five years, and to establish Mandarin as the language of choice in public places within 10 years.
> Hokkien is still spoken by many Singaporean.
Again, the article shows that in 1980 81.4% of Chinese Singaporeans spoke a Chinese language at home that wasn't Mandarin. In 2015 it's 16.1%.
Please search for "suppression of dialects was never a MAJOR part" in the original article for more details. I copied the exact sentence from there.
Yes, there are much less Singaporeans speaking their dialects at home. I've actually met several Singaporeans saying that want to speak their dialects as much as possible as they feel it's endangered. However, what are the alternatives? Singaporean Chinese doesn't speak the same dialect, and it's a small city. How do they communicate with each other in school, at work, and at home after marrying someone speaking a different dialect? They can speak English, in fact they do that as well, or they can speak Mandarin if they're communicating with another Chinese speaker. Either way, the chance they'll be able to speak their own dialects will diminish eventually.
In addition, most dialects are no where close to being endangered, as they're widely used in China. We speak in Mandarin with people that doesn't speak the same dialect, but at the same time, it'd also be weird if we are from the same place, speak the same dialect and yet decide to speak in Mandarin.
Well one advantage is that Singaporean employers can put on superfluous "must speak Mandarin" sentences in their job descriptions, which lets them hire Chinese people and avoid hiring Malay and Indians, all the while landing on the right side of anti-discrimination laws.
Hard to do that when lots of people speak Hokkien, Cantonese etc.
English is the official language used in formal context in Singapore, not Chinese, Indian or Malay. All the documents you’d sign with a company are in English.
From the article:
The initial goal of the campaign was for all young Chinese to stop speaking dialects in five years, and to establish Mandarin as the language of choice in public places within 10 years.
> Hokkien is still spoken by many Singaporean.
Again, the article shows that in 1980 81.4% of Chinese Singaporeans spoke a Chinese language at home that wasn't Mandarin. In 2015 it's 16.1%.