Singapore English is probably the classic case of the indigenisation of English as it performs such a wide range of functions, not only internationally but intranationally, not only interethnically but intraethnically, not only in the more public domains but increasingly in the more private domains of family and friendship as well. This does not, of course, mean that it has supplanted the various local languages: Chinese dialects, Malay and the various languages of the Indian communities. However, its use in various domains has been increasing annually.

English came to Singapore with the establishment of a trading centre by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. The functions of English increased quite rapidly, and with the establishment of English-medium schools came the beginnings of Singapore English.

Although a pidginised form of Malay, Bazaar Malay, was the general lingua franca throughout the colonial period and was used not only for interethnic communication between Chinese, Malays and Indians but also by Europeans communicating with the majority of the local population, English gradually became a kind of prestige lingua franca among the small but increasing English-medium educated section of the population.

As pointed out in Platt (1975: 365, 1977a: 83) and Platt and Weber (1980: 17–22), it was through English-medium education that an indigenised variety of English developed. A kind of fossilised interlanguage became a lingua franca in the English-medium schools among students whose home language might be one of the Chinese dialects (not all of them mutually intelligible), an Indian language or Malay.