Another group of people with a long history in Singapore are known as the Peranakans. The word peranakan in Malay means ‘half-caste’ and the Peranakans are the descendants of Chinese immigrants who settled in the area and married Malay women. The groups of Chinese who travelled and settled in the region centuries ago were predominantly (if not entirely) men, and so a most were married to local women. The culture of the Peranakans is a mix of both Chinese and Malay traditions, and in most cases this group adopted the name and religion of their Chinese fathers, but retained the language and customs of their Malay mothers. Today, the Peranakan population speaks a version of Malay which borrows from Hokkien so much that Malay speakers often cannot understand the dialect. While the Peranakan culture is being preserved and revived by organisations in Singapore, there are just a few thousand Peranakan Malay speakers left on the island.

According to the information in the reading passage, which group(s) have the following features:

A Chinese

B Malays

C Indians

D Peranakans

1) Has/Have features of more than ethnic group?

2) Is/Are united strongly through religion?

3) Speak / Speaks many different languages?

4) Is/Are not native to the Singapore region?

5) Was originally made up mostly of men?

In boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet write

Yes if the statement is true according to the article

No if the statement is not true according to the article

NOT GIVEN if it is not possible to determine the truth of the statement from the article

6) Originally, many Chinese communities in Singapore couldn’t communicate easily with each other due to linguistic differences.

7) Mandarin is the main language of Singapore.

8) Indians were the most recent of the three to arrive in Singapore.

9) Arab and Indian traders settled in Singapore in the 1400s.

10) The Peranakan language is being increasingly used in Singapore.

Answers

1) D

2) B

3) A

4) A, C

5) A

6) YES

7) NOT GIVEN

8) YES

9) NO

10) NO