The proportion of children aged 5-14 years who spoke English most frequently at home increased from 23 per cent in 1990 to 36 per cent in 2000 for the Chinese, from 8.3 per cent to 9.4 per cent for the Malays and from 40 per cent to 44 per cent for the Indians (Table 1).
However, the vernacular languages of Mandarin, Malay and Tamil remained important as the home languages of children. In 2000, some 90 per cent of Malay children were Malay-speaking at home, while 36 per cent of Indian children spoke Tamil most frequently at home. Among Chinese children, 60 per cent were Mandarin-speaking at home. Chinese dialects were fast disappearing among Chinese children, with a share only 4.3 per cent.
TABLE 1
RESIDENT POPULATION AGED 5 – 14 YEARS
BY LANGUAGES MOST FREQUENTLY
SPOKEN AT HOME
