Singdarin, or Singaporean Colloquial Mandarin is a Mandarin-based Creole which is spoken in Singapore. Although the official languages of Singapore are English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil, Singdarin becomes commonly used and spoken in Singapore, besides Singlish (English-based Creole in Singapore) and many Singaporean Chinese do code-switching between Singdarin and Singaporean Standard Mandarin (A varriant of Standard Mandarin that used in Singapore).
Singdarin has largely identical grammar to Singaporean Standard Mandarin, but has large amount of English and Malay in its vocabulary, and also borrowed some words from some Southern Chinese Dialects (such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew, etc.) and Tamil.
The development of Singdarin comes from many Singaporean Chinese families live in the mixed language environments. For instance, children may be raised in households in which parent speak English or Malay while the other speaks Mandarin or coming for other Chinese dialects, such as Hokkien and Cantonese.
Indian languages, such Tamil were also commonly heard in such environments. Another factor is Singaporean Government has built HBD Housing and encourages the majority of Singaporeans such as Chinese, Malays, and Tamil, and other ethnicities in Singapore to live HBD Housing.
The goals are to reduce differences of between the diverse linguistic and ethnic groups in Singapore and also to ensure racial harmony. This leads to the creation of hybrid cuture or "Rojak" in Singaporean term.
Moreover, the tendency of the Singaporean Chinese people to use mixed language that they use at home in daily colloquial conversation has since influenced Mandarin spoken in schools, resulting in Singdarin being for emerged and developed. Today, Singdarin is used and spoken in colloquial speech in Singapore and occasionally appeared in local television and internet, while some local news is broadcasted in Singaporean Standard Mandarin and becomes a part of unique Singaporean culture.
Here are the examples of sentences of Singdarin spoken by Singaporean Chinese comparing in English and Standard Mandarin: [Note: Standard Mandarin is used Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters]
| Singdarin | English | Standard Mandarin |
| 你的office在哪里?/你的office在哪裡? (Ni de office zai nali?) | Where is your office? | 你的办公室在哪里?/尼辦公室在那? (Ni de bangongshi zai nali?) |
| Raffles Place, 很靠近MRT. (Raffles Place, hen kaojin MRT.) | Raffles Place located near the MRT station. | 莱佛士坊, 在地铁附近/离地铁不远/萊佛士坊,在地鐵附近/離地鐵不遠. (Laifoshi Fang, zai ditie fujin/li ditie buyuan.) |
| Server room的里面fire sprinkler拆了, 你们的fire department会allow吗?/Server room裡面的fire sprinkler拆了, 你們的fire department會allow嗎? (Server room de limian fire sprinkler chai le, nimen de fire department hui allow ma?) | If you dismantle the fire sprinler inside server room, will the fire department approve it? | 机房里面的消防洒水拆了, 你们的消防局会批准吗?/機房裡面的消防灑水拆了, 你們的消防局會批准嗎? (Jifang limian de xiaofang sashui chai le, nimen de xiaofangju hui pizhun ma?) |
| 今天sibeh热咧! Buay Tahan啦!/今天sibeh熱咧! Buay Tahan啦! (Jintian sibeh re leh! Buay Tahan la!) | The weather is too hot today! It's unbearable! | 今天的天气太热了! 我忍受不了了/今天的天氣太熱了! 我忍受不了了! (Jintian de tianqi tai re le! Wo renshou buliao le!) |
