Siri will support 'Singapore English' with iOS 8.2
PUBLISHED ONDecember 12, 2014 9:35 AM
SINGAPORE - "Silly, the nearest train station where ah?"
There's now a slight chance that the above sentence will be interpreted correctly by Siri, the "personal assistant" that lives in your iPhone.
In the software development kit release notes for iOS 8.2 beta 2, meant for software and app developers, Apple said under the heading "fixed in beta 2" that "Siri support for Singapore English was disabled in the previous beta".
What this means is that Siri will support "Singapore English" in iOS 8.2.
However, it is still not clear what "level" of "Singapore English" Siri will support. Does it mean that Siri can understand proper English with a Singapore "accent", or will Siri start spouting full-on Singlish, complete with mish-mash of Chinese, Chinese dialects, Malay, etc?
The former seems more likely, but that's not stopping people on Reddit from speculating about what Siri in Singapore will speak like.
"Oi Siri can you find the nearest kopitiam with sibei high rating and chio prices or not?" wrote one user on Reddit, speculating on what people will utter to their iPhone. "How can I helpt chiu?" wrote another, describing what Siri is likely to say.
And then there are the ones with "colourful" Hokkien (a Chinese dialect common in Singapore) phrases that are not appropriate to reproduce here.
sinsh@sph.com.sg