Stylistic Evolution and LLM Neutrality in Singlish Language

TL;DR

This paper studies the evolution of Singlish over a decade, analyzing stylistic changes and evaluating how well large language models can generate temporally neutral Singlish text.

Contribution

It introduces a stylistic similarity framework for diachronic analysis and assesses LLMs' ability to produce temporally neutral Singlish messages.

Findings

Significant diachronic stylistic changes in Singlish over ten years.

LLMs can generate superficially realistic Singlish but retain temporal signals.

Current LLMs have limitations in modeling sociolectal and temporal variations.

Abstract

Singlish is a creole rooted in Singapore's multilingual environment and continues to evolve alongside social and technological change. This study investigates the evolution of Singlish over a decade of informal digital text messages. We propose a stylistic similarity framework that compares lexico-structural, pragmatic, psycholinguistic, and encoder-derived features across years to quantify temporal variation. Our analysis reveals notable diachronic changes in tone, expressivity and sentence construction over the years. Conversely, while some LLMs were able to generate superficially realistic Singlish messages, they do not produce temporally neutral outputs, and residual temporal signals remain detectable despite prompting and fine-tuning. Our findings highlight the dynamic evolution of Singlish, as well as the capabilities and limitations of current LLMs in modeling sociolectal and temporal variations in the colloquial language.