other Chinese varieties has collapsed and is now limited mainly to the elderly. More recently, English is starting to displace Mandarin among the new generation of Singapore Chinese due to long term effects of the dominant usage of English in most official settings over Mandarin, the dominant usage of English as the medium of instruction in Singapore schools, colleges and universities, and the limited and lower standards of local mother education system over the years in Singapore. Standard Mandarin Standard Mandarin is generally spoken as the lingua franca among the Chinese community in Singapore. Simply known as Chinese, it is the designated mother tongue or 'ethnic language' of Chinese Singaporeans, at the expense of the other Chinese varieties. In 1979, the government heavily promoted Mandarin through its "Speak Mandarin" campaign. The Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew stated that Mandarin was chosen to unify the Chinese community with a single language. With the rising prominence of Mandarin in Singapore at that time, politicians such as Lee theorized that it might overtake English, despite strong evidence to the contrary. From the 1990s, with the perceived increase in commerce and trade possibilities with Mainland China, the Singaporean government promoted Mandarin as a language with high economic advantage and value. Today, Mandarin is generally seen as a way to maintain a link to Chinese culture. However, due to the fact that English is the main medium of language instruction in Singaporean schools, colleges and universities; as well as the limited and lower standards of local Mandarin Chinese education in Singapore and the dominant usage of English in most official settings, the standards of Mandarin Chinese among many young Singaporean Chinese has been dropping as more and more young Singaporean Chinese are speaking and using English more frequently than Mandarin Chinese. Other Chinese varieties Other Chinese varieties also have a presence in Singapore. Amongst them, Hokkien used to be an unofficial language of business until the 1980s. Hokkien was also used as a lingua franca among Chinese Singaporeans, and also among Malays and Indians to communicate with the Chinese majority. As of 2012, according to demographic figures, the five main Chinese linguistic groups in Singapore are Hokkien (41.1%), Teochew (21.0%), Cantonese (15.4%), Hakka (7.9%) and Hainanese (6.7%), while Hokchew/Hokchia (Fuzhou dialect), Henghua (Puxian Min), and Shanghainese have smaller speaker bases. Other than Mandarin, the two most commonly spoken varieties of Chinese are Hokkien which is