The culture of Singapore or Singaporean culture embodies the artistic, culinary, literary, musical, political and social elements that are representative of Singapore and Singaporeans. As the city-state lies at the crossroads of several major Asian cultures, its core culture consists of a combination of East Asian, Austronesian Malay, South Asian, and Eurasian influences. Contemporary Singapore was also influenced by European culture, mainly by the British, leading it to been dubbed as a country where "East meets West", the "Gateway to Asia" and a "Garden city". A multitude of languages are also used in Singapore, reflecting its rich linguistic diversity. Two of the region's major languages, Malay, the language of the indigenous peoples, and Mandarin Chinese, are official languages of Singapore, along with Tamil, spoken by a minority of Indian speakers. English, the de facto main language, was also chosen as a lingua franca between Singaporeans of different backgrounds and races. Historically, Hokkien was widely used as the ethnic language among the different Chinese dialects as well as for the other races to communicate with the Chinese, although Cantonese, Hainanese and Teochew was also used to a lesser extent in Singapore. However, such dialects were gradually replaced by Mandarin, as it was seen by the government as a way to maintain a link to Chinese culture. As Singapore was under Japanese rule during World War II, some Singaporeans, especially of the older generations, are able to natively communicate in Japanese, although such numbers are dwindling. As a result, Singaporeans are at least bilingual or sometimes even trilingual, as the government has also encouraged a language education policy that promotes a dual-language learning system. Learning a second language has been compulsory in primary schools since 1960 and secondary schools since 1966. In addition, the widespread use of Singlish in informal situations among Singaporeans, a variety of English spoken in Singapore which consists of many of the different languages described above, is commonly associated with the country and is considered a unique aspect of Singaporean culture. Singapore's indigenous culture originates primarily from the Austronesian peoples that arrived from the island of Taiwan, settling between 1500 to 1000 BCE, and was then known as Temasek. The legend of a Srivijayan prince named Sang Nila Utama, who is believed to have founded the Kingdom of Singapore, has been considered the genesis of its modern history. Singapore was then influenced during the Middle Ages primarily by