Lost voices – Patchwork Playeum (Singapore Children’s Museum)

Institute for Media Innovation (IMI), School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), CAMTech, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE), NTU Museum,

2012 – current

Imagine an English speaking world without ‘Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock’ or ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ or ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’. ‘Patchwork of Lost Voices’ is a project that explores nursery rhymes and children songs in languages which are disappearing. In language loss, one of the little known issues concerns the loss of a special register. That is, a specific language repertoire used to engage children. This often takes the form of  word play, rhymes or songs. This project features several languages which are not used by young children anymore. Older speakers are interviewed about the nursery rhymes and songs they grew up with. “Patchwork of lost voices” aims to document some of these samples before they disappear into oblivion and to evoke memory and interest in current and new generations of speakers.