• The term pasar originates from the Malay language, meaning “market”. It is derived from Persian, and refers to a trading venue, marketplace, or vegetable market.
• Singapore is a multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-cultural society, where English (a language inherited from our colonial rulers), Malay (spoken by the earliest Malay settlers), various Chinese dialects (first spoken by Chinese immigrants), as well as Tamil and Punjabi (introduced by immigrants from India) converge.  These languages came into contact with and influenced each other.
• Pasar Malay is the first pasar language to appear in Singapore, and refers to Malay language that has been influenced by the vocabulary and grammar of Chinese dialects. Pasar Malay expresses the language characteristics that was present in the early days of Singapore’s history. At the time, Pasar Malay came into existence to facilitate communication amongst various ethnic groups. With the widespread introduction of English in the 1960s, Pasar Malay was gradually replaced by English.
• Pasar Chinese refers to the common, informal, colloquial language used among the Chinese. Pasar Chinese is spoken with a dialect accent, while its vocabulary is a mix of words from Chinese dialects, Malay or English. Its grammar also reflects the characteristics of Chinese dialects.

Educated and successful Malays should more actively promote and use the Malay language at a more advanced level to prevent it from becoming a pasar language. (Lianhe Zaobao, 18/7/1995)

• An example of Pasar Malay is “Gua punya Ah Kong peki tengok wayang tong tong ceng.”, which translates to “My grandfather has gone to watch Chinese opera”. In standard Malay, the same sentence becomes “Datuk saya pergi tengok wayang Cina”.
• Examples of Pasar Chinese include “我走先” (as opposed to the standard usage “我先走”), as well as terms like “马打” (meaning mata or police) and “暗牌” (meaning plain-clothes policeman).