Comment by 4bpp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 4bpp | Hacker News Reader

GMT+8, the name (Mandarin/mixed-dialect first name + Hokkien surname) and most importantly the circumstance that the user was seen connecting from a likely VPN exit or hosted server in Singapore [1] are all consistent with a Singaporean identity, whether real or cover. For that reason, the opinion of [1]'s source that the name sounds fake should also be taken with some amount of salt (Mainland Chinese are not always well-informed about Diaspora Chinese communities). Worth noting that many of the holidays mentioned, likewise, are not public holidays in SG [2] - Jan 24th was, but Jan 22nd (listed as working) was a Sunday, inconsistent with a "working on regular working days" pattern most anywhere.

Would be interesting to see a greater corpus of Jia Tan's writings, especially older ones. There are fairly distinctive idiosyncrasies that may be used to distinguish Singaporeans, Mainland Chinese and speakers of various Slavic languages (and Anglo natives).

[1] https://boehs.org/node/everything-i-know-about-the-xz-backdo...

[2] https://www.mom.gov.sg/employment-practices/public-holidays

In the few commits from Jia Tan that I've seen, the English parses (to me at least) idiomatically as a native speaker from either the US or UK, and I did not encounter any signs of Singaporean English. Obviously, this is a very small sample so one cannot read too much into it.

Almost 10% of Singaporeans share the family name Tan. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Singaporean_surnames_by_f...

> the English parses (to me at least) idiomatically as a native speaker from either the US or UK, and I did not encounter any signs of Singaporean English

Singapore is an Anglophone country. Many Singaporeans are perfectly capable of writing (idiomatic) BrE or NAmE, given the medium of instruction in Singaporean education from kindergarten to university is English. Example: me.

That is certainly true, I did not mean to imply this is not the case. I have noticed however that in the Singaporean English acrolect certain words and phrases are used differently than they would be in BrE or NAmE ("I'll send him to the airport.") In less formal registers the differences become larger, which is what I was looking for.

It's also worth noting that Tan is a Mandarin Chinese surname too (譚) in addition to being a distinct Hokkien surname (the much more common 陳).

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