The Peranakan Chinese () are an ethnic group defined by their genealogical descent from the first waves of Southern Chinese settlers to maritime Southeast Asia, known as Nanyang (), namely the British, Portuguese, and Dutch colonial ports in the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian Archipelago, as well as Singapore. The Peranakan Chinese are often simply referred to as the Peranakans. Peranakan culture, especially in the dominant Peranakan centres of Malacca, Singapore, Penang, Kelantan, Terengganu, Phuket, and Tangerang, is characterised by its unique hybridisation of ancient Chinese culture with the local cultures of the Nusantara region, the result of a centuries-long history of transculturation and interracial marriage.
Immigrants from the southern provinces of China arrived in significant numbers in the region between the 14th and 17th centuries, taking abode in the Malay Peninsula (where their descendants in Malacca, Singapore and Penang are referred to as Baba–Nyonya); the Southern Thailand (where their descendants are referred to as Baba-Yaya), primarily in Phuket, Trang, Phang Nga, Takua Pa, and Ranong; Terengganu (where their descendants are referred to as Cheng Mua Lang) and North Borneo from the 18th century (where their descendants in Sabah are also referred to as Sino-Natives). Intermarriage between these Chinese settlers and their Malay, Thai, Javanese, or other predecessors in the region contributed to the emergence of a distinctive hybrid culture and ostensible phenotypic differences. Through colonisation of the region, the impact and presence of the Peranakan Chinese spread beyond Nusantara. In Sri Lanka, the Peranakan Chinese went on to contribute to the development of the Sri Lankan Malay identity that emerged in the nation during Dutch rule.
The Peranakans are considered a multiracial community, with the caveat that individual family histories vary widely and likewise self-identification with multiracialism as opposed to Chineseness varies widely. The Malay/Indonesian phrase "orang Cina bukan Cina" ("a not-Chinese Chinese person") encapsulates the complex relationship between Peranakan identity and Chinese identity. The particularities of genealogy and the unique syncretic culture are the main features that distinguish the Peranakan from descendants of later waves of Chinese immigrants to the region.
Etymology The word Peranakan is a morphological derivation of the Malay and Indonesian word anak, meaning child or offspring. With the addition of the prefix per- and the suffix -an to the root anak, the modified word peranakan has a variety of meanings. Among other things, it can mean womb, or it can be used as a designator of genealogical descent, connoting ancestry or lineage, including great-grandparents or more-distant ancestors. On its own, when used in common parlance, the word "peranakan" does not denote a specific ethnicity of descent unless followed by a subsequent qualifying noun. For example Peranakan Tionghoa/Cina may simply mean "Chinese descendants"; likewise Jawi Peranakan can mean "Arab descendants", or Peranakan Belanda "Dutch descendants".
However, in a semantic shift, the word peranakan has come to be used as a "metaphorical" adjective that has the meaning of "locally born but non-indigenous". In Indonesian, it can denote "hybrid" or "crossbred". Thus the term "Peranakan Cina" or "Peranakan Tionghoa" can have the literal or archaic meaning of "Chinese womb" or "Chinese descendants" or "Chinese ancestry" or "descended from the Chinese"—but more latterly has come to mean "locally born but non-indigenous Chinese" or even "half-caste Chinese". The semantic shift is presumed to have arisen from the thorough hybridisation or assimilation of the earliest Chinese or other non-indigenous settlers in the Malay Archipelago such that their ethnic heritage needed to be specified whenever referring to them, either to avoid confusion or to emphasise difference. The designator peranakan—in its original sense simply connoting "descendant of X ethnicity", or "the wombs of X"—emerged as the name for entire ethnic groups that were "locally born but non-indigenous" or perceived to be "hybrid" and "crossbred", and, in time, the latter meaning has come to predominate. It should also be noted that the broadness of the semantic range of peranakan means that it can have significantly different connotations in different parts of the Nusantara region and across different dialects or variants of the Malay and Indonesian languages.
The word Peranakan, which can have very broad and labile meanings in Malay and Indonesian and, when used in common parlance, is simply an indicator of heritage or descent, may also be used to refer to other ethnic groups in the same region. Owing to the broad meaning of the term 'peranakan', the term is also encountered when referring to other communities in the region with similar histories of immigration and assimilation. For example, the Chitty may accurately refer to themselves as 'Indian Hindu Peranakans', meaning "of Indian Hindu descent" or "locally born but non-indigenous Indian Hindu". Likewise the Kristang may accurately refer to themselves as 'Eurasian Peranakans'. The name of the Jawi Pekan people is derived from 'Peranakan', Jawi being the Javanised Arabic script, and Pekan being a colloquial contraction of Peranakan.
Chinese Peranakan
The prominence of Peranakan Chinese culture, however, has led to the common elision whereby 'Peranakan' may simply be taken to refer to the Peranakan Chinese, i.e. the culturally unique descendants of the earliest Chinese settlers in the Malay Archipelago, as opposed to the other smaller groups that also justifiably call themselves 'peranakan'. For some Peranakans of Chinese descent, calling oneself "Peranakan" without the qualifier "Chinese" can be a way of asserting an ethnic identity distinct from and independent of Chineseness (though such a use of "Peranakan" as a single-word ethnonym may clash with the desire of other groups of non-Chinese descent to equally call themselves "Peranakan").
Later waves of immigrants to South East Asia are generally referred to using larger umbrella terms such as Malaysian Chinese, Chinese Singaporean, Chinese Indonesian or Tionghoa, or Thai Chinese.
Straits Chinese One of the sub-groups of Chinese-Peranakan, Straits Chinese or Straits-born Chinese were defined as those born or living in the Straits Settlements: a British colony consisting of Malacca, Penang, and Singapore which was established in 1826. Straits Chinese were not considered Baba Nyonya unless they displayed certain Sino-Malay syncretic attributes, in terms of attire worn, food, spoken language, choice of education, preferred career choices, choice of religion and loyalties.
However, given that 'Straits Chinese' is a geographical designator specific to the former British colonies in the region, whereas 'Peranakan Chinese' is a broader genealogical designator covering all parts of the Nusantara region where Chinese people settled (including areas colonised by the Dutch, who would not have used the word 'Straits'), the two terms cannot be said to fully overlap or be interchangeable. Someone who is said to be 'Straits Chinese' in British colonial documents might, for example, be non-Peranakan, i.e. a person who arrived in the Nusantara region during much later periods of Chinese migration.
Conversely, the other Dutch, Malay and Siamese-speaking Peranakan Chinese in Dutch East Indies, Siam and Malaya would be unlikely to refer to themselves using the English term 'Straits Chinese'.
Baba-Nyonya The Peranakan Chinese commonly refer to themselves as Baba-Nyonya. The term Baba is an honorific for Straits Chinese men. It originated as a Hindi (originally Persian) loan-word borrowed by Malay speakers as a term of affection for one's grandparents, and became part of the common vernacular. In Penang Hokkien, it is pronounced bā-bā (in Pe̍h-ōe-jī), and sometimes written with the phonetic loan characters 峇峇. Female Straits-Chinese descendants were either called or styled themselves Nyonyas. Nyonya (also spelled nyonyah or nonya) is a Malay and Indonesian honorific used to refer to a foreign married lady. It is a loan word, borrowed from the old Portuguese word for lady donha (compare, for instance, Macanese creole nhonha spoken on Macau, which was a Portuguese colony for 464 years). Because Malays at that time had a tendency to address all foreign women (and perhaps those who appeared foreign) as nyonya, they used that term for Straits-Chinese women as well. It gradually became more exclusively associated with them.Joo Ee Khoo, The Straits Chinese: a cultural history, Pepin Press: 1996 , 288 pagesSoeseno Kartomihardjo, Ethnography of Communicative Codes in East Java Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1981, , page 96 In Penang Hokkien, it is pronounced nō͘-niâ (in Pe̍h-ōe-jī), and sometimes written with the phonetic loan characters 娘惹.
Ancestry According to a 2021 genetic study, Singapore's Peranakan Chinese have Malay ancestry, with an average of 5–10%.
Many Peranakans identify as Holoh (Hokkien) despite being of numerous origins, such as the descendants of adopted local Malaysian aborigines. A sizeable number are of Teochew or Hakka descent, including a small minority of Cantonese.
Baba Nyonya are a subgroup within Chinese communities. Peranakan families occasionally arranged brides from China for their sons or arranged marriages for their daughters with newly arrived Chinese immigrants.
There are parallels between the Peranakan Chinese and the Cambodian Hokkien, who are descendants of Hoklo Chinese. Likewise the Pashu of Myanmar, a Burmese word for the Peranakan or Straits Chinese who have settled in Myanmar.
They maintained their culture partially despite their native language gradually disappearing a few generations after settlement.
Popular myths by the Malays of the Peranakan Chinese in Malacca, Singapore, and Penang sometimes state exclusive descent from the royal retinue of an allegedly princess named Hang Li Po—alleged by the Malay Annals as having made a marriage of alliance with the Sultan of Malacca in the fifteenth century however modern historians disproved the princess marriage as a false myth by the Malay Annals.
Language
The language of the Peranakans, Baba Malay (Bahasa Melayu Baba) or Peranakan Malay, is a creole language related to the Malay language (Bahasa Melayu), which contains many Hokkien words. It is a dying language, and its contemporary use is mainly limited to members of the older generation. It is common for the Peranakan of the older generation (particularly among women) to latah in Peranakan Malay when experiencing unanticipated shock.
The Peranakan Malay spoken by the Malaccan Peranakans community is strongly based on the Malay language as most of them can only speak little to none of the language of their Chinese forebears. Whereas in the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia, the Peranakans are known to not only speak a Hokkien version of their own but also Thai and Kelantanese Malay in Kelantan and Terengganu Malay in Terengganu. Unlike the rest of the Peranakans in Malaysia, Penang Peranakans are much heavily influenced by a dialect of Hokkien known locally as Penang Hokkien.
In Indonesia, the Peranakan language is mainly based on Indonesian and Javanese, which is mixed with elements of different Chinese varieties, mostly Hokkien. Speakers of the Peranakan language can be found scattered along the northern coastline area throughout West Java, Central Java and East Java, and also in Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Young Peranakans can still speak this creole language, although its use is limited to informal occasions.
History