17 - Peranakan English in Singapore

Summary

Introduction

We Peranakans have our own way or style of speaking that has become our trademark, which those outside the community recognise instantly, be it in English, Malay or Chinese. One Nyonya, for instance, tells me she is never surprised when people she meets for the first time straightaway say ‘Ah, you are Peranakan, right?’

Anthony Oei and Peter Lee, editorial, The Peranakan, Jul/Sep 2002

The Peranakans – also known as Peranakan Chinese, Babas or Straits (-born) Chinese, and even the ‘King's Chinese’ – are the descendants of Southern Chinese traders who settled in Southeast Asia and local Malay/Indonesian women. An introduction such as this already provides a titillating idea of both the origins of the community and the input that would have gone into the formation not only of their vernacular, Baba Malay, for which they are most well known, but also of their variety of English. While the word Peranakan (pronounced [pranakán]), derived from the Malay root anak ‘child’, meaning a locally born person, is also used to refer to other mixed communities in Malaysia and Indonesia, this chapter describes the English spoken by the Peranakan Chinese community in Singapore.

These days, there is of course a much more recognizable and well-known variety of English which has developed in this island city-state, namely Singapore English (see e.g. Lim 2004a), which a critical mass – and a rapidly growing number – of Singaporeans now speak natively. This was not however always the case.