The Baba Nyonya, known as Peranakan Chinese or Peranakan is a culturally syncretic minority group dating back to the 17th century. They are descendants from the union of earlier Chinese traders from Fujian Province in China with local women of Malay origin. They settled and raised families in the bustling ports of Malacca, Singapore and Penang, known as the Straits Settlement under the British colony. By the late 19th century, their mostly English-educated sons formed an influential class of businessmen, a colonial elite community that pioneered in early Malayan economy and politics. Their negotiation of multiple identities, through the acculturation and adoption of local and European coloniser cultures, gave birth to their eclectic material culture, customs and practices evident in Chinese, Malay, Dutch, British and Portuguese influences. Due to geographic distance, Singapore and Malacca share similar cultural expressions. One example is the Baba Malay, which is predominantly a Malay language with a mixture of Hokkien (Chinese dialect) words, is spoken in the domestic setting. Many family lineages can also be found between Malacca and Singapore. In Penang, the Baba Nyonya community there speaks the Penang Hokkien (a derivative of Hokkien). Although culturally Penang Peranakan Chinese share similar expressions with Singapore and Malacca, there are also similarities with the Peranakan community in Phuket, Thailand (due to geographic distance and people migrations in the past). Apart from the Straits Settlement, the community can also be found in areas in Indonesia such as Tangerang, Semarang and Makassar. In the present, there are now diasporic Peranakan communities in Sydney, and Perth, Australia.