This papers attempts to discuss a linguistic practice among the Peranakan Chinese of Kelantan, Malaysia, especially among the older generation who are totally illiterate in literary Malay, but use literary Malay phonetic equivalents of Kelantan Malay terms, in their mother tongue - Kelantan Peranakan Hokkien.

This practice which is highly puzzling, will be analysed predominantly but not exclusively from frameworks that have developed within sociolinguistcs and anthropological linguistics.

Kelantan Peranakan Chinese is a group that have assimilated extensively to the Kelantan rural Malays, and Kelantan Thais, culturally and linguistically. Their language is a form of Chinese Hokkien with Kelantan Peranakan and Kelantan Thai elements - a reflection of the cultural synthesis of Chinese, Malay, and Thai.