Demographics of Kerala (original) (raw)

Kerala is a state in south-western India. Most of Kerala's 34.8 million people (in 2011) are ethnically Malayalis (Malayalam speakers). Most of the Malayalam and English speaking Keralites derive their ancestry from Dravidian communities that settled in Kerala. Additional ancestries derive from millennia of trade links across the Arabian Sea, whereby people of Arab, Jewish, Syrian and other ethnicities settled in Kerala. Many of these immigrants intermarried with native Malayalam speakers resulting in formation of many Muslims and Christians in Kerala. Some Muslims and Christians thus take lineage from Middle Eastern settlers mixed with local population.