Demographics of Kerala

Demographics Of Kerala

Kerala is a state in south-western India. Most of Kerala's 33.3(in2011) million people are of Malayali (Malayalam language speaking) ethnicity. Most of the Malayalam and English speaking Keralites derive their ancestry from Dravidian and Aryan communities that settled in Kerala and intermixed with each other and existing populations. Additional ancestries derive from several centuries of contact with non-Indian lands, whereby people of Arab, Jewish, and other ethnicities settled in Kerala. Many of these immigrants intermarried with native Malayalam speakers. A tiny amount of Muslims thus take lineage from Arab settlers mixed with local population, whereas another tiny amount Syrian Christians take that of Jews mixed with locals.

Malayalam is Kerala's official language and is spoken by at least 96% of the people of Kerala; the next most common language is Tamil, spoken mainly by Tamil workers from Tamil Nadu and the local Kerala Iyers. Tulu and Kannada is spoken in some parts of the northern districts of Kasaragod, adjoining Karnataka. In addition, Kerala is home to 321,000 indigenous tribal Adivasis (1.10% of the populace). Some 63% of tribals reside in the eastern districts of Wayanad (where 35.82% are tribals), Palakkad (11.05%), and Idukki (15.66%). These groups, including the Irulars, Kurumbars, and Mudugars, speak their own native languages. Cholanaikkan tribe in Silent Valley National Park were contacted only in 1970s and they are the most isolated tribe. There were 64,008 Konkani speakers in Kerala in 1991.