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News18
3 days ago
- General
- News18
Malayalam, Tamil-speaking international diaspora larger than internal one: Study
Ahmedabad, Aug 14 (PTI) There are more people who speak Malayalam or Tamil outside India than those residing outside their respective state of Kerala or Tamil Nadu within the country, according to a study conducted by a faculty member of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA). While Punjabi-speaking people are the most 'dispersed" linguistic community in the country as per the census data of 2011, the Indian Bengali diaspora — both internal and international — was the least dispersed, said the study. These interesting findings are part of a research article published recently by IIMA faculty member Chinmay Tumbe. The study mapped out internal and international diasporas of India along linguistic lines and found that more than 60 million Indians belonged to 'internal' diaspora in 2010, nearly three-time the size of the country's 'international' diaspora. Internal or domestic diaspora for a linguistic community means those living in states other than their core speaking state inside India, while international diaspora refers to those living in other countries. 'The internal diaspora is larger than the international counterpart for all major linguistic groups except for Malayalam and Tamil. A third of the internal diaspora is dispersed across ten largest Indian cities," noted Tumbe's study published in 'Sociological Bulletin' journal. Of the total 4.6 million Malayali diaspora, nearly three million reside outside India, while 1.6 million are part of 'internal diaspora" living in states other than Kerala, it said. This data suggests the international (Malayali) diaspora is nearly 1.8 times larger than the internal diaspora. The Indian Tamil diaspora comprises more than 8.4 million people. Of these, 4.5 million are living outside India and nearly 3.9 million within India, suggesting the international diaspora is almost 1.2 times larger than the internal one, pointed out the study. Except for these two (Malayalam and Tamil speakers), the international diaspora is less than the internal one in all other major Indian linguistic groups, it said. With nearly 40 million people, Hindi speakers are the largest diaspora in India, followed by 8.4 million Tamil diaspora, both internal and international. With nearly 12.4 per cent of their total population living outside Punjab or the country, Punjabi- speaking diaspora was the most dispersed in 2010, said the study. 'If we take the total estimated Malayalam diaspora as a percentage of total Malayalam speakers in its core region (Kerala) and in the total diaspora, then the number stood at 12.2 per cent, second only to Punjabi, at 12.4 per cent. Tamilians were third at 11.5 per cent. 'Thus, among nine major language groups of India, Punjabi, Malayalam, and Tamil were the most dispersed. They were followed by Telugu (9.7 per cent), Gujarati (8.7 pc), Hindi (7.5 pc), Marathi (6.6 pc), Kannada (4.6 pc) and Bengali (3.7 pc)," noted the study. Compared to other linguistic diasporas analysed for the study, the Indian Bengali diaspora was the least dispersed in 2010, relative to the population of speakers in its core region West Bengal, it said. As per the data, of the total 97 million Bengali speakers, the diaspora (internal and international) comprised only 3.6 million, which comes to 3.7 per cent of their overall population. The Telugu diaspora linked with states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana comprises 8 million people, of which 7 million are part of the internal diaspora, the study said. 'It (Telugu) is the third largest Indian linguistic diaspora after Hindi and Tamil. As a ratio of international to internal diaspora, it is among the lowest out of the major linguistic groups of India," it added. Giving details about the Tamil internal diaspora, the study said nearly a million are spread out in nine largest cities of India, with Mumbai being the most prominent among them. 'In Madhya Pradesh in central India, there were nearly 10,000 Tamil speakers in Bhopal in 2001, 6,000 in Jabalpur and 3,000 in Indore, reflecting their spread beyond the big cities," it added. The study highlighted an interesting aspect, observing it is quite likely that in the case of Tamilians, the international diaspora was formed before the internal one. 'Migration of Tamilians to southeast Asia and southern Africa was prominent since the 19th century whereas migration towards north India was more of a phenomenon in the 20th century," it pointed out. PTI PJT PD RSY First Published: August 14, 2025, 17:30 IST News agency-feeds Malayalam, Tamil-speaking international diaspora larger than internal one: Study Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- General
- Hindustan Times
Malayalam and Tamil speakers' international diaspora bigger than domestic one
New Delhi: There are more people who speak Tamil or Malayalam as their mother tongue outside India than outside the states of Tamil Nadu or Kerala within India. Counterintuitive as it may sound, Punjabi and Gujarati migrants are still more likely to be found outside their states within India than abroad. To be sure, Punjabis are the most 'dispersed' linguistic community in the country. These extremely interesting findings are from a paper published by Chinmay Tumbe from IIM Ahmedabad. The paper underlines the need for studying domestic and international migration patterns together and calls for rectifying the 'flawed idea' of 'constraining the concept of the diaspora to national borders'. Malayalis have mostly migrated to West Asia and more recently America and Europe, while Tamils have a longer history of migration beginning with South East Asia, present day Myanmar and more recently North America. (FILE IMAGE) The idea of Tumbe's paper, which has been published in the journal Sociological Bulletin, is to identify diasporas or migrants who cross significant cultural zones. Since most internal migration in India is intra-district or intra-state migration for marriage, or within the same culture, it has used mother tongue to identify both domestic and international diasporas. The paper has essentially compared estimates of internal and international diaspora – the latter can often be a result of historical rather than more recent migration – for India's major languages, and by extension, their core speaking states. The paper uses data from the 2001 and 2011 census to estimate domestic diaspora for major Indian languages and various sources, both official and unofficial, to estimate international diaspora. Among its key findings, the most striking is the fact that Malayalam and Tamil are the only linguist groups in India where the size of the international diaspora is larger than the domestic diaspora. While Malayalis have mostly migrated to West Asia and more recently America and Europe, Tamils have a longer history of migration beginning with South East Asia, present day Myanmar and more recently North America. These two linguist groups also show a reasonably high share of diaspora as a share of total population speaking the language, although it is Punjabi speakers who are ranked first on this count. The linguistic group which has the lowest share of diaspora with the total population is Bengali, although Tumbe does point out that the number is likely to have increased as West Bengal has seen a sharp increase in migration in the last two decades. Hindi speakers, of course, have the largest absolute size in both internal and international diaspora given the large base of speakers the language has, even though it figures fourth lowest in the list of nine major languages (these nine are among the largest of India's 22 scheduled languages and also had studies available on international migration) in terms of share of the diaspora in the total population. To be sure, language alone as a tracker of diaspora could lead to an underestimate of migration for Hindi speakers as they mostly tend to migrate in the same language speaking regions Among other major linguistic groups, Telugu speakers show one of the highest internal migrations as a share of total speakers and so do Punjabis and Gujaratis. Madurai district alone had over 65000 Gujarati speakers in 2011, Tumbe's paper shows. The paper also ranks India's ten biggest cities in 2001 by share of different linguistic diasporas. This also shows interesting trends. For example, Mumbai was the biggest diaspora settlement for five of the nine languages: Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati, and Hindi. Marathi speakers partially returned this favour by settling the most in Surat, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad; although they migrated somewhat more to Delhi than Chennai. Among the remaining three languages, Telugu diaspora is the biggest in Bangalore while Bengali and Punjabi speakers have their biggest diasporas in Delhi.
