- Sri Lankan Malays
ethnic group|
group=Sri Lankan Malays
"Melayu Sri Lanka"
|
poptime=50,000
popplace=Sri Lanka , others
langs=Sri Lankan Creole Malay, Sinhalese, others
rels=Islam
related=Malays,Javanese,Sri Lankan Moors The Malays ofSri Lanka originated inSoutheast Asia and today consist of about 50,000 persons. Their ancestors came to the country when both Sri Lanka andIndonesia were colonies of the Dutch. Most of the early Malay immigrants were soldiers, posted by the Dutch colonial administration to Sri Lanka, who decided to settle on the island. Other immigrants were convicts or members of noble houses from Indonesia who were exiled to Sri Lanka and who never left. The main source of a continuing Malay identity is their common Malay language "(Bahasa Melayu)", which includes numerous words absorbed from Sinhalese and the Moorish variant of the Tamil language. In the 1980s, the Malays made up about 5 % of the Muslim population in Sri Lanka.ee also
*
Islam in Sri Lanka
*Sri Lankan Moors
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