Akar Nusa
A merchant in a long cotton cloth walks the quayside, speaking Tamil to one trader, Malay to the next. In Melaka, the language of the market was a mix of both.
The story
Tamil traders from southern India sailed the seas to the Malay world long before Melaka existed. Tamil poems from a thousand years ago name places on the peninsula, and Tamil merchant guilds were set up along its coasts by the 11th century.
In the 1400s Melaka became their great marketplace. Tamil merchants, many of them Muslim, sailed in on the monsoon winds with cloth and left with spices and tin. One of the four harbourmasters (shahbandars) in Melaka looked after traders from southern India, Bengal, Burma and Pasai. Tamil was so widely used in trade that for centuries many Malay words for bookkeeping and accounts were Tamil in origin. Even the Dutch company later wrote some of its letters in Tamil.
The old word Keling (also spelled Kling) was once used in the Malay world for people from India, especially the south. It is found in the Malay Annals. The word Chulia is connected to the Chola kingdom of south India; it survives in the name of Chulia Street in George Town, Penang. In Melaka, a Portuguese writer of the 1530s describes a merchant district of "Quelins" in the northern part of the town.
A word of care. Keling was neutral in older times. Since the mid-1900s many people regard it as an insult, and Malay books have replaced it with plainer terms. We use it here only to explain history, and we recommend "Tamil" or "Indian Muslim" for people today.
Today's Melaka also has the Chitty (Chetti) community, a Tamil-descended Melaka community. Scholars see them as descendants of early Tamil settlers who mixed with local people.
Why does this matter for a family story? Tamil was once the common language of commerce on both sides of the strait. Many Malaysians have Tamil ancestors who came in the long era of sea trade. Others descend from the large wave of workers who came under British rule, most from Tamil Nadu. The two stories are different, and worth telling apart: one of free merchants and seafarers, the other of plantation labour and later small business.
Where you can still see it today
- Chulia Street in George Town, Penang, named for the old Tamil sea traders.
- Kampung Chitty in Melaka, a historic village with a Chitty museum.
- Tamil words in Malay, including trade and accounting words from the old ports.
- Tamil Malaysian families. Most came in the British era, while a few communities, like the Chitty, are older.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
Some Malaysians carry South Asian ancestry from old Tamil traders, and many more from later waves. A region estimate with a South Asian part can reflect this. But DNA cannot tell which wave a family belongs to, and it cannot sort people by language or religion.
DNA does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status.
