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Maldives Ethnic Groups and Language
The contemporary homogeneous mixture of Sinhalese,
Dravidian,
Arab, Australasian, and African ethnicity in Maldives
results
from historical changes in regional hegemony over marine
trade
routes. Clarence Maloney, an anthropologist who conducted
fieldwork in Maldives in the 1970s, determined that an
early
Dravidian-speaking substratum of population from Kerala in
India
had settled in the islands, leaving its legacy in the
language
and place-names. This group was subsequently displaced by
Dhivehi-speakers who arrived from Sri Lanka and whose
language
became the official one. Arabs compose the last main group
to
arrive beginning in the ninth century. However, a rapidly
disappearing endogamous subgroup of persons of African
origin
called the Ravare or Giraavaru also existed. In 1970,
facing the
loss of their home island in Male Atoll because of
erosion, the
Ravare moved to Hulele. But a few years later, the
community of
200 people were transferred to Male to permit the
expansion of
the airport on Hulele.
The only distinct ethnic minority is found in Male
among the
trading community of Indians, who settled there in the
1800s.
Several hundred in number, they are also a religious
minority,
belonging to the
Shia (see Glossary)
branch of Islam. In
addition, a small number of Sri Lankans have come to
Maldives in
recent years to work in the tourist resorts because
Maldivians,
as devout Muslims, refuse to work in facilities serving
alcoholic
beverages. This situation has created some resentment on
the part
of local Maldivians facing unemployment.
The language Maldivian Dhivehi belongs to the
Indo-European
language family. Derived from Elu, an archaic form of
Sinhalese
(the language of Sri Lanka), it has numerous loanwords
from
Arabic, from Hindi--which is used in trade with Indian
merchants-
-and from Tamil. It has contributed one word, "atoll," to
international usage. In Dhivehi, the numbers from one to
twelve
are of Sinhalese origin, and after twelve, Hindi. The
names of
the days are Sinhalese and Hindi. The names of persons are
Arabic.
Dhivehi is spoken throughout the atolls. Dialect
differences
are pronounced in the four southernmost atolls, however.
The
traditional script, Thaana, is written from right to left.
This
locally invented script contains twenty-four letters, the
first
nine of which are forms of the Arabic numerals. In 1977 a
romanized script was introduced to be used along with
Thaana for
official correspondence, but since 1979 the requirement is
no
longer mandatory.
Data as of August 1994
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