Although Sri Lankan Tamils are culturally and linguistically distinct, genetic studies indicate that they are closely related to other ethnic groups in the island while being related to the Indian Tamils from

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...

and

Bengalis Bengalis (singular Bengali bn, বাঙ্গালী/বাঙালি ), also rendered as Bangalee or the Bengali people, are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the Bengal region of ...

from the

East India East India is a region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the historical region of Magadh ...

as well. There are various studies that indicate varying degrees of connections between Sri Lankan Tamils, Sinhalese and

Indian ethnic groups South Asian ethnic groups are an ethnolinguistic grouping of the diverse populations of South Asia, including the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. While Afghanistan is variously considered to ...

Study by Dr. Gautam K. Kshatriya

According to a

genetic admixture Genetic admixture occurs when previously diverged or isolated genetic lineages mix.⅝ Admixture results in the introduction of new genetic lineages into a population. Examples Climatic cycles facilitate genetic admixture in cold periods and gene ...

study by Dr. Gautam K. Kshatriya in 1995, the Sri Lankan Tamil are closely related to the

Sinhalese Sinhala may refer to: * Something of or related to the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka * Sinhalese people * Sinhala language, one of the three official languages used in Sri Lanka * Sinhala script, a writing system for the Sinhala language ** Sinha ...

who are closely related to Indian Tamils. Kshatriya found the Sri Lankan Tamils to have a greater contribution from the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka (55.20% +/- 9.47) while the Sinhalese had the greatest contribution from South Indian Tamils (69.86% +/- 0.61), followed by

from the

(25.41% +/- 0.51). With both the Sri Lankan Tamils and Sinhalese in the island sharing a common gene pool of 55%. They are farthest from the indigenous Veddahs. This is also supported by a genetic distance study, which showed low differences in genetic distance between Tamils and the Sinhalese. Tamils and the Sinhalese also share similar cultures in terms of kinship classification, cousin marriage, dress and housing.

Other studies

Furthermore, a study looking at genetic variation of the

FUT2 Galactoside 2-alpha-L-fucosyltransferase 2 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''FUT2'' gene. It affects the secretor status of ABO antigens. Approximately 20% of Caucasians are non-secretors due to the G428A (rs601338) and C571T (rs4 ...

gene in the Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhalese population, found similar genetic backgrounds for both ethnic groups, with little genetic flow from other neighbouring Asian population groups. Studies have also found no significant difference with regards to

blood group A blood type (also known as a blood group) is a classification of blood, based on the presence and absence of antibodies and inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells (RBCs). These antigens may be proteins, carbohydrates ...

, blood genetic markers and

single-nucleotide polymorphism In genetics, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP ; plural SNPs ) is a germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific position in the genome. Although certain definitions require the substitution to be present in a sufficiently lar ...

between the Sri Lankan Tamils and other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. Another study has also found "no significant genetic variation among the major ethnic groups in Sri Lanka". This is further supported by a study which found very similar frequencies of alleles MTHFR 677T, F2 20210A & F5 1691A in South Indian Tamil, Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamil and Moor populations.Vajira H.W. Dissanayake, Lakshini Y. Weerasekera, C. Gayani Gammulla, Rohan W. Jayasekara, Prevalence of genetic thrombophilic polymorphisms in the Sri Lankan population – implications for association study design and clinical genetic testing services, Experimental and Molecular Pathology, Volume 87, Issue 2, October 2009, Pages 159–162 However, another study looking at Alu polymorphism,http://www.krepublishers.com/06-Special%20Volume-Journal/T-Anth-00-Special%20Volumes/T-Anth-SI-03-Anth-Today-Web/Anth-SI-03-29-Mastana-S/Anth-SI-03-29-Mastana-S-Tt.pdf

VNTR A variable number tandem repeat (or VNTR) is a location in a genome where a short nucleotide sequence is organized as a tandem repeat. These can be found on many chromosomes, and often show variations in length (number of repeats) among individ ...

and genetic distance have found the genetic relationship between the South Indian Tamil and Sinhalese to be much smaller than Kshatriya's findings (11–30%). Dr Sarabjit Mastanain finding states

cophenetic correlation In statistics, and especially in biostatistics, cophenetic correlation (more precisely, the cophenetic correlation coefficient) is a measure of how faithfully a dendrogram preserves the pairwise distances between the original unmodeled data points. ...

was 0.8956 and it indicates Sinhalese & Tamil as native population. Also, it reflects on

genetic distance Genetic distance is a measure of the genetic divergence between species or between populations within a species, whether the distance measures time from common ancestor or degree of differentiation. Populations with many similar alleles have s ...

among five populations of Sri Lanka as per given below eigenvector plot of the

R-matrix The term R-matrix has several meanings, depending on the field of study. The term R-matrix is used in connection with the Yang–Baxter equation. This is an equation which was first introduced in the field of statistical mechanics, taking its ...

References

{{human genetics Sri Lankan Tamils

Tamils The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar ( ta, தமிழர், Tamiḻar, translit-std=ISO, in the singular or ta, தமிழர்கள், Tamiḻarkaḷ, translit-std=ISO, label=none, in the plural), or simply Tamils (), are a Drav ...

Sri Lankan Tamils Sri Lankan Tamil history

Study by Dr. Gautam K. Kshatriya

Other studies

See also

References