Malabars

Malabars (Arabic:مالاباري; Romanized: Malabari, Malayalam:മലബാറി; Romanized: Malabari) is a term used for Indians originating from the Malabar region. The region includes the northern part of present state of Kerala in India, i.e. the southwestern coast of the country. Al-Biruni (AD 973-1048) must have been the first writer to call this people Malabari(Malbars). Authors such as Ibn Khordadbeh and Al-Baladhuri mention Malabar ports in their works. The Arab writers had called this place Malibar, Manibar, Mulibar, and Munibar.

Captain João Ribeiro in his History of Ceylon presented to the King of Portugal in 1685 mentions that Jaffnapatam (present-day Jaffna in Sri Lanka) is inhabited by Malabars. This designation stemmed from the presence of Tamils in Jaffna, whose customs and religion closely resembled those of the Hindus on the Malabar Coast of India.

Additionally, to European traders and scholars, Tamil was commonly known as the Malabar language. In the 18th century, J. P. Fabricius described his Tamil-English Dictionary as the "Dictionary of Malabar and English," wherein he explained words and phrases of the Tamil language, commonly referred to by Europeans as the Malabar language, in English.