Talk:Malbars

Title
Confusions explained The word Malbar should only denote a certain coast of actual Kerala and maybe of the inhabitants in question. Confusions will definitely persist as the word is wrongly used and sometimes in the negative sense, in the French colonies such as Reunion. The information about 'Malbar' in English & French versions are quite different. With knowledge based on the French/Reunion version, we risk seriously offend people of other regions! Again in Reunion, the word 'Zarabes' which is a corrupt of 'Arab' is equally wrongly used; the people described by the word, belong to certain region of India and do not belong exclusively to Muslim religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.223.78.168 (talk) 18:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC) This article should be renamed to Malbars, which is the local name of people from Tamil origin. Thierry Caro (talk) 12:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure but, considering Malbars already exists as a redirect, a moderator would have to temporarily delete the original page. Maybe best to go to Requested Moves. Munci (talk) 19:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

There is no need of rename it as Malbars, Tamils of Reunion are part of Tamil diaspora and universally known as Tamils especially in English wikipedia, Term Malbar confuse the people of Tamils with Sri Lankan Tamils or Malayalis who are a different people. This term Malbars is more known to only French speaking world. --JAIKAYY 18:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point. In English, Malbar is often an alternative spelling of Malabar. Munci (talk) 14:13, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Malabars or Malbars is seem to confuse the readers. so I prefer Tamil instead Malbar. -unsigned comment by Jai Kumara Yesappa
 * Confusing the readers is not our problem. Telling them the truth is. The local name is Malbars. The rest is either speculation or ideology. For instance, speaking about the Tamil diaspora is not quite relevant. Malbars do not necessarily feel that they are part of that diaspora since creolization has been very strong in Réunion. Malbars give French surnames to their babies. They do not speak Tamil but French and Creole. Some have become Catholic, etc. All this has made a distinct socioethnic group which should not be called Tamils in Réunion as if they were not at home on the island. Thierry Caro (talk) 08:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the current title gives the wrong impression. It makes it seem as if they are just temporary residents or something. Other diaspora articles take titles which are either the local name, like Hindoestanen, or compound nouns, like Indian American. However, being part of the diaspora is not the same as feeling part of it. This difference is best shown with German Americans, who make up 17% of the American population, contrasting with less than 1% who speak the language. And not just some but most Malbars are Catholic, at least nominally. I have edited the article to reflect this. Munci (talk) 19:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was page moved. Skomorokh  07:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Tamils in Réunion → Malbars —

See Thierry Caro's arguments above. Munci (talk) 19:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Support per nom and the fact that this is most common usage of the word Malbars in English: Compare to . Notice how even with Reunion and Réunion removed, the highest results are still on this topic. The word 'Malbar' has to be removed because google corrects your spelling stupidly. Disambiguation can be shown with the For template at the top of the page if need be. Munci (talk) 14:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. Thierry Caro (talk) 13:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Above Template
What is its purpose? Munci (talk) 19:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Above template is attribution for copying content. --JAIKAYY 18:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jai Kumara Yesappa (talk • contribs)

In that case, it does not quite appear to link to the right edit. Munci (talk) 14:13, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I corrected the mistake and thanks....--Jai Kumara Yesappa (talk) 01:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Tamil language
Once again, I would like to draw your attention on the fact that Tamil is not spoken on Réunion. There may be a handful of schools where it is studied, but it is not a first language for anyone there. Thus, names of people and places should not be translated in our articles. Thierry Caro (talk) 08:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you're exaggerating. Sure, Tamil is not spoken by the majority of Malbars and it's not appropriate to put translations into Tamil on Réunion-related articles but noone whatsoever on Réunion speaks Tamil? Not even one of those is a more recent immigrant who still speaks the language? Munci (talk) 19:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No. Immigration from India stopped in the first decades of the 20th century. Tamil got lost. It is no more spoken by anyone. Thierry Caro (talk) 13:42, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Frequent immigration from India did indeed stop then but there is no reason to say there has been no single instance of migration since then. That would be hard to prove. You would need to have official statistics to look at which say that 0 people had migrated from India to Réunion within, say, the past twenty years. But I don't think either the Indian or French government has such statistics. There are statistics for immigration from India to France:. I don't see why at least one of those ten thousand odd people couldn't've been migrating to Réunion.
 * Some priest immigrate, a consulat exist. This priest try to pass culture as dance, language and hindouïst precept down but not more than in France, with French people. Malbars don't feel themself as tamil, tamil culture is a foreign culture for them. The private Hindouism is always quite different from traditional Hindouism, even if the works of the priest lead to commun practise in the temples. (another reunion créole) Vincnet (talk) 16:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hinduism is not homogenous. There is no single 'traditional' Hinduism so the fact that the Malbars' Hinduism more often resembles folk Hinduism than Brahmanic Hinduism is irrelevant. I'm not sure of the relevance of that to the previous discussion though. In any case, my point before was that you can't know if there are any Tamil speakers in Réunion unless you've actually done statistics on all of them. You can say that there are no significant numbers of Tamil speakers there but you can't say categorically and absolutely 'there are none' unless you actually have sources to say that there are exactly 0. You seem to be talking about religion more than language. And I'm not sure what you mean by the first two sentences. Would you rather speak in French? Munci (talk) 18:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


 * In any case, immigration from India is not exactly appropriate; immigration from Tamil Nadu is more like it. Otherwise, you're including the Zarabes as well. Munci (talk) 19:54, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The statuation is different for Zarabes, they are close their original culture because they praticise an orthodox islam and relation with maurician muslim always exist. Vincnet (talk) 16:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * True. The point in mentioning the Zarabes was because Thierry Caro had said "Immigration from India stopped in the first decades of the 20th century." when it would've been more appropriate to say "Immigration from Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry stopped in the first decades of the 20th century.". Munci (talk) 18:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)