What the 1901 census revealed about linguistic diversity in Travancore

It's well known that the rulers of the erstwhile princely state of Travancore were more progressive than many of their counterparts across the subcontinent. The royal family also successfully brought in good administrators from other parts of India and abroad. But since little is written about the lives of ordinary foreigners and non-Malayalis who lived in the state in the 19th and early to mid-20th century, this aspect of the state's history remains largely a mystery.

One invaluable historical document that provides information about the state's relative cosmopolitanism is the 1901 Census of India's Travancore section, compiled under the leadership of N Subramhanya Aiyar, the Dewan Peischcar and Census Commissioner of the state.

From census data, one can assume that a number of people from Romance-language-speaking countries were affiliated with churches in the state. The exact list of foreign and non-European languages and where they were spoken throws up a bit of surprises.

For instance, the census listed 29 Sinhalese speakers in the state, out of which 24 were men. The document classified the language as an Indian vernacular.

At that point in history, the traffic between Kerala and Ceylon tended to be one-way, especially when it came to those moving for a better livelihood. Malayalis found a mostly comfortable existence on the island, at least until the early 1930s, when they suffered violence at the hands of nativist mobs.

Another place where Malayalis went in search of a livelihood was Malaya. At that time, six people told the authorities that they were Malay speakers. Out of these, five were women.
Other Asian languages spoken in the state included Chinese, with two men claiming to be native Chinese speakers in Ambalazpuzha.

Four people said they were native Hebrew speakers! At that time, the Jews who lived in Cochin mainly used Hebrew for liturgical purposes and were essentially Malayalam speakers, who spoke a dialect with Hebrew loanwords.

The census revealed 384 Arabic speakers in Travancore, of whom 301 were residents of Minachil in the Kottayam district. It remains to be seen whether these people were descendants of Arab traders who did not intermarry with Malayalis and maintained a distinct identity.
There were a handful of speakers of French, Dutch and Flemish, the Dutch spoken in Belgium's Flanders region.

A total of 1903 people in Travancore said English was their first language. It is safe to assume here that a significant number of these people were Anglo-Indians. Over a third of these people were based in Trivandrum, while Ambalapuzha, Cardamom Hills and Quillon also had over 200 English speakers. Just 126 of these people were listed in the census as European British subjects.

The census also revealed 182 Portuguese speakers in the princely state, with the majority living in Ambalapuzha and Parur. Thirteen women living in Trivandrum also said they were Portuguese speakers. These were, in all likelihood, nuns at a city convent. There's also a chance that some of them were actually Goans who spoke Portuguese as a first language.

Over 10,000 people said they were Konkani speakers, with over a third of them living in the Cardamom Hills and a large number in Shertallay (Chertala).

In contrast to the relatively large numbers of Portuguese speakers, only eight people said their native language was Spanish. Another surprise thrown up by the census was the solitary Turkish speaker in the princely state.

Armenians were clubbed together in a category with Europeans and Eurasians, but the census revealed that there was just one Armenian living in the state, and was a resident of Kottayam.
In total, 2,023 people were classified as "Europeans and Allied Races."

There were only 12 Hindi speakers listed in the census, but almost 6,000 people said their first language was Hindustani, while the data showed six Urdu speakers. Travancore also had significant Gujarati (1,235) and Marathi-speaking residents (7,588).

Considering how difficult it is to get any non-English accounts of Travancore in that era, anything written about the state by a non-Malayali or British resident of that time would make for fascinating reading. There's also plenty of scope for a novel or a timeless piece of non-fiction centred around the lives of what we now call expats in turn-of-the-century Trivandrum.