Ethnic groups in Kerala
The population of Kerala, India is a heterogenous group that comprises many ethnic groups that originated in other parts of India as well as the world, with distinctive cultural and religious traditions. While the majority of Keralans speak the Malayalam language, various ethnic groups may speak other languages as well.
The racial and ethnic history of Kerala is highly controversial and disputed among the cultural anthropologists, historians and other scholars. The people of Kerala, known as Malayali, are polygenetic and belong to different ethnic groups and religions. The Census of India does not recognise racial or ethnic groups within India. According to a 2009 study published by David Reich et al., the modern Indian population is composed of two genetically divergent and heterogeneous populations which mixed in ancient times, known as Ancestral North Indians and Ancestral South Indians.
- Negrito element: the earliest racial strain in the population of Kerala as of South India in general. These people still live in forests of Kerala state. Most of these tribes' have curly hair, black skin, round head and broad nose.
- Proto-Australoids: the Negritos were probably replaced by Proto-Australoids. These people have flat nose and dark skin.
Malayali
The majority of the Malayali people are Hindu, mostly of the Ezhava, Ambalavasi, Namboothiri, Nair, Kammalar, Pulayan and Mukkuvar communities, but there are also large Muslim and Christian communities. The Muslim community in Kerala, trace their origins far back to early contacts with Arab traders after the advent of the Muhammed in the Arabian peninsula, and mostly follow the Shafi`i school of Sunni Islam. Many speak the distinctive Mappila dialect of Malayalam. There is also a sizable population of Rowthers, who have a Turkish ancestry. The majority of Christians belong to the Saint Thomas Christian community, and are also known as Syrian Christians or Nasrani. The Nasranis has presence in Kerala from the first century AD itself. By tradition Thomas the Apostle reached Muziris in 52 AD. The descendants of the Cochin Jews who have traditionally followed Halakhic Judaism are known as Juda Mappila.
Tamil
Historically, there have been frequent migrations between Kerala and the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. The history of ancient Kerala itself is deeply intertwined with Tamil Nadu's ancient past, and the Tamil and Malayalam languages are closely related. The dialect of Tamil spoken today in the district of Palakkad in Kerala has a large number of Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam syntax and also has a distinct Malayalam accent.Some of the earliest migrations attested by history were those of Iyers from the Cauvery delta to the district of Palakkad. The first of these migrations are believed to have taken place over five hundred years ago. These Iyers settled in Palakkad where they owned land and led an affluent existence till the enactment of the land reforms in the 1960s. They followed many Malayali practices include the practice of sambandham. There have also been migrations of Iyers to the princely state of Travancore from the Tirunelveli district during the 18th and 19th centuries. These Iyers are called Kerala Iyers and differ significantly from Palakkad Iyers in their language and social status. Some of Travancore's diwans were Tamil Brahmins.
Apart from Iyers, many other Tamil communities also migrated to Kerala between the 18th and the 20th century when the southernmost Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu was a part of the Travancore kingdom. The capital of the Travancore kingdom which ruled over most of Kerala was located in Padmanabhapuram in present-day Tamil Nadu. The caste system in Kerala is very similar to that which exists in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu.
Kerala is also the home to a sizable population of Sri Lankan Tamils who arrived as refugees as a result of the Sri Lankan civil war, as well as Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka who were displaced due to the Ceylon Citizenship Act. The latter number close to 10,000 and are mainly found in eastern parts of the Kollam district where they work in rubber plantations under the Government of Kerala's initiative Rehabilitation Plantations Limited.
The Tamil caste of Vellalars migrated from Tamil Nadu to eastern parts of Kerala like Idukki and Pathanamthitta districts. They are prominently found in places including Erattupetta, Pala, Ponkunnam, Kanjirappalli, Thodupuzha, and Pathanamthitta. Similarly, Tamil Muslims migrated the same route from Madurai to the regions of Thodupuzha, Irattupetta, and Pathanamthitta. They are distinct from Malayalam speaking Mappila Muslims in many ways including the usage of a dialect of Tamil inside their houses.
Tulu
Shivalli Brahmins living all over the Indian state of Kerala are part of the larger Tulu Brahmin subsect primarily found in the Indian state of Karnataka but also in the Kasaragod district of Northern Kerala. Their mother tongue is the Tulu language. Brahmins from Tulunadu may have migrated to Kerala before the first century C.E. Today, there is a sizeable Tulu Brahmin population in Thiruvananthapuram and elsewhere in the state.Kannada
Kannada is one of the major languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka. The Kannada people number roughly 50 million, making it the fifteenth-most spoken language in the world. It is one of the official languages of India and the official and administrative language of the state of Karnataka. Kannada people constitute a significant portion of the population of the district of Kasargod in North Kerala. Kannada is also an administrative language in the district.Konkanis
Cochin GSB's are a branch of the Konkani language-speaking Gaud Saraswat Brahmins community belonging originally to Karnataka and Goa. They form the majority of Konkani-speakers in Kerala. GSBs of Cochin form the southernmost subsect of Saraswat Brahmins of West coast. GSBs of north Kerala are same as GSBs of Canara in speech and customs, whereas GSBs of Cochin and Travancore have developed their own Konkani dialect and Customs, which distinguish them from rest of GSB community, this subsect is now called Cochin GSBs. In geographical terms, Cochin GSBs are those who live south of Thrissur district of Kerala. Other Konkani speaking minorities in Kerala include the Kudumbis, Daivajnas, and the Vaishya Vani. All these groups had migrated from Goa within last few centuries for various socioeconomic reasons.Mahls
There are about 10,000 speakers of the Mahl language in Kerala. Most Mahl speakers are temporary resident people from neighbouring Maldives. Other Mahl speakers are from Indian island of Minicoy and most of them live in Trivandrum.Smaller minority groups
Gujaratis
There are about 500 Gujarati families living for many generations in Kochi, the commercial hub of Kerala. Gujarati community is composed of various social groups like Jains, Saurashtrians and Kutchis. The Gujarati Street at Mattancherry in the city is a main Gujarati cultural icon in Kerala. Calicut, Thrissur, and Kannur also have a sizeable population of Hindu and Jain Gujaratis. There is a Gujarati Higher Secondary School near Calicut Beach.Sikhs
is home to the Punjabi speaking Sikh community in Kerala as the coastal city has the most number of Sikhs in the south Indian state. Many of the Kerala's Punjabi Sikh community are in the automobile spare parts industry.Other minorities
Kerala also have a small number of scattered Bengali, Bihari and Odia communities.List of mother tongues spoken in Kerala by number of speakers
| Language | No. of speakers | % of population |
| Malayalam | 28,096,376 | 96.66 |
| Tamil | 616,010 | 2.12 |
| Kannada | 1.2 | |
| Tulu | 111,670 | 0.38 |
| Konkani | 64,008 | 0.22 |
| Telugu | 47,216 | 0.16 |
| Hindi | 21,751 | 0.07 |
| Urdu | 12,625 | 0.04 |
| Gujarati | 6,369 | 0.02 |
| English | 3,002 | 0.01 |
| Punjabi | 2,201 | 0.008 |
| Bengali | 1,919 | 0.007 |
| Nepali | 1,312 | 0.005 |
| Sindhi | 1,185 | 0.004 |
| Oriya | 733 | 0.003 |
| Dilli | 277 | 0.001 |
| Assamese | 264 | 0.001 |
| Arabic | 243 | 0.001 |
| Other languages | 4256 | 0.15 |
| Total | 29,067,481 | 100% |
Religion and Community
According to the 2001 census the breakdown of ethnic groups by religion is:| Malayalam | Other languages | Total | |
| Hindu | 54.20% | 2% | 56.20% |
| Muslim | 23.70% | 1% | 24.70% |
| Christian | 18.00% | 1% | 19.00% |
| Other religions | <0.1% | <0.1% | 00.10% |
| Total | 96.00% | 4.00% | 100.00% |
1968 Socio-Economic Survey of Kerala
In 1968, the Communist government under E. M. S. Namboodiripad ordered a socio-economic survey of each resident in the state of Kerala, to assess caste inequalities. Until the census of 2011, this survey was the only caste-based count conducted in post-independence India. The survey was not very conclusive, since it merged several unrelated castes into one group.The survey found that individuals belonging to higher castes possessed more land and had relatively higher per capita income as compared to the general population. The survey found that 33% of the states population was forward caste, almost half of whom were Syrian Christians. According to the survey, 13% of the Brahmins, 6.8% of the Syrian Catholics, 5.4% of the Jacobites and 4.7% of the Nairs owned more than 5 acres of land. This compared with 1.4% of the Ezhavas, 1.9% of the Muslims and 0.1% of the Scheduled Castes who had that much land in their possession.
| Caste | Population | Percentage |
| Arayan / Mukkuvan | 851,603 | 4.24% |
| Brahmin | 353,329 | 1.76% |
| Chetty/ Vellalar | 151,150 | 0.75% |
| Christian Scheduled Caste | 301,912 | 1.50% |
| Ezhava/ Izhava/ Kaniyan/ Nadar/ | 4,457,808 | 22.19 |
| Ezhuthachan | 260,042 | 1.29% |
| Kammalar | 756,178 | 3.76% |
| Marthomite & Orthodox | 731,207 | 3.64% |
| Muslim | 3,842,322 | 19.12% |
| Nair | 2,905,775 | 14.46% |
| Nair Other | 435,396 | 2.17% |
| Scheduled Castes | 1,578,115 | 7.85% |
| Scheduled Tribe | 253,519 | 1.26% |
| Syrian & Latin Rite Catholics | 3,214,278 | 16.00% |
| Total | 20,092,634 | 100.00% |
The last comprehensive caste census of Kerala was undertaken by the British in 1931.
| Caste | Population | Percentage |
| Malayali Brahmin | 50,240 | 0.51% |
| Foreign Brahmin | 121,748 | 1.24% |
| Ambalavasi Brahmin | 39,371 | 0.40% |
| Samanta Kshatriya | 5,901 | 0.06% |
| Samanthan Nair | 4,921 | 0.05% |
| Nair | 1,505,929 | 15.30% |
| Vilakkithala Nair | 35,199 | 0.36% |
| Veluthedath Nair | 22,219 | 0.23% |
| Kammalar | 265,752 | 2.70% |
| Vellalar | 88,584 | 0.90% |
| Chetty | 49,213 | 0.50% |
| Izhava + Thiyya | 2,007,901 | 20.40% |
| Kaniyar | 39,371 | 0.40% |
| Mukkuvar + Arayar | 88,584 | 0.90% |
| Parayar | 165,656 | 1.68% |
| Pulayar + Cherumar | 678,387 | 6.89% |
| Kuravan | 95,295 | 0.97% |
| Thandan | 41,214 | 0.42% |
| Nadar | 402,555 | 4.09% |
| Christians | 2,005,239 | 18.37% |
| Muslim | 1,604,629 | 16.30% |
| Total | 9,842,650 |