Eurasian (mixed ancestry)
Encyclopedia
The word Eurasian refers to people of mixed Asian
and European ancestry. It was originally coined in 19th-century British India to refer to Anglo-Indian
s of mixed British
and Indian
descent.
The term has seen some use in anthropological
literature from the 1960s.
, Mongols
and Turks
moving and settling as far west as central-Europe; and the Greeks
, Tocharians
and Russians
moving east into Central-Asia, China and eventually even Manchuria.
Many Eurasian ethnic groups arose during the Mongol invasion of Europe
. The Persian and Muslim invasion of present-day Pakistan and India brought about other developments. Other Eurasian ethnicities developed by the colonial occupation of Asian regions by European states and private corporations, that started with the great wave of European naval expansion and exploration in the 16th century and continues to the present. The main European colonial powers were Spain and Portugal in the 16th century, followed by the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France from the 17th century onwards. They colonized throughout South Asia, and into Indonesia and the Philippines.
The term 'Eurasian' was first coined in British India in 1844. The term was originally used to refer to those who are now known as Anglo-Indian
s, people of mixed British
and Indian
descent. In many regions, Eurasians tended to marry and socialize mostly among themselves — thus forming a separate social and economic class, which eventually became a distinctive ethnic group. Similarly, descendants of French colonists and Vietnamese were also Eurasian.
As European colonies gained their independence, different Eurasian groups met with different fortunes. At times they were discriminated against and persecuted, being seen as alien and allies of the former rulers. This was the fate, for example, of the Anglo-Burmese in Burma
, and of the Indo people of Indonesia
. In other cases, where the Eurasians had citizen status in the colonial power, they chose to emigrate simply for economic reasons. In a few cases, Eurasians were able to retain their status after the transition, or to take over the status of the former colonial rulers. This was the case in the Philippines
and Timor, for example, where the Spanish mestizos and other part-European groups have continued to be politically and economically dominant. They are also important in a socio-cultural aspect.
Over time, the Anglo-Burmese came to heavily dominate colonial society in the realms of the civil service and armed forces, the merchant companies and the educational system, with British schools set up, such as St. Paul's and the Methodist English High School in Rangoon, St. Michael's and St. Mary's in Mandalay and Maymyo, primarily to educate the Anglo-Burmese. During World War II, for those Anglo-Burmese left in the country, the Japanese quickly interned them and for those who fled with the British to India, the prestige of the British Empire was now destroyed. After the war was over, most Anglo-Burmese returned to Burma and at Independence in 1948, the country was still to be dominated in the civil service, police and armed forces by the Anglo-Burmese. This quickly changed in the early 1950s, with pre-requisites for fluency in both spoken and written Burmese adopted for government employment and education. At this time, many Anglo-Burmese opted to leave the country, primarily for the UK and Australia, whereas others threw in their lot with the local population, adopted Burmese names and adapted to the new society. Seen as a vestige of the hated British colonial period, this influential community has effectively disappeared from Burmese society, though it is estimated that many in the country still have some European or Anglo-Burmese blood and through the Joshua Project, it is estimated that around 52,000 Eurasians still reside in Burma, per the 1983 census. Today, most Anglo-Burmese are found in Perth, Australia, where the Anglo-Burmese Society is headquartered.
The official percentage of Filipinos with European ancestry is unknown. The Philippine Government does not honor any surveys or studies done by various institutions since most of them are only considered as "guestimates".
European racial admixtures occurred during the Spanish colonial era from the 16th to 19th century, followed by the American occupation. From the 1960s to the present day, the influence of American military and business personnel associated with bases also brought marriages and unions. Before and during these periods, there were numerous unions between Chinese workers, first brought by merchants and later by the Spanish, and Filipino women.
The Spanish racial caste system in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era was modeled after that of Latin America's, with a few major differences. The indigenous population of the Philippines were referred to as Indios.
Persons classified as 'blancos' (whites) were the Filipinos (persons born in the Philippines of Spanish descent), peninsulares (persons born in Spain of Spanish descent), español mestizos (persons born in the Philippines of mixed indigenous and Spanish ancestry), and tornatrás
,(persons born in the Philippines of mixed indigenous, Chinese, and Spanish ancestry). Manila was racially segregated, with blancos living in the walled city Intramuros
, un-Christianized sangleys in Parían
, Christianized sangleys, and mestizos de sangley in Binondo, and the rest of the 7,000 islands for the indios. Only mestizos de sangley were allowed to enter Intramuros
to work for whites (including mestizos de español) as servants and various occupations needed for the colony.
This legal system of racial classification based on patrilineal descent had no parallel anywhere in the Spanish-ruled colonies in the Americas
. In general, a son born of a sangley male and an indio or mestizo de sangley female was classified as mestizo de sangley; all subsequent male descendants are mestizo de sangley regardless of whether they marry indio or mestizo de sangley. A daughter born in such manner, however, acquire the legal classification of her husband, i.e., she becomes an indio if she marries an indio but remains mestizo de sangley if she marries another mestizo de sangley or a sangley. In this way, a chino mestizo male descendant of a paternal sangley ancestor could never lose his legal status as a mestizo de sangley no matter how little percentage of sangley blood he has in his veins or how many generations has passed since his first sangley ancestor; he is thus a mestizo de sangley in perpetuity; as opposed to Latin America's system in which those with some Amerindian ancestry were counted as whites.
The Spanish caste system based on race was abolished after the Philippines' independence from Spain in 1898. The meaning of the word 'Filipino' was expanded to include the entire population of the Philippines regardless of racial ancestry.
, concerning multi-racial
families in 1990:
According to James P. Allen and Eugene Turner from California State University, Northridge, by some calculations, the largest part-European bi-racial population is European/Native American and Alaskan Native, at 7,015,017; followed by European/African at 737,492; then European/Asian at 727,197; and finally European/Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander at 125,628.
The US Census has categorized Eurasian responses in the "Some other race" section as belonging to the Asian category. The Eurasian responses the US Census officially recognizes are Indo-European, Amerasian, and Eurasian.
Starting with the 2000 Census, people have been allowed to mark more than one "race" on the US census, and many have identified as both Asian and European.
, Dutch Malacca
, followed by the British. The Eurasians of British Malaya and North Borneo (corresponding to modern day Malaysia) were classified as Eurasians by the British colonial administration in the 1920s. Prior to this, the Eurasians were referred to either as Anglo-Indians (for those with British or Irish surnames), Dutch Burghers (for those with Dutch or German surnames), or Portuguese Descendants or Mestizos (for those with Portuguese and French surnames). In the British colonial era (lasting from 1786 to 1957), the English-speaking Anglo-Indians were at the top of the Eurasian hierarchy, followed by the Dutch Burghers, and the Portuguese Descendants. Numerous Anglo-Indians came with the British East India Company and later with the British colonial administration as soldiers and low-level civil servants. The Dutch Burghers were the descendants of European employees of the Dutch East India Company married to Portuguese Mestizos or Asians. The Portuguese Descendants were the result of marriages of Portuguese adventurers/colonists and Asians.
In West Malaysia, by the 18th century, the Malays referred to Eurasians as Serani, which originally meant Christians. The Portuguese Mestizos of Malacca refer to their patois or creole as Kristang (Christian tongue). In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Malays called the Portuguese Feringgi, which has a common origin with the Thai word, Farang. Today it is used to refer to European foreigners.
In East Malaysia, the exact number of Eurasians are unknown. Recent DNA studies by Stanford found that 7.8% samples from Kota Kinabalu
have European chromosomes.
broadly developed along the same historic path as the Filipino one. Over a period of 400 years, it began with a mostly Portuguese-Indonesian ancestry and ended with a dominant Dutch-Indonesian ancestry.
After World War II and the gaining of independence, most Eurasians of European and Indonesian descent settled in The Netherlands. Later they went to the United States and elsewhere. Dutch Eurasians were typically Dutch citizens; many Indonesians perceived them as collaborators with the Dutch government. On the other hand, the Dutch thought that Indonesian revolutionary leaders had collaborated with the Japanese invaders against colonial rule. Given the disruption and losses of the war, the postwar years were a time of large-scale Eurasian diaspora from Indonesia. In contrast to the Mestizo
in the Philippines, or the Eurasians of Singapore, the Eurasians of Indonesia no longer have a prominent place in contemporary society. Indonesian scientists think that at least 1 million of the population may have some European ancestry, but that is only 0.5% of Indonesia's huge population.
These Dutch Eurasians, also called Indos or Indo-Europeans, have largely assimilated in the Netherlands. Statistics show high inter marriage rates with native Dutch (50 to 80%). With over 500,000 persons, they are the largest ethnic minority in the Netherlands. So-called Indo Rockers such as the Tielman Brothers
introduced their blend of rock and roll music to Dutch audiences, whereas others gained fame as singers and TV presenters, such as Rob de Nijs
and Sandra Reemer
. Well-known politicians, such as Hans van den Broek
, also happen to be of Indo Eurasian descent.
was fairly common in Britain since the 17th century, when the British East India Company
began bringing over thousands of Indian
scholars, lascars and workers (mostly Bengali
and/or Muslim
) to Britain. Most married and cohabited with local white British
women and girls, due to the absence of Indian women in Britain at the time. This later became an issue, as a magistrate of the London Tower Hamlets
area in 1817 expressed disgust at how the local English women and girls in the area were marrying and cohabiting almost exclusively with foreign South Asian
lascars. Nevertheless, there were no legal restrictions against 'mixed' marriages in Britain, unlike the restrictions in India. This led to “mixed race
” Eurasian (Anglo-Indian
) children in Britain, which challenged the British elite efforts to "define them using simple dichotomies of British versus Indian, ruler versus ruled." By the mid-19th century, there were more than 40,000 Indian seamen, diplomats, scholars, soldiers, officials, tourists, businessmen and students arriving in Britain, and by the time World War I began, there were 51,616 Indian lascar seamen residing in Britain. In addition, the British officers and soldiers who had Indian wives and Eurasian children in British India often brought them to Britain in the 19th century.
Following World War I, there were more women than men in Britain, and there were increasing numbers of seamen arriving from abroad, mostly from the Indian subcontinent
, in addition to smaller numbers from Yemen
, Malaysia and China. This led to increased intermarriage and cohabitation with local white
females. Some residents grew jealous and concerned about miscegenation
and there were several race riot
s at the time. In the 1920s to 1940s, several writers raised concerns about an increasing 'mixed-breed
' population, born mainly from Muslim
Asian (mostly South Asian
in addition to Arab
and Malaysian) fathers and local white mothers, occasionally out of wedlock. They denounced white girls who mixed with Muslim Asian men as 'shameless' and called for a ban on the breeding of 'half-caste' children. Such attempts at imposing anti-miscegenation laws
were unsuccessful. As South Asian women began arriving in Britain in large numbers from the 1970s, mostly as family members, intermarriage rates have decreased in the British Asian
community, although the size of the community has increased. As of 2006, there are 246,400 'British Mixed-Race
' people of European and South Asian descent.
. These people are the descendants of French soldiers and settlers who intermarried with local Vietnamese populations during French colonial times.
A small percentage of the Vietnamese population is of mixed Vietnamese and French ancestry.
However, the Eurasian population in Vietnam has been in steady decline. Many have emigrated from Vietnam since the end of French rule. The majority of those have emigrated to France, the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia. The exact number of those that remain in Vietnam
is unknown, but is estimated to be at around 400,000.
' was to describe all British people living in India, regardless of whether they had Indian ancestors or not. This usage changed to describe people who were of the very specific lineage descending from the British on the male side and women from the Indian side. People of mixed British and Indian descent were previously referred to as simply 'Eurasians' but are now more commonly referred to as 'Anglo-Indians'.
During the British East India Company
's rule in India
in the late 18th century and early 19th century, it was initially fairly common for British officers and soldiers to take local Indian wives and have Eurasian children. Interracial marriages between European men and Indian women were very common during colonial times. The scholar Michael Fisher estimates that one in three European men in colonial India had Indian wives. The Europeans (mostly Portuguese, Dutch, French and English) were stationed in India in their youth, and looked for relationships with local women. The most famous of such interracial liaisons was between the Hyderabadi noblewoman Khair-un-Nissa and the Scottish resident James Achilles Kirkpatrick
. In addition to intermarriage, inter-ethnic prostitution in India existed. Generally, Muslim women did not marry European men unless the men converted to Islam.
By the mid-19th century, there were around 40,000 British soldiers but fewer than 2,000 British officials present in India. As British women began arriving to British India in large numbers around the early-to-mid-19th century, mostly as family members of British officers and soldiers, intermarriage with Indians became less frequent among the British in India. After the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857
, such intermarriage was considered undesirable by both cultures. The colonial government passed several anti-miscegenation laws
. As a result, Eurasians became more marginal to both the British and Indian populations in India.
Over generations, Anglo-Indians intermarried with other Anglo-Indians to form a community that developed a culture of its own. They created distinctive Anglo-Indian cuisine
, dress, speech and religion. They established a school system focused on English language
and culture, and formed social clubs and associations to run functions, such as regular dances, at holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Over time, the British colonial government recruited Anglo-Indians into the Customs and Excise, Post and Telegraphs, Forestry Department, the Railways and teaching professions, but they were employed in many other fields as well. A number of factors fostered a strong sense of community among Anglo-Indians. Their English-language school system, their Anglo-centric culture, and their Christian beliefs helped bind them together. Today, an estimated 125,000 Anglo-Indians live in India.
, the Netherlands and Britain, Sri Lanka has had a long history of intermarriage between locals and colonists. Originally these people were known as Mestiços (see Mestizo
), literally "Mixed People" in Portuguese; today they are collectively classified as Burghers
. The Sri Lankan Civil War
has prompted numerous Burghers to flee the Island. Most have settled in Europe, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
Portuguese Burghers
are usually descended from a Sri Lankan mother and a Portuguese father, or a Sri Lankan mother of Portuguese descent and a Sri Lankan father (the former is more common). This configuration is also the case with the Dutch Burghers. When the Portuguese arrived on the island in 1505, they were accompanied by African slaves. Kaffirs
are a mix of African
, Portuguese colonist
and Sri Lankan
. The free mixing between the various groups of people was encouraged by the colonials. Soon the Mestiços or the "Mixed People" began speaking a creole known as the Ceylonese-Portuguese Creole
. It was based on Portuguese, Sinhala and Tamil
.
The Burgher population numbers 40,000 in Sri Lanka and thousands more worldwide, concentrated mostly in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Phenotypically Burghers can have skin ranging from light to darker, depending on their ancestors, even within the same family. Burghers
with dark to light brown skin usually are of Portuguese Burghers
or Kaffir ancestry; they may also have European
facial features common to the Mediterranean basin (see Mediterraneans
). They have a distinct look compared to native Sri Lankans. Most light-skinned Burghers are of Dutch or British descent. Most Burghers are Roman Catholic in religion.
The long and rich colonial past of Sri Lanka left lasting impressions on the cultures and the languages of the island. Both Sinhalaese and Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) Tamil
contain numerous words from Portuguese, Dutch and English.
ancestry reside in Cambodia. These people constitute approximately 0.1% of the total population in Cambodia
. They are the descendents of former French soldiers and settlers who intermarried with the local population.
A further 3,200 people are of French ancestry, who live in Cambodia as either expatriate
s or are Cambodian-born but are ethnic French. The Eurasian population in Cambodia
has been in steady decline, as many have emigrated from Cambodia since the French withdrawal. The majority of those have emigrated to France, the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia.
, Singapore, Bangladesh
, Hong Kong, Macau
, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The Eurasian population in Pakistan, consisting of either Anglo-Indians who have emigrated to Pakistan
or Pakistan
i born descendents of British people
and local populations who intermarried during the British colonial period, numbers approximately 10,000. The Eurasian population in Bangladesh was formed as a similar result to that in Burma, India, and Pakistan
.
The overwhelming majority of all Eurasians with Filipino ancestry of the younger generations speak English as their first language, and have a basic command of at least one Philippine language
, and at least one European language of their own ethnicity. Eurasians and some Filipinos of certain strata in society use a language code-switching, between English, Spanish, and indigenous Philippine languages, called Taglish
or Bislish
.
The Kristang
and Macanese
groups have formed their own languages. The Kristang language
is a dialect of Portuguese influenced by Malay as well as Petjo
, a dialect made up of Dutch words based on a Malay grammatical structure. The Macanese language
is a Portuguese creole
influenced by Cantonese, but now, most Macanese people speak Portuguese and Cantonese.
Intermixing between locals and colonials gave rise to the Ceylonese Portuguese Creole
, the lingua franca
on the island for over 400 years. Dutch was also in common use by members of the Burgher
community on the island of Sri Lanka
. The use of Portuguese was so dominant, that the Dutch also began to speak it. The modern lexicon
of Sri Lankan Tamil
and Sinhala are infused with words from Portuguese, Dutch and English.
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
and European ancestry. It was originally coined in 19th-century British India to refer to Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
s of mixed British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
and Indian
South Asian ethnic groups
The ethno-linguistic composition of the population of South Asia, that is the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka is highly diverse. The majority of the population fall within two large Linguistic groups, Indo-Aryan and Dravidian.These groups are further...
descent.
The term has seen some use in anthropological
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
literature from the 1960s.
Origins
Contact and mixture between Indo-European and Asian peoples has a long history dating back at least several thousands of years to the spread of the Indo-Europeans from the Caucasus area into Central and Northern Asia. It has continued with various migrations, heading both east and west. The most noticeable of these were the HunsHuns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
, Mongols
Mongol invasion of Europe
The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...
and Turks
Turkic migration
The Turkic migration as defined in this article was the expansion of the Turkic peoples across most of Central Asia into Europe and the Middle East between the 6th and 11th centuries AD . Tribes less certainly identified as Turkic began their expansion centuries earlier as the predominant element...
moving and settling as far west as central-Europe; and the Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
, Tocharians
Tocharians
The Tocharians were the Tocharian-speaking inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, making them the easternmost speakers of Indo-European languages in antiquity. They were known as, or at least closely related to, the Yuezhi of Chinese sources...
and Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
moving east into Central-Asia, China and eventually even Manchuria.
Many Eurasian ethnic groups arose during the Mongol invasion of Europe
Mongol invasion of Europe
The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...
. The Persian and Muslim invasion of present-day Pakistan and India brought about other developments. Other Eurasian ethnicities developed by the colonial occupation of Asian regions by European states and private corporations, that started with the great wave of European naval expansion and exploration in the 16th century and continues to the present. The main European colonial powers were Spain and Portugal in the 16th century, followed by the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France from the 17th century onwards. They colonized throughout South Asia, and into Indonesia and the Philippines.
The term 'Eurasian' was first coined in British India in 1844. The term was originally used to refer to those who are now known as Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
s, people of mixed British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
and Indian
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
descent. In many regions, Eurasians tended to marry and socialize mostly among themselves — thus forming a separate social and economic class, which eventually became a distinctive ethnic group. Similarly, descendants of French colonists and Vietnamese were also Eurasian.
Social and economic status
Eurasians usually had close ties to the ruling Europeans and the local populations. They were often given positions such as clerks, administrators and police officers which enabled them to act as intermediaries. In addition, Eurasians gained political influence and prosperity through such roles.As European colonies gained their independence, different Eurasian groups met with different fortunes. At times they were discriminated against and persecuted, being seen as alien and allies of the former rulers. This was the fate, for example, of the Anglo-Burmese in Burma
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
, and of the Indo people of Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. In other cases, where the Eurasians had citizen status in the colonial power, they chose to emigrate simply for economic reasons. In a few cases, Eurasians were able to retain their status after the transition, or to take over the status of the former colonial rulers. This was the case in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and Timor, for example, where the Spanish mestizos and other part-European groups have continued to be politically and economically dominant. They are also important in a socio-cultural aspect.
Myanmar (Burma)
Through the course of history, Myanmar (Burma) was visited by Portuguese, Dutch and French merchants and then finally became a British colony in stages from 1826-1885 through 1948. Over time, these different groups intermarried or had liaisons with the local populace. The first Eurasian group, of Portuguese and Burmese origins, were known as the Ba-Yin-Gi - the Great Kings - and descended from Felipe DeBritto and his Portuguese band of soldiers. Eventually, as the Dutch, French and British settled, further intermarriage and relationships took place, spawning the official birth of what became known as the Anglo-Burmese/Anglo-Burman community. Skewed heavily to a Burmese or Anglo-Burmese mother and a European father, but with many intermarriages between Anglo-Burmese themselves and also with the Anglo-Indians who had come into the country with the British, the Anglo-Burmese community hovered above the local Burmese people but just below the ruling British.Over time, the Anglo-Burmese came to heavily dominate colonial society in the realms of the civil service and armed forces, the merchant companies and the educational system, with British schools set up, such as St. Paul's and the Methodist English High School in Rangoon, St. Michael's and St. Mary's in Mandalay and Maymyo, primarily to educate the Anglo-Burmese. During World War II, for those Anglo-Burmese left in the country, the Japanese quickly interned them and for those who fled with the British to India, the prestige of the British Empire was now destroyed. After the war was over, most Anglo-Burmese returned to Burma and at Independence in 1948, the country was still to be dominated in the civil service, police and armed forces by the Anglo-Burmese. This quickly changed in the early 1950s, with pre-requisites for fluency in both spoken and written Burmese adopted for government employment and education. At this time, many Anglo-Burmese opted to leave the country, primarily for the UK and Australia, whereas others threw in their lot with the local population, adopted Burmese names and adapted to the new society. Seen as a vestige of the hated British colonial period, this influential community has effectively disappeared from Burmese society, though it is estimated that many in the country still have some European or Anglo-Burmese blood and through the Joshua Project, it is estimated that around 52,000 Eurasians still reside in Burma, per the 1983 census. Today, most Anglo-Burmese are found in Perth, Australia, where the Anglo-Burmese Society is headquartered.
Philippines
The Philippines has 3.6% Eurasian population. Most are descendants of Spanish and American settlers, as well as other European ethnicities who intermarried with indigenous women. Significant intermarriage between Filipinos and European Americans has occurred since the United States colonial period up to the present day, as the US has numerous people stationed there at military bases. Aside from the more common Spanish mestizo, there are also Eurasians in the Philippines who have ancestries from various European countries. Because of a growing incidence of intermarriage between Filipinos and people from the Middle East, there is also a growing number of mestizos of mixed Filipino and Arab or Iranian ancestry, and a few of part Jewish descent. Because most Filipinos were given Spanish surnames by the Spanish governors during the colonial period, today's Eurasians of non-Spanish descent with Spanish surnames may be mistaken as Filipinos of Spanish descent, and that is how they are often presented in such circles as the film industry.The official percentage of Filipinos with European ancestry is unknown. The Philippine Government does not honor any surveys or studies done by various institutions since most of them are only considered as "guestimates".
European racial admixtures occurred during the Spanish colonial era from the 16th to 19th century, followed by the American occupation. From the 1960s to the present day, the influence of American military and business personnel associated with bases also brought marriages and unions. Before and during these periods, there were numerous unions between Chinese workers, first brought by merchants and later by the Spanish, and Filipino women.
The Spanish racial caste system in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era was modeled after that of Latin America's, with a few major differences. The indigenous population of the Philippines were referred to as Indios.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Indio | person of indigenous ancestry |
| Sangley | person of Chinese ancestry |
| Mestizo de Sangley | person of mixed Chinese and indigenous ancestry; also called chino mestizo |
| Mestizo de Español | person of mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry |
| Filipinos | persons of Spanish descent born in the Philippines (literally "from the islands"); also called Insulares or Criollos Criollo people The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans... (Creoles) |
| Peninsulares | persons of Spanish descent born in Spain (literally "from the peninsula") |
Persons classified as 'blancos' (whites) were the Filipinos (persons born in the Philippines of Spanish descent), peninsulares (persons born in Spain of Spanish descent), español mestizos (persons born in the Philippines of mixed indigenous and Spanish ancestry), and tornatrás
Tornatras
Tornatrás is an outdated term used in Spain to describe a person of mixed European and albino ancestry or a descendant of mestizos and specific characteristics of one of the original races...
,(persons born in the Philippines of mixed indigenous, Chinese, and Spanish ancestry). Manila was racially segregated, with blancos living in the walled city Intramuros
Intramuros
Intramuros is the oldest district in the present day city of Manila, the capital of the Republic of the Philippines. Nicknamed the "Walled City", Intramuros is the historic fortified city of Manila, the seat ot the government during the Spanish Colonial Period. Its name in Latin, intramuros,...
, un-Christianized sangleys in Parían
Parian
Parian may mean*Pertaining to Paros, the Greek island* Parian marble, used for sculpture*Parian Ware, an inexpensive substitute for marble and fashionable in Victorian England...
, Christianized sangleys, and mestizos de sangley in Binondo, and the rest of the 7,000 islands for the indios. Only mestizos de sangley were allowed to enter Intramuros
Intramuros
Intramuros is the oldest district in the present day city of Manila, the capital of the Republic of the Philippines. Nicknamed the "Walled City", Intramuros is the historic fortified city of Manila, the seat ot the government during the Spanish Colonial Period. Its name in Latin, intramuros,...
to work for whites (including mestizos de español) as servants and various occupations needed for the colony.
This legal system of racial classification based on patrilineal descent had no parallel anywhere in the Spanish-ruled colonies in the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
. In general, a son born of a sangley male and an indio or mestizo de sangley female was classified as mestizo de sangley; all subsequent male descendants are mestizo de sangley regardless of whether they marry indio or mestizo de sangley. A daughter born in such manner, however, acquire the legal classification of her husband, i.e., she becomes an indio if she marries an indio but remains mestizo de sangley if she marries another mestizo de sangley or a sangley. In this way, a chino mestizo male descendant of a paternal sangley ancestor could never lose his legal status as a mestizo de sangley no matter how little percentage of sangley blood he has in his veins or how many generations has passed since his first sangley ancestor; he is thus a mestizo de sangley in perpetuity; as opposed to Latin America's system in which those with some Amerindian ancestry were counted as whites.
The Spanish caste system based on race was abolished after the Philippines' independence from Spain in 1898. The meaning of the word 'Filipino' was expanded to include the entire population of the Philippines regardless of racial ancestry.
United States
According to the United States Census BureauUnited States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...
, concerning multi-racial
Multiracial American
Multiracial Americans, US residents who identify themselves as of "two or more races", were numbered at around 9 million, or 2.9% of the population, in the census of 2010. However there is considerable evidence that the real number is far higher. Prior to the mid-20th century many people hid their...
families in 1990:
According to James P. Allen and Eugene Turner from California State University, Northridge, by some calculations, the largest part-European bi-racial population is European/Native American and Alaskan Native, at 7,015,017; followed by European/African at 737,492; then European/Asian at 727,197; and finally European/Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander at 125,628.
The US Census has categorized Eurasian responses in the "Some other race" section as belonging to the Asian category. The Eurasian responses the US Census officially recognizes are Indo-European, Amerasian, and Eurasian.
Starting with the 2000 Census, people have been allowed to mark more than one "race" on the US census, and many have identified as both Asian and European.
Malaysia
Malaysia has a 400-year (1511-1957) history of European occupation, beginning with Portuguese MalaccaPortuguese Malacca
Portuguese Malacca was the territory of Malacca that, for 130 years , was a Portuguese colony.- History :From the writing of the Portuguese historian Emanuel Godinho de Erédia in the middle of the 16th century, the site of the old city of Malacca was named after the Myrobalans, fruit-bearing trees...
, Dutch Malacca
Dutch Malacca
Dutch Malacca was the longest period of Malacca under foreign control. The Dutch ruled for almost 183 years with intermittent British occupation during the Napoleonic Wars . This era saw relative peace with little serious interruption from the Malay kingdoms due to the understanding earlier on...
, followed by the British. The Eurasians of British Malaya and North Borneo (corresponding to modern day Malaysia) were classified as Eurasians by the British colonial administration in the 1920s. Prior to this, the Eurasians were referred to either as Anglo-Indians (for those with British or Irish surnames), Dutch Burghers (for those with Dutch or German surnames), or Portuguese Descendants or Mestizos (for those with Portuguese and French surnames). In the British colonial era (lasting from 1786 to 1957), the English-speaking Anglo-Indians were at the top of the Eurasian hierarchy, followed by the Dutch Burghers, and the Portuguese Descendants. Numerous Anglo-Indians came with the British East India Company and later with the British colonial administration as soldiers and low-level civil servants. The Dutch Burghers were the descendants of European employees of the Dutch East India Company married to Portuguese Mestizos or Asians. The Portuguese Descendants were the result of marriages of Portuguese adventurers/colonists and Asians.
In West Malaysia, by the 18th century, the Malays referred to Eurasians as Serani, which originally meant Christians. The Portuguese Mestizos of Malacca refer to their patois or creole as Kristang (Christian tongue). In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Malays called the Portuguese Feringgi, which has a common origin with the Thai word, Farang. Today it is used to refer to European foreigners.
In East Malaysia, the exact number of Eurasians are unknown. Recent DNA studies by Stanford found that 7.8% samples from Kota Kinabalu
Kota Kinabalu
Kota Kinabalu , formerly known as Jesselton, is the capital of Sabah state in East Malaysia. It is also the capital of the West Coast Division of Sabah. The city is located on the northwest coast of Borneo facing the South China Sea. The Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park lies on one side and Mount...
have European chromosomes.
Indonesia
The Eurasian community from IndonesiaIndonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
broadly developed along the same historic path as the Filipino one. Over a period of 400 years, it began with a mostly Portuguese-Indonesian ancestry and ended with a dominant Dutch-Indonesian ancestry.
After World War II and the gaining of independence, most Eurasians of European and Indonesian descent settled in The Netherlands. Later they went to the United States and elsewhere. Dutch Eurasians were typically Dutch citizens; many Indonesians perceived them as collaborators with the Dutch government. On the other hand, the Dutch thought that Indonesian revolutionary leaders had collaborated with the Japanese invaders against colonial rule. Given the disruption and losses of the war, the postwar years were a time of large-scale Eurasian diaspora from Indonesia. In contrast to the Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
in the Philippines, or the Eurasians of Singapore, the Eurasians of Indonesia no longer have a prominent place in contemporary society. Indonesian scientists think that at least 1 million of the population may have some European ancestry, but that is only 0.5% of Indonesia's huge population.
These Dutch Eurasians, also called Indos or Indo-Europeans, have largely assimilated in the Netherlands. Statistics show high inter marriage rates with native Dutch (50 to 80%). With over 500,000 persons, they are the largest ethnic minority in the Netherlands. So-called Indo Rockers such as the Tielman Brothers
Tielman Brothers
The Tielman Brothers were the first Dutch Indo band that successfully went international in the 1950s. They were one of the pioneers of rock and roll in The Netherlands and band became famous in Europe playing a kind of rock and roll later called Indorock, a fusion of Indonesian and Western music...
introduced their blend of rock and roll music to Dutch audiences, whereas others gained fame as singers and TV presenters, such as Rob de Nijs
Rob de Nijs
Rob de Nijs is a Dutch singer and actor, active since the 1960s.-1962-68:De Nijs, backed by The Lords, released his first single in 1962, Ritme van de Regen. In 1966 he embarked on a joint circus-tour with Johnny Lion...
and Sandra Reemer
Sandra Reemer
Barbara Alexandra "Sandra" Reemer is a Dutch Indo singer of Dutch, Chinese and Javanese extraction...
. Well-known politicians, such as Hans van den Broek
Hans van den Broek
Henri van den Broek is a leading Dutch politician. He is best known for having served 11 years as the Netherlands' Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1982 and 1993, when he became European Commissioner for Foreign Relations.-Career:Van Den Broek started his career as a lawyer...
, also happen to be of Indo Eurasian descent.
United Kingdom
Interracial marriageInterracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...
was fairly common in Britain since the 17th century, when the British East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
began bringing over thousands of Indian
British Indian
The term British Indian refers to citizens of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots lie in India. This includes people born in the UK who are of Indian descent, and Indian-born people who have migrated to the UK...
scholars, lascars and workers (mostly Bengali
British Bangladeshi
A British Bangladeshi is a person of Bangladeshi origin who resides in the United Kingdom having emigrated to the UK and attained citizenship through naturalisation or whose parents did so; they are also known as British Bengalis...
and/or Muslim
Islam in the United Kingdom
Islam has been present in the United Kingdom since its formation in 1707, though it was not legally recognised until the Trinitarian Act in 1812. Today it is the second largest religion in the country with estimates suggesting that by 2010 the total Muslim population had reached 2.869 million.The...
) to Britain. Most married and cohabited with local white British
White British
White British was an ethnicity classification used in the 2001 United Kingdom Census. As a result of the census, 50,366,497 people in the United Kingdom were classified as White British. In Scotland the classification was broken down into two different categories: White Scottish and Other White...
women and girls, due to the absence of Indian women in Britain at the time. This later became an issue, as a magistrate of the London Tower Hamlets
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough to the east of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It is in the eastern part of London and covers much of the traditional East End. It also includes much of the redeveloped Docklands region of London, including West India Docks...
area in 1817 expressed disgust at how the local English women and girls in the area were marrying and cohabiting almost exclusively with foreign South Asian
British Asian
British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...
lascars. Nevertheless, there were no legal restrictions against 'mixed' marriages in Britain, unlike the restrictions in India. This led to “mixed race
British Mixed-Race
Mixed is an ethnicity category that has been used by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics since the 1991 Census. Colloquially it refers to British citizens or residents whose parents are of two or more different races or ethnic backgrounds...
” Eurasian (Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
) children in Britain, which challenged the British elite efforts to "define them using simple dichotomies of British versus Indian, ruler versus ruled." By the mid-19th century, there were more than 40,000 Indian seamen, diplomats, scholars, soldiers, officials, tourists, businessmen and students arriving in Britain, and by the time World War I began, there were 51,616 Indian lascar seamen residing in Britain. In addition, the British officers and soldiers who had Indian wives and Eurasian children in British India often brought them to Britain in the 19th century.
Following World War I, there were more women than men in Britain, and there were increasing numbers of seamen arriving from abroad, mostly from the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
, in addition to smaller numbers from Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
, Malaysia and China. This led to increased intermarriage and cohabitation with local white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
females. Some residents grew jealous and concerned about miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
and there were several race riot
Race riot
A race riot or racial riot is an outbreak of violent civil disorder in which race is a key factor. A phenomenon frequently confused with the concept of 'race riot' is sectarian violence, which involves public mass violence or conflict over non-racial factors.-United States:The term had entered the...
s at the time. In the 1920s to 1940s, several writers raised concerns about an increasing 'mixed-breed
British Mixed-Race
Mixed is an ethnicity category that has been used by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics since the 1991 Census. Colloquially it refers to British citizens or residents whose parents are of two or more different races or ethnic backgrounds...
' population, born mainly from Muslim
Islam in the United Kingdom
Islam has been present in the United Kingdom since its formation in 1707, though it was not legally recognised until the Trinitarian Act in 1812. Today it is the second largest religion in the country with estimates suggesting that by 2010 the total Muslim population had reached 2.869 million.The...
Asian (mostly South Asian
British Asian
British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...
in addition to Arab
British Arabs
British Arabs are Arab people living or born in the United Kingdom. Unlike Black British or Asian British, the term is not one of those employed in government ethnicity categorisations used in the census and for national statistics. It is, however, the term used by the National Association of...
and Malaysian) fathers and local white mothers, occasionally out of wedlock. They denounced white girls who mixed with Muslim Asian men as 'shameless' and called for a ban on the breeding of 'half-caste' children. Such attempts at imposing anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races...
were unsuccessful. As South Asian women began arriving in Britain in large numbers from the 1970s, mostly as family members, intermarriage rates have decreased in the British Asian
British Asian
British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...
community, although the size of the community has increased. As of 2006, there are 246,400 'British Mixed-Race
British Mixed-Race
Mixed is an ethnicity category that has been used by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics since the 1991 Census. Colloquially it refers to British citizens or residents whose parents are of two or more different races or ethnic backgrounds...
' people of European and South Asian descent.
Vietnam
A significant number of Eurasians of mixed French and Vietnamese genetic descent reside in VietnamVietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. These people are the descendants of French soldiers and settlers who intermarried with local Vietnamese populations during French colonial times.
A small percentage of the Vietnamese population is of mixed Vietnamese and French ancestry.
However, the Eurasian population in Vietnam has been in steady decline. Many have emigrated from Vietnam since the end of French rule. The majority of those have emigrated to France, the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia. The exact number of those that remain in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
is unknown, but is estimated to be at around 400,000.
India
The first use of the term 'Anglo-IndianAnglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
' was to describe all British people living in India, regardless of whether they had Indian ancestors or not. This usage changed to describe people who were of the very specific lineage descending from the British on the male side and women from the Indian side. People of mixed British and Indian descent were previously referred to as simply 'Eurasians' but are now more commonly referred to as 'Anglo-Indians'.
During the British East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
's rule in India
Company rule in India
Company rule in India refers to the rule or dominion of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent...
in the late 18th century and early 19th century, it was initially fairly common for British officers and soldiers to take local Indian wives and have Eurasian children. Interracial marriages between European men and Indian women were very common during colonial times. The scholar Michael Fisher estimates that one in three European men in colonial India had Indian wives. The Europeans (mostly Portuguese, Dutch, French and English) were stationed in India in their youth, and looked for relationships with local women. The most famous of such interracial liaisons was between the Hyderabadi noblewoman Khair-un-Nissa and the Scottish resident James Achilles Kirkpatrick
James Achilles Kirkpatrick
Lieutenant Colonel James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at Hyderabad from 1798 to 1805. He also built the historic Koti Residency in Hyderabad, a landmark and major tourist attraction.-Biography :...
. In addition to intermarriage, inter-ethnic prostitution in India existed. Generally, Muslim women did not marry European men unless the men converted to Islam.
By the mid-19th century, there were around 40,000 British soldiers but fewer than 2,000 British officials present in India. As British women began arriving to British India in large numbers around the early-to-mid-19th century, mostly as family members of British officers and soldiers, intermarriage with Indians became less frequent among the British in India. After the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857
Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
, such intermarriage was considered undesirable by both cultures. The colonial government passed several anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races...
. As a result, Eurasians became more marginal to both the British and Indian populations in India.
Over generations, Anglo-Indians intermarried with other Anglo-Indians to form a community that developed a culture of its own. They created distinctive Anglo-Indian cuisine
Anglo-Indian cuisine
Anglo-Indian cuisine is the often distinct cuisine of the Anglo-Indian community in both Britain and India, as well as in America and Australia....
, dress, speech and religion. They established a school system focused on English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and culture, and formed social clubs and associations to run functions, such as regular dances, at holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Over time, the British colonial government recruited Anglo-Indians into the Customs and Excise, Post and Telegraphs, Forestry Department, the Railways and teaching professions, but they were employed in many other fields as well. A number of factors fostered a strong sense of community among Anglo-Indians. Their English-language school system, their Anglo-centric culture, and their Christian beliefs helped bind them together. Today, an estimated 125,000 Anglo-Indians live in India.
Sri Lanka
Due to prolonged colonial contact with PortugalPortuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
, the Netherlands and Britain, Sri Lanka has had a long history of intermarriage between locals and colonists. Originally these people were known as Mestiços (see Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
), literally "Mixed People" in Portuguese; today they are collectively classified as Burghers
Burgher people
The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries and local women, with some minorities of Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.Today the mother tongue of the Burghers...
. The Sri Lankan Civil War
Sri Lankan civil war
The Sri Lankan Civil War was a conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka. Beginning on July 23, 1983, there was an on-and-off insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , a separatist militant organization which fought to create an independent Tamil state named Tamil...
has prompted numerous Burghers to flee the Island. Most have settled in Europe, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
Portuguese Burghers
Portuguese Burghers
The Portuguese Burghers are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka, of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent. They are Roman Catholic and spoke the Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese language, a creole based on Portuguese. In modern times, English has become the common language while Sinhalese is taught in school...
are usually descended from a Sri Lankan mother and a Portuguese father, or a Sri Lankan mother of Portuguese descent and a Sri Lankan father (the former is more common). This configuration is also the case with the Dutch Burghers. When the Portuguese arrived on the island in 1505, they were accompanied by African slaves. Kaffirs
Sri Lanka Kaffir people
The Sri Lankan Kaffirs are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka who are partially descended from 16th century Portuguese traders and the African slaves who were brought by them to work as labourers and soldiers to fight against the Sri Lankan kings...
are a mix of African
African people
African people refers to natives, inhabitants, or citizen of Africa and to people of African descent.-Etymology:Many etymological hypotheses that have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa":...
, Portuguese colonist
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
and Sri Lankan
Demographics of Sri Lanka
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Sri Lanka, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
. The free mixing between the various groups of people was encouraged by the colonials. Soon the Mestiços or the "Mixed People" began speaking a creole known as the Ceylonese-Portuguese Creole
Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese language
Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese,Ceylonese Portuguese Creole or Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole is a language spoken in Sri Lanka. While the predominant languages of the island are Sinhala and Tamil, the interaction of the Portuguese and the Sri Lankans led to the evolution of a new language, Sri Lanka...
. It was based on Portuguese, Sinhala and Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
.
The Burgher population numbers 40,000 in Sri Lanka and thousands more worldwide, concentrated mostly in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Phenotypically Burghers can have skin ranging from light to darker, depending on their ancestors, even within the same family. Burghers
Burgher people
The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries and local women, with some minorities of Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.Today the mother tongue of the Burghers...
with dark to light brown skin usually are of Portuguese Burghers
Portuguese Burghers
The Portuguese Burghers are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka, of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent. They are Roman Catholic and spoke the Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese language, a creole based on Portuguese. In modern times, English has become the common language while Sinhalese is taught in school...
or Kaffir ancestry; they may also have European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
facial features common to the Mediterranean basin (see Mediterraneans
Mediterranean race
The Mediterranean race was one of the three sub-categories into which the Caucasian race and the people of Europe were divided by anthropologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, following the publication of William Z. Ripley's book The Races of Europe...
). They have a distinct look compared to native Sri Lankans. Most light-skinned Burghers are of Dutch or British descent. Most Burghers are Roman Catholic in religion.
The long and rich colonial past of Sri Lanka left lasting impressions on the cultures and the languages of the island. Both Sinhalaese and Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
contain numerous words from Portuguese, Dutch and English.
Cambodia
Approximately 13,000 people of mixed French and CambodianKhmer people
Khmer people are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14.8 million people in the country. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Mon–Khmer language family found throughout Southeast Asia...
ancestry reside in Cambodia. These people constitute approximately 0.1% of the total population in Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
. They are the descendents of former French soldiers and settlers who intermarried with the local population.
A further 3,200 people are of French ancestry, who live in Cambodia as either expatriate
Expatriate
An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...
s or are Cambodian-born but are ethnic French. The Eurasian population in Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
has been in steady decline, as many have emigrated from Cambodia since the French withdrawal. The majority of those have emigrated to France, the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia.
Hong Kong
Ernest John Eitel claimed that all "half caste" people in Hong Kong were descended exclusively from Europeans having relationship with Tanka women. The theory that most of the Eurasian mixed race Hong Kong people are descended only from Tanka women and European men, and not ordinary Cantonese women, is backed up by other researchers who pointed out that Tanka women freely consorted with foreigners due to the fact that they were not bound by the same Confucian traditions as the Cantonese, and having a relationship with European men was advantageous for Tanka women. The ordinary Cantonese women did not sleep with European men, the Eurasian population was formed only from Tanka and European admixture.
They invaded Hongkong the moment the settlement was started, living at first on boats in the harbonr with their numerons families, and gradually settling on shore. They have maintained ever since almost a monopoly of the supply of pilots and ships' crews, of the fish trade and the cattle trade, but unfortunately also of the trade in girls and women. Strange to say, when the settlement was first started, it was estimated that some 2,000 of these Tan-ka lieople had flocked to Hongkong, but at the present time they are abont the same number, a tendency having set in among them to settle on shore rather than on the water and to disavow their Tan-ka extraction in order to mix on equal terms with the mass of the Chinese community. The half-caste population in Hongkong were, from the earliest days of the settlement of the Colony and down to the present day, almost exclusively the off-spring of these Tan-ka people. But, like the Tan-ka people themselves, they are happily under the influence of a process of continuons re-absorption in the mass of the Chinese residents of the Colony.
Other populations
Additional Eurasian populations exist in PakistanPakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Singapore, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Hong Kong, Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The Eurasian population in Pakistan, consisting of either Anglo-Indians who have emigrated to Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
or Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i born descendents of British people
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
and local populations who intermarried during the British colonial period, numbers approximately 10,000. The Eurasian population in Bangladesh was formed as a similar result to that in Burma, India, and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
.
Languages
Eurasians usually speak the native language of their home country, and may or may not speak the language(s) of an ancestral or parental ethnicity.The overwhelming majority of all Eurasians with Filipino ancestry of the younger generations speak English as their first language, and have a basic command of at least one Philippine language
Languages of the Philippines
In the Philippines, there are between 120 and 175 languages, depending on the method of classification. Four languages no longer have any known speakers. Almost all the Philippine languages belong to the Austronesian language family...
, and at least one European language of their own ethnicity. Eurasians and some Filipinos of certain strata in society use a language code-switching, between English, Spanish, and indigenous Philippine languages, called Taglish
Taglish
Taglish is a portmanteau of the words "Tagalog" and "English" which refers to the Philippine language Tagalog infused with American English terms. It is an example of code-switching....
or Bislish
Bislish
Bislish is a portmanteau of the words 'Bisaya' and 'English' which refers to the any of the Visayan languages of the Philippines infused with English terms. It is an example of code mixing. An example of Bislish as spoken in Cebuano-language areas would be, "Tired na jud ko, girl, how far pa house...
.
The Kristang
Kristang people
The Kristang are a creole ethnic group of people of mixed Portuguese and Malaccan descent based in Malaysia and Singapore. People of this ethnicity have strong Dutch heritage, some British as well as Chinese and Indian heritage due to intermarriage, which was common among the Kristang...
and Macanese
Macanese people
The Macanese-born Portuguese people or simply the Macanese people refer to an ethnic group which originated in Macau since the 16th century, consisting mostly of people with some Portuguese ancestry.-Culture:...
groups have formed their own languages. The Kristang language
Kristang language
Papiá Kristang , or just Kristang, is a creole language. It is spoken by the Kristang, a community of people of mixed Portuguese and Asian ancestry, chiefly in Malacca and Singapore....
is a dialect of Portuguese influenced by Malay as well as Petjo
Petjo
Petjo, also known as Petjoh, Petjok, Pecok, is a Dutch-based creole language that originated among the Indos, people of mixed Dutch and Indonesian ancestry in the former Dutch East Indies. The language has influences from Dutch, Javanese and Betawi. Its speakers presently live mostly in Indonesia...
, a dialect made up of Dutch words based on a Malay grammatical structure. The Macanese language
Macanese language
Macanese or Macau Creole is a creole language derived mainly from Malay, Sinhalese, Cantonese, and Portuguese, which was originally spoken by the Macanese community of the Portuguese colony of Macau...
is a Portuguese creole
Portuguese Creole
Portuguese creoles are creole languages which have been significantly influenced by Portuguese.- Origins :Portuguese overseas exploration in the 15th and 16th century's led to the establishment of a Portuguese Empire with trading posts, forts and colonies in the Americas, Asia and Africa...
influenced by Cantonese, but now, most Macanese people speak Portuguese and Cantonese.
Intermixing between locals and colonials gave rise to the Ceylonese Portuguese Creole
Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese language
Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese,Ceylonese Portuguese Creole or Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole is a language spoken in Sri Lanka. While the predominant languages of the island are Sinhala and Tamil, the interaction of the Portuguese and the Sri Lankans led to the evolution of a new language, Sri Lanka...
, the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
on the island for over 400 years. Dutch was also in common use by members of the Burgher
Burgher people
The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries and local women, with some minorities of Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.Today the mother tongue of the Burghers...
community on the island of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. The use of Portuguese was so dominant, that the Dutch also began to speak it. The modern lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
of Sri Lankan Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and Sinhala are infused with words from Portuguese, Dutch and English.
See also
- Afro-Asian
- AmerasianAmerasianIn its original meaning, an Amerasian is a person born in Asia, to a U.S. military father and an Asian mother. The term has sometimes been used to describe a person in the United States of mixed Asian and non-Asian ancestry, regardless of the circumstances....
- Anglo-BurmeseAnglo-BurmeseThe Anglo-Burmese, also known as the Anglo-Burmans, are a community of Eurasians of Burmese and European descent, and emerged as a distinct community through mixed relations between the British and other European settlers and the indigenous peoples of Burma from 1826 until 1948 when Burma gained...
- Anglo-Indians
- Bhowani JunctionBhowani JunctionBhowani Junction is a 1954 novel by John Masters, which was the basis of a successful 1956 film. It is set amidst the turbulence of the British withdrawal from India. It is notable for its portrayal of the Eurasian community, who were closely involved with the Indian railway system...
- Bui doiBui doiBui doi refers to Vietnamese street children, especially the Amerasian offspring of American soldiers and Vietnamese mothers abandoned at the end of the Vietnam War. The phrase connotes "uncared-for child," and literally translates as "living dust" or "dust of life". It is intended to bring to...
- Burgher peopleBurgher peopleThe Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries and local women, with some minorities of Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.Today the mother tongue of the Burghers...
- Eurasian SingaporeanEurasian SingaporeanThe community of Eurasians in Singapore is descended from Europeans who intermarried with local Asians. Their ancestry can be traced to emigrants of countries that span the length and breadth of Europe, although Eurasian migrants to Singapore in the 19th century came largely from other colonies in...
- Filipino mestizoFilipino mestizoFilipino mestizo is a term used in the Philippines to describe people of mixed Filipino and foreign ancestry. The word mestizo is of Spanish origin, and was originally used in the Americas to only describe people of mixed European and Native American ancestry.- History :Spanish periodThe Spanish...
- Filipino-Spanish
- HafuHafuThe word ' is used in Japanese to refer to somebody who is biracial, i.e. ethnically half Japanese. The label emerged in the 1970s in Japan and is now the most commonly used label and preferred term of self-definition...
- HapaHapaHapa is a Hawaiian language term used to describe a person of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander racial or ethnic heritage.-Etymology:In the Hawaiian language, hapa is defined as: portion, fragment, part, fraction, installment; to be partial, less. It is a loan from the English word half...
- Indo (Eurasian)
- Kristang peopleKristang peopleThe Kristang are a creole ethnic group of people of mixed Portuguese and Malaccan descent based in Malaysia and Singapore. People of this ethnicity have strong Dutch heritage, some British as well as Chinese and Indian heritage due to intermarriage, which was common among the Kristang...
- Luk khrueng
- Mestiços (Sri Lanka)Mestiços (Sri Lanka)In Sri Lanka, the names Mestiços or Casados were applied to people of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent, starting in the 16th century.-History:...
- MiscegenationMiscegenationMiscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
- MulattoMulattoMulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
- Race of the Future