AlthoughSri Lankan Tamils are culturally and linguistically distinct,genetic studies indicate that they are closely related to other ethnic groups in the island while being related to theIndian Tamils fromSouth India andBengalis from theEast India as well. There are various studies that indicate varying degrees of connections between Sri Lankan Tamils, Sinhalese andIndian ethnic groups.
According to agenetic admixture study by Dr. Gautam K. Kshatriya in 1995, the Sri Lankan Tamil are closely related to theSinhalese who are closely related toIndian Tamils. Kshatriya found that the genetic makeup ofSri Lankan Tamils shows an overlap of about 55.2% (± 9.47%) with that of Sinhalese people while the Sinhalese had the greatest contribution fromSouth Indian Tamils (69.86% +/- 0.61), followed byBengalis from theEast India (25.41% +/- 0.51). With both the Sri Lankan Tamils and Sinhalese in the island sharing a common gene pool of 55%. They are farthest from the indigenousVeddahs.[1] This is also supported by a genetic distance study, which showed low differences in genetic distance between Tamils and the Sinhalese.[2] Tamils and the Sinhalese also share similar cultures in terms of kinship classification, cousin marriage, dress and housing.[3]
Furthermore, a study looking at genetic variation of theFUT2 gene in the Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhalese population, found similar genetic backgrounds for both ethnic groups, with little genetic flow from other neighbouring Asian population groups.[4] Studies have also found no significant difference with regards toblood group, blood genetic markers andsingle-nucleotide polymorphism between the Sri Lankan Tamils and other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.[5][6][7] Another study has also found "no significant genetic variation among the major ethnic groups in Sri Lanka".[8] This is further supported by a study which found very similar frequencies of allelesMTHFR 677T,F2 20210A &F5 1691A in South Indian Tamil, Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamil and Moor populations.[9]
However, another study looking atAlupolymorphism,[10]VNTR[11] and genetic distance[2] have found the genetic relationship between the South Indian Tamil and Sinhalese to be much smaller than Kshatriya's findings (11–30%).
Dr Sarabjit Mastanain finding statescophenetic correlation was 0.8956 and it indicates Sinhalese & Tamil as native population. Also, it reflects ongenetic distance among five populations of Sri Lanka as per given beloweigenvector plot of theR-matrix.[12]
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