{"id":223291,"date":"2021-10-20T04:28:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T22:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=223291"},"modified":"2021-10-26T01:46:39","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T20:16:39","slug":"unscrambling-the-ceylonese-achcharu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/unscrambling-the-ceylonese-achcharu\/","title":{"rendered":"Unscrambling The Ceylonese Achch\u0101ru"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>By <a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Kumar+David\">Kumar David<\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_207855\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/us-economic-foreign-policy-woes\/kumar-david-8\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-207855\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-207855\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-207855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Kumar-David-150x150.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Kumar-David-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Kumar-David-45x45.jpeg 45w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Kumar-David.jpeg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-207855\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prof. Kumar David<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I will use the designation Ceylonese instead of Sri Lankan because it has scientific inclusivity more suited to my topic. What got me excited was when a cantankerous buddy (ask his wife about him), for a change, sent me this most welcome <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/L5LgTKKiGLw\">YouTube link<\/a><\/span>. I will not attempt to summarise it but every Colombo Telegraph reader should watch it and circulate it among compatriots. In one sentence, what authors (Drs Gayani Galhena and Nandika Perera), two local genetic (DNA for fools like us) researchers, have established from DNA studies is that Upcountry Tamils, Moors, Ceylon Tamils and Sinhalese differ very little genetically. In crude terms they are much the same DNA clique notwithstanding their resolve to slaughter each other in political space. A simple summary it is to say that the four tribes which inhabit this island are a common <em>achch\u0101ru<\/em> that is not easy to unscramble in DNA-space. Let me refer to this lot collectively as the Ceylon Cluster of Four, or CC4 for short.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L5LgTKKiGLw\" width=\"900\" height=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Surely this must arouse your intellectual appetite. Now turn from the video which is for popular consumption to <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-021-92314-9\">the scientific paper<\/a><\/span>. Yes, it was mostly Greek to a moron like me, but if you are persistent, look up hard words and reflect on a watered-down understanding (no doubt to the chagrin of the authors) you can learn quite a bit. However, before proceeding allow me to make three mild criticisms. The Introduction says the Tamils turned up in the island in the \u201cfifth century AD\u201d. Then who the devil was Ellalan (\u0b8e\u0bb2\u0bcd\u0bb2\u0bbe\u0bb3\u0ba9\u0bcd); didn\u2019t he rule Anuradhapura from 636 to 604 BC? Secondly the paper always uses the term \u201cIndian Tamils\u201d, not Upcountry Tamils \u2013 this is gibberish, all of us are from the Indian Mainland. And third, among its historical references I see lesser works but no mention of Professors Leslie Gunewardana and Karthigesu Indrapal, clearly the best and most relevant historians in this field. That\u2019s all; now call me a knit picking bastard and get on with the paper, it\u2019s worth exploration even if you are not in the field.<\/p>\n<p>An interesting finding is that CC4 people can be marked off from other populations. Polymorphism is when several traits or tendencies co-exist (O, A, B and AB blood groups are universal in all populations). The researchers had to combine many findings together to deduce recognisable group features. They plot on each of two axes two such composites that they call a \u201cmultidimensional scaling plot\u201d of 18 world ethnicities including CC4. To keep things within laymen\u2019s comprehension let us say the two axes represent combined DNA information that is significant in studies of this type. The plot shows all CC4 ethnicities clustered close together in the middle, and far away from Africans and East Asians and moderately distanced from Europeans. (The Bhils are a 17 million strong tribal group in North-western India \u2013 Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan \u2013 and the Bangladeshis of course are Bengalis). The researchers contend that this illustrates close correlation among the four CC4 ethnicities. Historically this makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>The reason may also be that the data selected in some way gave prominence to stuff that mattered in the last three millennia, but not to origin theories of <em>homo-sapiens<\/em> (the East African human cradle and the Out of Africa 2 theses). I have had a brief email exchange with Dr Galhena who said: \u201cAnyway our study does not explore the origins, but has explained present day genetic composition on the basis of the known historical context\u201d. In so far as known history goes, the diagram makes a lot of sense. The Sinhalese, Ceylon Tamils and Moors have inter-copulated for one to three millennia, while the Upcountry Tamils have been physically separate for most of this time whether in Sri Lanka or in India.<\/p>\n<p>Once you get started you will find much stimulating stuff to explore about global and national population dynamics. A non-science side-benefit is that Lanka has been ethnically polarised by religious quacks, nationalist degenerates and political opportunists for too long; anything that undermines this wickedness is welcome.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/unscrambling-the-ceylonese-achcharu\/dna-sutudy-sri-lanka-and-the-world\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-223293\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-223293\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DNA-Sutudy-Sri-Lanka-and-the-world.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"760\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DNA-Sutudy-Sri-Lanka-and-the-world.jpeg 760w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DNA-Sutudy-Sri-Lanka-and-the-world-300x190.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":223296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2186,46,8,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-featured-news","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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