Articles

Notes on Ethnic, Religious, and Linguistic Composition of the Population of Mauritius

Vostok/Oriens '2014, №4

 
The population of island Mauritius has difficult national and confessional composition. Basic ethnic communities: creoles, indo-Mauritians, Muslims, Sino-mauritians, French. Most widespread religions: Hinduism, Catholicism, Islam. Ethnic processes in earlier periods were on the way of integration of ethnic communities, in particular, the language of “creol” spread everywhere and nowadays is native not only for creoles but also for majority of population of island. However, in the recent past marriages between basic ethnic components were a big rarity, an endogamy was saved. Now we revealed the growth of number of such marriages which share reached 1/10 of all marriages and even higher in separate ethnic communities (the Creoles, the Chinese). There appeared a significant layer of mixed population which is growing quickly. Part of the Metis does identify themselves the only Mauritians. If these tendencies will be further developed, in the long term we can expect appearance of new ethnic community called “Mauritians”.

Keywords: Island Mauritius, ethnic composition, endogamy, nationally-mixed marriages, consolidation, integration, mixed-ethnicity, linguistic assimilation, Creols, Indo-mauritians, Sino-mauritians

Pages: С. 83–95