Why is there not an Indian languages-speaking community in the Southeast Asia as significant in number and influence as the Chinese-speaking ones, even though Indians have migrated there since ancient times even before the Chinese?

为什么东南亚的印度语社区在数量和影响力上不如华语社区，印度人甚至比中国人还早移民到当地了？

以下是Quora网友的评价：

Tarkesh Mishra

Firstly, Indians did not assume linguistic identity until the 20th century, caste and familial connections (village or gotra) was the major identity for most Indian. If today you make the brahmins of entire India stand in a queue and ask a passerby to identify which one belongs to which linguistic group you wouldn’t be able to tell. However each one prides in belonging to their respective state and speaking their respective state language at home. The same goes for almost every caste.

首先，印度人直到20世纪才有语言身份认同，对大多数印度人而言，种姓和家庭关系(村庄或氏族)才是主要的身份认同方式。如果你让印度的婆罗门都站成一排，让路人辨认谁属于哪个语言组，你绝对无法分辨出来。但每个人都以他们各自的邦和各自的语言而自豪。几乎每个种姓都是如此。

Secondly, while maintaining a political identity is important if you represent a king, the vast majority of traders from India were usually not sponsored by the kings, but were into trading because it was their ancestral religious duty(dharma). Indian trading was largely decentralized and were controlled by rich trading families rather than the political heads. Trading families only paid taxes to king in return for security but did not necessarily depend on kings for sponsorship. Infact a larger role was played by the Hindu temples rather than the kings and in that the temples, rather than the state treasury, directly acted as banks as well as sponsors of maritime trade. On the contrary the Chinese and later European trade was largely monopolized by their kings who had enormous control over their trading rights. Every Chinese crossing over China’s boundary had to get consent from the Chinese king.

第二，如果你代表国王，虽然保持政治身份很重要，但绝大多数来自印度的商人通常都不会得到国王资助，他们是因为祖先的宗教义务而从事贸易的。印度的贸易很大程度上是分散的，是由富有的贸易家族而非政治首脑控制的。贸易家族只向国王纳税以换取平安，但不一定依赖国王的资助。事实上，印度教寺庙比国王发挥了更大的作用，因为寺庙取代国库，直接充当了银行和海上贸易资助者的角色。相反，中国和后来的欧洲贸易在很大程度上被他们的国王垄断，国王对贸易权有着巨大的控制力。每个出海经商的中国人都必须得到中国国王的同意。

Infact the concept of Bharatavarsha or India as a unified land did not exst so much so as a strict geography. Western Punjab was considered part of Aryavarta in Vedic times but once it lost it culture due to invasions from central Asia and Greece, it was considered mlechh (Non-Arya) country in later texts. Similarly many parts of India were not considered Bharatavarsha until Brahminic Hinduism was firmly established as the state religion of the region. And more often than not, the ruling families of India did not last for generations. The settlements on the coast of Bay of Bengal came up as temporary port towns who saw themselves as Kalingan merchants.

事实上，Bharatavarsha或印度作为一片统一的土地的概念并不存在，印度只是一个地理区域。西旁遮普在吠陀时代被认为是雅利安文化的一部分，但中亚和希腊的入侵使得这个文化逐步消失。直到婆罗门印度教被确立为该地区的国教，印度的许多地方才被视为印度的领土。一般而言，印度的统治家族不会持续几代人。孟加拉湾沿岸的定居点是作为临时港口城镇出现的，他们认为自己是卡林加商人。

If a Chinese settled in a foreign land, he was still a citizen of China and represented Chinese king. If a Kalingan migrated to a foreign land in the past it was only important for him to maintain his religious duties but he did not much care about his linguistic or political identity. It is well known that Indians in Southeast Asia were called Kalingan as late as the 20th century. As the Indians did not care for identifying with their actual geographical origin within India. And it was very often that his lineage blended into local society very easily after a few generations.

如果一个中国人去外国定居，他还是中国的公民，代表中国的国王。如果一个卡林加人移居到外国，对他来说他只需维持宗教义务，但不会关心自己的语言或政治身份。众所周知，直到20世纪，东南亚的印度人还被称为卡林加人。因为印度人并不关心他们来自印度哪里。他们移居海外，并在几代人之后就融入了当地社会。

Thus while Chinese had a penchant to preserve their language, the indians are more likely to focus on preserving their religion. We can even see this in another example where the Chinese script has been preserved, Indians were very quick to mend their own scripts to adapt the local languages, so long as it followed the general laws of Brahmic script. If I am not wrong, the vast majority of SEA languages used to be written in Brahmic scripts as late as the 20th century.

因此，中国人倾向于延续他们的语言，而印度人更倾向于延续他们的宗教。我们甚至可以看到中国人延续使用汉字的例子，而印度人很快就为了当地语言调整了自己的文字。如果我没记错的话，直到20世纪，绝大多数东南亚语言都是用梵文书写的。

Dr. Balaji Viswanathan

A great question that I had wondered about in the past.

Historically, India never had large scale emigration. India was one big population sink, where people checked in from everywhere, and never checked out. While there was significant interaction with South East Asia in the ancient times, these were traders not emigrants. Thus, while we spread our culture there, not as much of our genes.

这是我之前一直觉得好奇的一个好问题。

历史上，印度从未有过大规模的移民。印度是一个人口汇集之地，人们从世界各地迁入此地，却很少迁出。虽然印度人在古代与东南亚有频繁往来，但这些人都是商人，不是移民。因此，虽然我们在东南亚传播印度文化，但我们的基因却没有在当地大量传播。

The biggest driver for large scale migration has always been desperation. People moved en-masse only when their life was at risk. Look at Syria, Afghanistan, Africa or Central America now and you can understand why a massive caravan of people head to Europe or USA.

Chinese never needed to migrate out until the Qing era disasters of 19th century. Massive rebellions occurred against the Qing [who were considered foreigners to China] that is spectacular in terms of their casualty scale. Millions died in these rebellions. The Tai rebellion alone killed over 25 million people.

大规模移民的最大推动力一直是绝望求生。人们只有在生命受到威胁时才会集体搬家。看看现在的叙利亚、阿富汗、非洲或中美洲，你就能理解为什么会有大规模人群迁往欧洲或美国。

19世纪清朝倾覆之前，中国人也没有移民的需求。大规模的反清叛乱爆发(清朝统治阶层被视为外族人)，伤亡规模十分惊人，数百万人死于这些叛乱。仅太平天国起义，人口就减少了2500多万人。

With a massive population rise in 1600s, ruthless repression in 1700s and massive rebellions in 1800s, China resembled somewhat like the Middle East of today — past their days of greatness. A lot of southern Chinese moved out to South East Asia, an area the former had ignored for a long time.

While India had some level of desperation during the British rule, it was not to the level of Chinese under the Qing. There were no large scale violence or rebellions. Thus, while a lot of Indians migrated, they were only about 1–2% of Indian population and most went there as economic migrants [labourers] often returning back home after their tenure ended. These were driven by opportunism and not running for their life. While refugees take everything with them, leaving their former place for good, economic migrants just go alone and had little to stick with the new territory.

17世纪人口大量增长，18世纪遭受残酷镇压，19世纪爆发大规模叛乱，中国有点像今天的中东。许多中国南方人移居东南亚。

虽然印度在英国统治期间也曾面临绝境，但还没有清朝统治下的中国那般严重。没有发生过大规模的暴力或叛乱。因此，虽然很多印度人移民，但他们也只占到印度总人口的1-2%，而且大多数是作为经济移民(劳工)去到当地的，通常工作结束后就返回家乡了。这些人受到机会主义的驱动，并不是为自己的生活而奔波。难民会带上他们的一切，永远离开以前的居住地，而经济移民会只身前往新的地方，在当地没有什么牵绊。

Sure, Indian migrants did end up across the world, but these formed a very small percentage of India and didn’t have the level of deep level connections that Chinese had when the latter moved en-masse. Thus, Chinese had better network effects, like the Jewish emigrants out of Eastern Europe around the same time and were able to better influence. In SE Asia, Indian laborers had a far lesser influence and mostly limited to British colonies — Singapore and Malaysia.

当然，印度移民也遍布世界各地，但这些人只占印度人口的少数，也没有中国人在大规模移民时所建立的深层次关系网。因此，中国人有更广的关系网，能够更好地施加影响力。在东南亚，印度劳工的影响力要小得多，而且主要局限于英国殖民地—新加坡和马来西亚。

Sam Arora

The Chinese community is not a mishmash of races/blend of ethnicities/cultures/religions/an ineffective, useless political borrowed and failed governing system like India.

The Han Chinese are by far the largest ethnic group in China, comprising an estimated 92% of China's population. The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group in the world, not just China, with 19% of the world's population identifying as Han. Feb 20, 2023

华人社区不是种族的大杂烩，不是民族、文化、宗教的大融合，更不是像印度一样低效、无用的舶来政治和失败的管理制度。

汉族是中国最大的民族，估计占中国人口的92%。汉族不单是中国最大的民族，也是全世界最大的民族，截止2023年2月20日，占世界人口的19%。

Chinese race works in cooperation and teams. It is in their blood/DNA.

Indian people can never work together. That is a fact.

No one can compete with the Chinese in productivity and completing projects most of the time before time.

Most Chinese are very frugal; saving and education are priorities. Indians are primarily into show-offs, rivalry, and jealousy.

中国人会通过合作和团队的方式来进行工作。这是他们的血液/DNA。

印度人永远不可能合作。这就是事实。

在生产率和超前完工方面，中国人无人能及。

大多数中国人都很节俭；他们把储蓄和教育作为首要大事。而印度人主要喜欢炫耀、攀比和嫉妒。

There is no comparison between Indians and Chinese. They are two distinct DNA/habits/and we are swamped, pulling each other legs to bring even the ones who are almost out of the pit into the pit along with others.

My claim to write this piece: I have been to China six times and worked with the Canadian Chinese for almost five decades at various levels.

I hope it helps.

Sam Arora: MSc Food Science U of Guelph, Canada MSc Dairy Science U of Punjab, NDRI, India

印度人和中国人之间没有可比性。它们有两种截然不同的DNA/习性。

我写这篇文章的理由是：我去过中国六次，和加拿大各个阶层的华人一起共事了近50年。

我希望我的回答对你有所帮助。

Sam Arora：加拿大圭尔夫大学食品科学硕士，印度旁遮普邦国家科学研究所乳制品科学硕士

R K

Because there is no language in the world, called “Indian “!!!

And most people in India do not speak “Hindu” either. When I say most people, it is meant as 100%!

因为世界上并没有一种叫做“印度语”的语言！！

大多数印度人也不会说“印度语”。而我说的大多数人，其实就是100%的意思！

Alvin Lee

Please don’t assume you’ve known everything happening in this world and when you have not heard about it desn't mean it didn’t happen or no such thing !

When You think there is not an Indian languages-speaking community means it’s not in the spotlight of the western media. That’s all. It means it is happening without your knowledge. You can start to learn Indian languages, (but they have hundreds of different languages) and then you may have a chance to involve in the Indian language speaking community social media platform. You know there is a Chinese speaking ones because the western media want you to know so that they can brainwash you into believing China is bad, China is evil, and sell you all the negative aspect of China.

请不要自以为是，觉得自己知晓世界上的一切事物，也许你没有听说过，但并不意味着它不存在！

你觉得东南亚没有印度语社区，这只是因为它没有受到西方媒体的关注，仅此而已。在你不知情的情况下，这是确实存在的事实。你可以学习印度语言(但印度有数百种不同的语言)，然后找机会使用印度语言社区的社交媒体平台。

Ravi Chandran

I don't understand what you mean by 'Indian language'. By saying Indian language, if you mean Hindi, then yes. They had not much interaction towards the SEA so they are negligible in numbers. But if you count Indian languages in general, we have sizeable population of Tamilians all over SEA. So much so that Tamil is one of their official languages in Singapore and Malaysia. We have had Tamil PMs in Malaysia (Mahathir is a Tamilian) and the current Singapore PM is a Tamilian too. There's also big population of Tamil in Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar.

我不明白你所说的“印度语言”是什么意思。如果你所说的印度语指的是印地语，那么是的。印地语和东南亚地区没有太多的互动，可以忽略不计。但如果把印度的各种语言都算上，那么东南亚有非常多泰米尔人，泰米尔语甚至已经成为新加坡和马来西亚的官方语言之一。马来西亚还有泰米尔族总理(马哈蒂尔是泰米尔人)，现任新加坡总理也是泰米尔人。在菲律宾，越南，缅甸也都有很多泰米尔人。