The Sri Lankan Moors are the third largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, comprising 9.2% of the country's population (some 1,869,820 people) in 2012; this was up from a mere 2.6% in 1836. The Moors were descended from Muslim Arab traders who settled on the island between the 8th and 15th centuries, as well as Tamils who had converted to Islam. Moors spoke an Arabic-influenced dialect of Tamil, and the majority of them lived in Ampara, Colombo, Kandy, and Trincomalee.