People from Asia trained spaniel (7)

I believe the answer is:

nepalis

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'people from asia' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to communication as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?

'trained spaniel' is the wordplay.
'trained' indicates an anagram (to train can mean to grow something into a shape).
'spaniel' is an anagram of 'NEPALIS'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for nepalis that I've seen is " People in mountainous country".)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

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