Today, few formal colonies remain in the world, but the practices left behind by the European powers are present in their former colonies. The afternoon break for tea, a British tradition, is still practiced in Kenya and India Christianity and the legacy of colonial languages are still widespread in many former colonies.

Influences of Colonialism, Imperialism, and Trade

Colonialism, imperialism, and trade have played a powerful role in spreading religion and culture. Historians often divide European colonialism into two separate waves. From the 16’h through the 18th centuries, Europeans colonized the Americas and South Asia. Then, during the next two centuries, European powers expanded colonization into most of Africa, Southwest Asia, and other
coastal regions of East and Southeast Asia.

Imperialism and colonialism are related ideas, but they are not the same Imperialism is a broader concept that includes a variety of ways of influencing another country or group of people by direct conquest, economic control or cultural dominance. Colonialism is a particular type of imperialism in which people move into and settle on the land of another country. Examples of imperialism and colonialism can be found throughout history and all over the world, but modern European imperialism and colonialism are the most relevant to the current political map because they strongly influenced the diffusion of language and religion.

European colonizers imposed their cultural traits on the local populations For example, before European colonization, most religions practiced by the native indigenous people of Africa and North America were forms of animism, the belief that non-living objects, such as rivers or mountains, possess spirits Europeans forced many of their colonial subjects to adopt the Christian faith. The Spanish and French spread Roman Catholicism throughout Latin America and North America. The English and Dutch spread forms of Protestantism in their North American colonies.

Diffusion of Languages

Languages commonly spread through both relocation and expansion diffusion. As people migrated and colonized to new locations, they brought their culture and language with them via relocation diffusion. Additionally, via political control a colonial language would be imposed hierarchically as the language
of trade, business, and politics. People wanting to benefit financially would connect to these networks of power and influence by learning and speaking colonial languages resulting in an expansion of language. Some languages spread over wide areas of the world and often follow a mixture of types of diffusion. The major globalized languages of the world-English, French, Spanish, and Arabic- spread from their hearths largely because of conquest and colonialism. In the case of Arabic, its use as the standard religious language in Islam contributed to its success and facilitated an expansion of adherents.

Widely Diffused Languages Trade has aided the spread of languages because ships, railroads, and other forms of transportation built and strengthened connections between places. Trade, conquest, and colonialism have so widely spread some languages that more people speak it outside its hearth than within it. For example, the largest population of speakers of Portuguese are in Brazil, not Portugal. The same is true for English, Spanish, and French- the highest population of speakers for each of those languages are not in the hearth.

Limited Diffusion of Manadrin Some languages have never diffused widely. Mandarin Chinese, though the second-most commonly spoken language in the world, did not spread globally. China has been among the most powerful and innovative countries in the world for much of the past 2,000 years, and its merchants settled in various parts of Asia and locations in the Pacific Ocean. Yet China never established colonies outside of Asia and, as a result, Chinese speakers have always been concentrated in China and port
cities in Asia.

Mandarin does have the most native speakers, those who use the language learned from birth, with over 900 million native speakers. The Chinese government wants to increase the number of Mandarin speakers and has been using government policies and its economic influence to encourage the use of
Mandarin throughout Asia and across the world.

English as a Lingua Franca

Unlike Chinese, English has a wide spatial distribution. English is the most widely used language in the world, with over 1.5 billion speakers. Native speakers (380 million) are concentrated in lands colonized by Great Britain such as the United States, Canada, South Africa, India, and Australia. However, most speakers of English do not use it as their primary language. Rather, they use it as a lingua franca, a common language used by people who do not share the same native language. For example, Nigerians commonly
speak one of 500 indigenous languages at home, but they learn English to communicate with everyone who does not speak their language. Globalization and new technology explain why English is often used as a lingua franca:

• U.S. and British multinational corporations made English the common language for international business.

• Scientists and other scholars, airline pilots, and journalists have used English to communicate with others across the globe.
• English evolved as the lingua franca of the Internet and is widely used in social media.
• English is often spoken by actors in television shows and movies which are shown around the world.

The wide use of English has made communication among people around the world easier. However, it has also sparked resentment in some who feel that the intrusion of American English language and western culture delegitimizes their own unique linguistic and cultural practices.

Creating New Words and Languages

Many new words begin as slang, words used informally by a segment of the population. As the world has become more globalized, certain words have spread dramatically and their meaning has changed. For example, the word brunch was slang before it became standard. Slang used in video gaming chats such as “wOOt; to express excitement or victory, has diffused to common language today as woot

Pidgin Languages

When speakers of two different languages have extensive contact with each other, often because of trade, they sometimes develop a pidgin language, a simplified mixture of two languages. A pidgin language has fewer grammar rules and a smaller vocabulary than either language but is not the native language of either group. In Papua New Guinea, the pidgin combines English and Papuan languages.

Creole Languages

Over time, two or more separate languages can mix and develop a more formal structure and vocabulary so that they are no longer a pidgin language. They create a new combined language, known as a creole language. Afrikaans is a creole language spoken in South Africa that combines Dutch with several

European and African languages.

On the islands of the Caribbean, creole languages are common. Africans captured and enslaved in the Americas between the 1500s and the 1800s were unable to transplant their languages. Stolen from their communities, they were forced onto ships with captives from various regions in Africa. With no common language among the groups of captives, communication was difficult.

Most groups lost their languages after a generation in the Americas because of this linguistic isolation. Yet they were able to create creole languages by combining parts of their African languages with the European colonizers languages of English, Spanish, French, or Portuguese.

The most widely used creole language in the Americas is found in Haiti Haitian Creole is derived mostly from French with influences from numerous languages of West Africa. It has become an official language of Haiti and a source of national pride and cultural identity.

Swahili in East Africa

Another example of language mixing occurred in East Africa. As early as the 8th century, trade between Arab-speaking merchants and Bantu-speaking residents resulted in the development of Swahili. Swahili is estimated to be spoken by some 50 to 100 million people in Africa and is an official language of five African nations-Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many proponents believe that using Swahili as the common language of Africa would help promote unity within the continent. They also feel it would help Africans overcome the legacy of colonialism. Using Swahili would help erase the notion that speaking European languages is prestigious and critical for advancement while using native languages is viewed as an obstacle to advancements in social, economic, and political spheres.

Contemporary Causes of Diffusion

Cultural ideas and practices are socially constructed and change through both small-scale and large-scale processes such as urbanization and globalization. Social constructs are ideas, concepts, or perceptions that have been created and accepted by people in a society or social group and are not created by nature. These processes influences culture through media, technological change, politics, economics, and social relationships. In the past, technology has facilitated the spread of multiple languages. However, contemporary communication technologies have encouraged the use of fewer languages, especially English, Chinese, and Spanish. Globalization has further encouraged this phenomena because of the fundamental need for a lingua franca to communicate across cultures.

Communication Technologies

Communication technologies have allowed for the globalization of popular culture through multiple methods of spatial diffusion. Music, video games, TV shows, cars, and clothing are heavily influenced by mass media, the Internet and traditional and online publishing.

Due to historical processes such as colonialism, conquest, and trade, the English language diffused around the world. More recent developments in the ease of use and access to many of these technologies have served to strengthen the use of American English around the world. The elite hierarchies, or most influential creators of popular or global culture, continue to concentrate in the usual major cities-New York City, Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo Major news networks, publishers, and multinational corporations have driven popular culture creation over the last 75 years.

However, access to social media, search engines, and entertainment on the web is challenging traditional corporate sources of popular culture. The rise of social media allows for individuals or small groups of people to promote their own self-produced forms of entertainment (TikTok and You Tube, for example), eSports, fashion, and other products, creating influencers who challenge the status quo and how culture is created and diffused.

As a result of technological changes, the rate of diffusion has increased dramatically and the patterns of diffusion have taken on new and interesting forms. Social media at its heart is a form of expansion and contagious diffusion. However, hierarchical diffusion is shown via the connections that people have with influencers and the vast networks of their followers. The hierarchical
diffusion graphic below also illustrates a nodal, or functional regional pattern. Technology can be a global equalizing force by helping to provide access to information and economic opportunity. However, if a person does not have access to the Internet, the world is still a very unequal place.

Time-Space Convergence

The greater interconnection between places that results from improvements in transportation is called time-space convergence. It often makes places less culturally distinct. For example, in 1492 it took Christopher Columbus 36 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a wind-powered ship. By 1907, that time was reduced to 4.5 days due to the invention of the steam engine. Modern commercial aviation replaced ocean liners as the dominant mode of transatlantic transportation. A commercial airplane makes the transatlantic journey from Europe to North America in about 7 hours. Modern communication technologies have caused a similar change in the amount of time needed for
information to travel.

Time-space convergence provides another way of thinking about geography as not just physical space but also of relative distance. While transportation and communication changes do not actually “shrink” the earth, the time and cost of movement between places have greatly decreased, making the earth feel smaller. This demonstrates how a person’s sense of time and space vary based upon cultural, economic, and social factors.

Cultural Convergence and Divergence

As the relative distance between places shrinks, the interactions among cultures increases. Some argue that globalization is resulting in cultural convergence cultures are becoming similar to each other and sharing more cultural traits, ideas, and beliefs. This cultural homogenization, or becoming more alike, is a concern for many societies and is met with resistance by some people. (See Topic 3.8.) These interactions often result in cultural change. For example, people around the world wear jeans and t-shirts on a daily basis and are less likely to wear the traditional clothing of their ancestors or parents. In many instances, cultural convergence can cause indigenous or traditional cultures and languages to become extinct.

Occasionally, people use new technologies and social media to help preserve local or threatened languages. Technology is used to record and preserve languages that could become extinct in the face of cultural convergence Communities of speakers use social media to discuss and share their cultural beliefs and language with other members of the community who are separated from or have left an area. That increases the likelihood of preservation of some elements of language and culture.

Cultural divergence is the idea that a culture may change over time as the elements of distance, time, physical separation, and modern technology create divisions and changes. A culture’s isolation because of absorbing barriers of physical geography, such as mountains, oceans, or distance, can halt diffusion. The longer a group is isolated, the more slowly its culture will change or diverge
from the original culture. Today, most barriers are permeable, which means that part of an idea or trait may reach a cultural group but usually not enough to rapidly change the entire culture. As new ideas seep into the culture, the pace and changes can occur more quickly, especially if a person moves away from their home and into a city or new region.

Effects of Diffusion

Cultural diffusion changes the cultural landscape and can be a source of controversy. One assumption is that globalization would result in homogenization of cultures, or making people of different places more alike. Theories about the effects of homogenization include losses of indigenous languages, religious practices, unique architectural styles, artistic expression, etc. People in some places respond to globalization in ways quite different from those of people in other places. They adopt and adapt some practices into their local culture while rejecting other aspects.

Smartphones and texting provide a good example of local adaptations. Texters in different countries have developed different shortcuts to lessen the number of keystrokes or to express emotions. For example, someone in the United States might use 🙂 to represent a smiling face, while a person in Korea would use ^^.

Contact Between Cultures

Diffusion describes the ways cultures spread. As they spread, they come into contact with other cultures. The interaction of cultures is one of the driving forces in human history, and it can have several types of results, ranging from a person fully adopting the culture to picking up several cultural traits to acquiring no traits.

Acculturation

Often, an ethnic or immigrant group moving to a new area adopts the values and practices of the larger group that has received them, while still maintaining valuable elements of their own culture. This is called acculturation. For example, in the 1880s, the Syndergaard family migrated from Denmark to the United States, settling in a Danish enclave in Iowa. The mother and father gave
most of their ten children common Danish names, such as Inger and Niels. They commonly ate Danish foods, including spherical pancakes called abelskivver. Within three generations, their descendants still ate abelskivver, but they had names common in U.S. culture, such as Susan, Jim, and Dave.

Another example of acculturation occurs when children or families speak Spanish or another native language at home but at school or work, they speak English. Acculturation is one reason why so many immigrants are multilingual.

Assimilation

Unlike acculturation, assimilation happens when an ethnic group can no longer be distinguished from the receiving group. This often occurs as ethnic groups become more affluent and leave their ethnic areas. Complete assimilation rarely happens, though. Usually, the one trait that is retained the longest is religion. For example, the grandchildren of immigrants from India might no longer speak Hindi or eat traditional Indian cuisine daily, but they might still practice their Hindu faith. Commonly, the third and fourth generations of an ethnic group display a resurgence in ethnic pride by organizing festivals, learning their ethnic language, and revitalizing ethnic neighborhoods.

Syncretism

The fusion or blending of two distinctive cultural traits into a unique new hybrid trait is called syncretism. This process results in new practices, beliefs, innovations, and traits within a society and ultimately results in changes to culture. This process is most likely to occur when different cultures are in proximity to each other and can occur via immigration, marriage between two groups, conquest, or simple creativity. One example is the blending of American fast food with cuisine from another culture, such as Taco Bell or Panda Express. Another example is the blending of snow skiing with inspiration from skateboarding and surfing, resulting in snowboarding. Holidays, such as
Christmas, are a blending of a German tradition (decorating a tree), a Turkish belief (St. Nick-Santa Claus), a Christian doctrine (birth of Jesus), and American commercialism.

Most religions and languages are modified or blended as groups of people interact and create new meanings and traditions that reflect elements of multiple cultures. Additionally, music styles are often syncretic. Contemporary hip-hop freestyle rapping was influenced by Black jazz musicians of the 1930s and 1940s. Their willingness to improvise and create new rhythmic beats freely while playing allowed creativity and expression of culture and emotion. Hip hop rappers incorporated this jazz freestyle rhythm and on-the-fly rhyming into their stories and poetic songs to express their views of inner-city America Glocalization is a form of syncretism that involves the creation of products or services for the global market by adapting them to local cultures. An example would be how McDonald’s created the McCafé idea of designer coffees and pastries to attract customers in France. This blended model of fast food and coffee was so successful it diffused back to the United States market.

Multiculturalism

Without full assimilation, most receiving societies, such as the United States, are characterized by multiculturalism, the coexistence of several cultures in one society with the ideal of all cultures being valued and worthy of study. A major idea of multiculturalism is that the interaction of cultures enriches the lives of all.

Foods commonly eaten in the United States demonstrate the benefits of multiculturalism. Many foods introduced by one specific cultural group became common in the diet of people of all cultural groups:

• Corn, tomatoes, and potatoes come from indigenous American groups
• Peanuts were first grown in South America and rice was first grown in
• China, but both entered the North American diet by way of Africa.
• Bagels were first made by Jews in Eastern Europe.

Nativism

However, coexistence of cultures can also bring conflicts, as people and groups with different values, beliefs, and customs often clash. Minority groups can face prejudice and discrimination. Refugees hoping to settle in the United States after fleeing Syria at the outbreak of the 2011 civil war faced opposition from Americans who feared that some refugees might be terrorists.

In some cases, the conflict between two cultures becomes harsh. Nativist, or anti-immigrant, attitudes may form among the cultural majority, sometimes bringing violence and government actions against the immigrant or minority group. Often, nativist attitudes are directed toward one particular group. For example, from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s, many native-born
Protestants in the United state were strongly opposed to Roman Catholic immigrant from Ireland, Italy, Poland, and other countries. Mexican Americans and other immigrant from Spanish-speaking countries have often faced oppostion from nativist groups.

Other times, nativism reflects a general dislike of people from other countries, or xenophobia. A more contemporary example is the poor reception that Syrian refugees experienced in some European countries. Many Europeans feared the introduction of non-European languages, religions, and cultural practices of the largely Muslim Syrian refugee population.