3 ms·
I think colonialism and the discovery of the "new world" with Europeans moving there, multiplying and imposing their culture.
by csomar 4y ago
I think colonialism and the discovery of the "new world" with Europeans moving there, multiplying and imposing their culture.
- WalterBright 4y agoWriting (and printing) enabled them to impose their culture. For example, Pizzaro had the benefit of a thousand years of military history to draw from, thanks to writing and books. The Inca did not. Writing & printing is a huge mind multiplier. It's hard to overestimate it. (The Inca Empire was, of course, also an Empire formed by the Inca imposing their culture on other tribes.)
- hulitu 4y agoPizzaro was a very educated man. /s
- barrkel 4y agoPizzaro apparently grew up illiterate, fwiw.
- WalterBright 4y agoLikely trained by officers who were. The interactions between him and the Incas showed he was quite a bit more knowledgeable about strategy than they were. The Romans also had great success against the illiterate barbarian tribes, despite the latter being much larger and better armed.
- jaclaz 4y agoPizarro (one z, two r's) AFAIK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro or is it an alternate spelling used in English? Pizzaro sounds (to an Italian) like an invented word about someone that deals with pizza's.
- WalterBright 4y agoPizza has conquered the world, too!
- dbdjv6t 4y ago
- jmopp 4y agoAt the same time that Europe was conquering America, the Mughals were conquering India. But the Arabic script did not supplant Devanagari in India. Had the Islamic empires adopted the printing press as strongly as the Europeans did, one could very well imagine proto-Urdu texts flooding India, literacy in the Arabic script being a requirement for social advancement, and Devanagari being relegated to religious use.
- fractalb 4y agoI think Mughals were more Persian than Arabic
- nickserv 4y agoPersian is written using a variant of the Arabic script, as is Urdu.
- enviclash 4y agoInteresting theme for a novel.
- nickserv 4y agoThe Arabic script is harder to print using movable types compared to the latin script. It's an important reason for the lack of adoption of the printing press in languages using the Arabic script (historically speaking of course).