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It amuses me that of your three examples, only speaking English is a product of colonialism. Chairs were known in ancient Egypt, the fork in Byzantium. Neither

It amuses me that of your three examples, only speaking English is a product of colonialism. Chairs were known in ancient Egypt, the fork in Byzantium. Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition.

shakow 4y ago
> Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition. Beg your pardon? If a colonial power is a country that expanded by force in lands that were not ethnically theirs (and I can't really think of a meaningful definition that would single out European powers between the 16th and early 20th century), then ancient Egypt and the (Eastern) Roman Empire are definitely colonial powers.
- orwin 4y ago
  > I can't really think of a meaningful definition that would single out European powers between the 16th and early 20th century >> the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people. Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. I do not know a lot about China, but Sinicisation seems to fit colonial markers, so the first empire to really colonize should be chinese? The Umayad Califate in some sense too, but I think i'm missing the idea of "pressure" and "force" in the definition.
  - namdnay 4y ago
    > acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people off the top of my head, both Roman Britain and Roman Egypt fit this one perfectly. The "exploitation" wasn't purely negative, just like the exploitation of colonies by Britain or France wasn't purely negative, but it was still exploitation.
    - Macha 4y ago
      Even for stuff that most people would think of as "core" Roman territory like modern day France and Northern Italy initially went through this. The settlers were often ex-military and enabling them to settle was a big part of how the roman military rewarded its soldiers
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. Latin was originally spoken in a small part of central Italy. By 400 it was spoken in all of Italy, Gaul, Hispania, the North African coast, substantial parts of what is modern Germany and the Low Countries, Dacia (Romania) and was no doubt still spoken in Britain. That happened through conquest, not voluntary accession.
  - shakow 4y ago
    > Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. You obviously have no knowledge of Europe/North Africa/Asia Minor Antique Era; your definition is perfectly accurate for both the Egyptian and the Roman empires (and many others, from the Assyrians to Hittites through the Persians, the Greeks [ever wondered where the “pont” in “pontus region” is coming from?] and the Carthaginians). > full or partial political control over another country The definition of an empire. > occupying it with settlers Exactly what the Romans did in Gaul, Germania, Dacia, Illyria, Hispania, Anglia, Magna Graecia, Sicilia, Batavia, Helvetia, Thracia, Egypt, Judea, Mauritania, etc. You should know that gifting a plot of land somewhere in the Empire to veterans to compensate them for their service was both a way to motivate them and spread Roman culture and way of life. > and exploiting it economically Wars were among the big sources of slave labor. > while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people. Spoiler alert: the “Roman” in Gallo-Roman is not endogeneous, and nowadays romance language share the same ancestor language for a very simple reason. And if everywhere from London to Benghazi and Porto to Ankara is covered in Roman ruins, it's not because aliens put them there. And the story is exactly the same for the Egyptian Empire: Syria, Kush, Nubia, Lybia and Canaan are not the cradle of the Egpytian dynasties. > so the first empire to really colonize should be chinese? The first empire to really colonize is probably dating back to before there was writing to remember its name. > The Umayad Califate [...] missing the idea of "pressure" and "force" Ah yes, of course, Christian Spain voluntarily got incorporated into the Califate, and the famous battle they had with the Franks in the middle of France was but a playful tourney... sweeping military expansion is a major characteristic of the Umayad caliphate.
  - prepend 4y ago
    > Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. The Gauls, Celts, and many other colonized peoples may beg to differ.
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  Yes, Egypt and Rome and Byzantium were empires. “Colonial power” in common parlance almost always means a European nation using naval superiority and tech imbalance to extract wealth from distant colonies. By your definition, almost every native civilization of the Americas is a colonial power. Something has gone awry. (I’m not certain what “lands that were not ethnically theirs” means absent the doctrine of terra nullius, which also postdates any ancient empire.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism “Colonialism in the modern sense began with the "Age of Discovery", led by Portuguese, who became increasingly adventuresome following the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. . .”
  - shakow 4y ago
    At some point, if one needs to twist and turn and restrict a definition until it fits an arbitrary target, it is at best useless by overfitting, at worst driven by ideology more than anything else. Such a manipulation only leads to absurd situations, such as the famous Greek or Phenician colonies, from Marseille to Carthage through Odessa, not being classifiable as colonies anymore. Or the Russian colonization of Siberia not being a colonization anymore. Talk about ‶European overseas invasions″, ‶European transcontinental settlements″ or whatever, but please don't hijack a word that has been used with a much wider meaning for centuries.
PestoDiRucola 4y ago
Yeah the fork is a weird example since it was introduced relatively late in England.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  The fork was introduced to the Americas by the Spanish as part of their colonial conquests. It is a separate example from "Speaking English".
barry-cotter 4y ago
> Chairs were known in ancient Egypt, the fork in Byzantium. Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition. Egypt extended as far south as modern Sudan at various times. They ruled over people of different cultures and languages for hundreds of years. During the New Kingdom period Egypt extended as far north as modern Syria. The Byzantine Empire did in fact contain many nations, which were not in any sense equal. The Greek speaking Roman Christians ruled over Dacians, Illyrians, Isaurians, Cappadocians, other Anatolians. If having an empire doesn’t make you a colonist what does?
- orwin 4y ago
  Forcing your culture and language on all strata of the population.
swexbe 4y ago
The point was that they were introduced to America using colonialism.
jason-phillips 4y ago
> Chairs were known in ancient Egypt He probably means Windsor chairs, the construction and design of which are superior to all other chairs, full stop. They were perfected in the workshops of Philadelphia in the 1700s. They are the pinnacle of chair design and construction. What the Egyptians (and following cultures) had were benches. Until recently, a chair with a back was a luxury item. It wasn't until the Welsh stick chair, where a poor Welsh farmer during the off-season first crafted himself a chair from the sticks in his hedge, or the Windsor chairs that followed, that common folk had access to such technology.
proc0 4y ago
Yeah but in context of colonialism, it was the Europeans who brought these things over to the Americas. The point is it was a long time ago and everyone today is a product of history good and bad. Trying to change math is silly when so many other aspects of modern life exist because of this history.
- n4r9 4y ago
  No one is suggesting changing mathematics!
LatteLazy 4y ago
So unless you are Egyptian or Byzantine, no chairs or forks for you. 99% right? :)

shakow 4y ago

> Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition. Beg your pardon? If a colonial power is a country that expanded by force in lands that were not ethnically theirs (and I can't really think of a meaningful definition that would single out European powers between the 16th and early 20th century), then ancient Egypt and the (Eastern) Roman Empire are definitely colonial powers.

orwin 4y ago
> I can't really think of a meaningful definition that would single out European powers between the 16th and early 20th century >> the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people. Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. I do not know a lot about China, but Sinicisation seems to fit colonial markers, so the first empire to really colonize should be chinese? The Umayad Califate in some sense too, but I think i'm missing the idea of "pressure" and "force" in the definition.
- namdnay 4y ago
  > acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people off the top of my head, both Roman Britain and Roman Egypt fit this one perfectly. The "exploitation" wasn't purely negative, just like the exploitation of colonies by Britain or France wasn't purely negative, but it was still exploitation.
  - Macha 4y ago
    Even for stuff that most people would think of as "core" Roman territory like modern day France and Northern Italy initially went through this. The settlers were often ex-military and enabling them to settle was a big part of how the roman military rewarded its soldiers
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. Latin was originally spoken in a small part of central Italy. By 400 it was spoken in all of Italy, Gaul, Hispania, the North African coast, substantial parts of what is modern Germany and the Low Countries, Dacia (Romania) and was no doubt still spoken in Britain. That happened through conquest, not voluntary accession.
- shakow 4y ago
  > Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. You obviously have no knowledge of Europe/North Africa/Asia Minor Antique Era; your definition is perfectly accurate for both the Egyptian and the Roman empires (and many others, from the Assyrians to Hittites through the Persians, the Greeks [ever wondered where the “pont” in “pontus region” is coming from?] and the Carthaginians). > full or partial political control over another country The definition of an empire. > occupying it with settlers Exactly what the Romans did in Gaul, Germania, Dacia, Illyria, Hispania, Anglia, Magna Graecia, Sicilia, Batavia, Helvetia, Thracia, Egypt, Judea, Mauritania, etc. You should know that gifting a plot of land somewhere in the Empire to veterans to compensate them for their service was both a way to motivate them and spread Roman culture and way of life. > and exploiting it economically Wars were among the big sources of slave labor. > while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people. Spoiler alert: the “Roman” in Gallo-Roman is not endogeneous, and nowadays romance language share the same ancestor language for a very simple reason. And if everywhere from London to Benghazi and Porto to Ankara is covered in Roman ruins, it's not because aliens put them there. And the story is exactly the same for the Egyptian Empire: Syria, Kush, Nubia, Lybia and Canaan are not the cradle of the Egpytian dynasties. > so the first empire to really colonize should be chinese? The first empire to really colonize is probably dating back to before there was writing to remember its name. > The Umayad Califate [...] missing the idea of "pressure" and "force" Ah yes, of course, Christian Spain voluntarily got incorporated into the Califate, and the famous battle they had with the Franks in the middle of France was but a playful tourney... sweeping military expansion is a major characteristic of the Umayad caliphate.
- prepend 4y ago
  > Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. The Gauls, Celts, and many other colonized peoples may beg to differ.
thebooktocome 4y ago
Yes, Egypt and Rome and Byzantium were empires. “Colonial power” in common parlance almost always means a European nation using naval superiority and tech imbalance to extract wealth from distant colonies. By your definition, almost every native civilization of the Americas is a colonial power. Something has gone awry. (I’m not certain what “lands that were not ethnically theirs” means absent the doctrine of terra nullius, which also postdates any ancient empire.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism “Colonialism in the modern sense began with the "Age of Discovery", led by Portuguese, who became increasingly adventuresome following the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. . .”
- shakow 4y ago
  At some point, if one needs to twist and turn and restrict a definition until it fits an arbitrary target, it is at best useless by overfitting, at worst driven by ideology more than anything else. Such a manipulation only leads to absurd situations, such as the famous Greek or Phenician colonies, from Marseille to Carthage through Odessa, not being classifiable as colonies anymore. Or the Russian colonization of Siberia not being a colonization anymore. Talk about ‶European overseas invasions″, ‶European transcontinental settlements″ or whatever, but please don't hijack a word that has been used with a much wider meaning for centuries.

PestoDiRucola 4y ago

Yeah the fork is a weird example since it was introduced relatively late in England.

GauntletWizard 4y ago
The fork was introduced to the Americas by the Spanish as part of their colonial conquests. It is a separate example from "Speaking English".

barry-cotter 4y ago

> Chairs were known in ancient Egypt, the fork in Byzantium. Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition. Egypt extended as far south as modern Sudan at various times. They ruled over people of different cultures and languages for hundreds of years. During the New Kingdom period Egypt extended as far north as modern Syria. The Byzantine Empire did in fact contain many nations, which were not in any sense equal. The Greek speaking Roman Christians ruled over Dacians, Illyrians, Isaurians, Cappadocians, other Anatolians. If having an empire doesn’t make you a colonist what does?

orwin 4y ago
Forcing your culture and language on all strata of the population.

swexbe 4y ago

The point was that they were introduced to America using colonialism.

jason-phillips 4y ago

> Chairs were known in ancient Egypt He probably means Windsor chairs, the construction and design of which are superior to all other chairs, full stop. They were perfected in the workshops of Philadelphia in the 1700s. They are the pinnacle of chair design and construction. What the Egyptians (and following cultures) had were benches. Until recently, a chair with a back was a luxury item. It wasn't until the Welsh stick chair, where a poor Welsh farmer during the off-season first crafted himself a chair from the sticks in his hedge, or the Windsor chairs that followed, that common folk had access to such technology.

proc0 4y ago

Yeah but in context of colonialism, it was the Europeans who brought these things over to the Americas. The point is it was a long time ago and everyone today is a product of history good and bad. Trying to change math is silly when so many other aspects of modern life exist because of this history.

n4r9 4y ago
No one is suggesting changing mathematics!

LatteLazy 4y ago

So unless you are Egyptian or Byzantine, no chairs or forks for you. 99% right? :)