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Millenia of stubbornly cosmopolitan cities suggests it's not so inevitable, as does all but the most modern history of Europe, India, and East Asia. These all
by swatcoder 2y ago
Millenia of stubbornly cosmopolitan cities suggests it's not so inevitable, as does all but the most modern history of Europe, India, and East Asia. These all reflect essentially distinct cultural communities in constant trade and travel for hundreds and hundreds of years. Contact alone isn't enough.
Homogenization doesn't seem to happen until either some sweeping administrative body insists on it, or (unique to modernity) a specific culture's media successfully and pervasively inserts itself between people and local/inherited traditions.
- fluoridation 2y ago>(unique to modernity) a specific culture's media successfully and pervasively inserts itself between people and local/inherited traditions. So, when there's more cultural exchange and less isolation?
- swatcoder 2y agoI wouldn't call that inevitable, historically precedented, or an exchange. And I don't think the state of cultural interaction in any of those places was meaningfully more isolated before 20th century media arrived. So no.
- Jensson 2y ago> These all reflect essentially distinct cultural communities in constant trade and travel for hundreds and hundreds of years Most people didn't leave their local area, the need for a unified language was extremely limited compared to modern society. Dialects developed because interaction was so low, so you could easily hear which part everyone came from, today all of that is evening out over time. Go a few hundred miles and people use different words even if it is the same language and people would have a hard time understanding each other.