In Hong Kong there are many of us who want to preserve Hong Kong/Cantonese culture from erosion by CCP/mainland culture. For example, sometimes you can see a lot of mandarin around school kids rather than cantonese. The government is also pushing for schools to teach in mandarin rather than cantonese. Mandarin is the language for mainland china, Cantonese is a minority language.
I imagine it is like this in other parts of the world where someone from a ‘minority’ culture wishes to preserve their culture & language against the dominant culture/language. Is there a word for someone like this in English?
the closest i could think of is “nationalist” but that’s definitely not correct, it’s not like one saying one culture is superior, but just that you want to protect it and conserve it and keep it in place.
Traditionalist
Preservationist
Anti-colonialist
Anti-colonialist
Given the history of HK…I don’t think that one works very well.
Not a conventional case, but I’ve seen some HKers use the word ‘colonizers’ deliberately against pro-Beijing commenters. It effectively gives the vibe of PRC being yet another colonial master, which really triggers internet fights.
I would probably use cultural activist. You could probably also use advocate or preservationist.
Activist has a little bit more active connotation, like your out in the streets or organizing in some way to maintain the culture. Advocate is good, but a little vague. Preservationist would be more like documenting or conserving existing examples of the minority culture, and is maybe a little dry or academic of a term.
So for your example Cantonese cultural/language activist would probably fit best.
Well there is the word assimilation, so anti- assimilation would be the closest one, however I don’t think there is a word that would capture the true esscence of what you mean. Also patriotic could work, as at least where I live (Slovenia 🇸🇮) it doesn’t have that many negative implicationsv unlike Nationalism
It could work with fully recognized sovereign countries, but not with HK. Problem with words like patriotic or nationalist in this context is that it brings the issue of HK’s political status, especially within China.
In an ideal scenario, a Hongkonger should be able to preserve their cantonese and foster local HK culture whether accepting or not the city’s status as SAR of PRC, but that “China one big family” ship sailed a long time ago.
So we need to play with words. HK local culture preservationist? Sounds to long. Anti-assimilationist could be used but in limited context, like HK-ers protesting against a public policy favoring mandarin.
Regionalism is a word in France
I’m pretty sure there’s not a single word for it. In Scotland, the indigenous langauge, Gaelic, suffered for a long time in the past from a programme of attempted eradication. In recent decades there has been a big effort made to restore it, but the main body responsible https://www.gaidhlig.scot/en/our-work/ doesn’t seem to use any particular word or phrase to describe their work.
I’m an outsider, so apologies if this is an ignorant question. But didn’t the Gaelic culture appear in Scotland because of settlement from what is now Ireland? Wouldn’t the indigenous language of Scotland be some form of Brittonic, spoken by the Picts for example?
You could just about make the phrase “cultural conservative” do the job, but it has regrettable connotations from American politics.
Then there’s traditionalism, but it doesn’t come prepackaged with the nuance you intend. You’d still have to explain what kind of traditions you mean.
You could avoid an outright label and just talk about “preserving Cantonese identity”. Or feel free to coin a neologism, e.g. “Cantoneist”. There’s no wrong answer in English if you do it with style. IMO.
Edit: Cantonism was already coined for use in Russia, so maybe make your own word up instead to avoid associations with er, pogroms and such. There are no wrong answers, assuming you are being original. Never assume.
Cultural
conservativeconservationistYou’d still have to explain what kind of traditions you mean.
Well, there is the cantonese ethnic group with their own traditions like food, they have a different history than people from northern china, the people may be more spiritual than mainland china, the cantonese language itself is distinctive from other chinese language (it is a dialect of the yue languages), hong kong itself has its own history and culture because it’s been an ‘east meets west’ city for so long
I don’t think these aspects are specific to HK, I would imagine it would be like someone from a minority ethnic group in South Africa or India or Afghanistan where they want to preserve their own ethnic group’s language and culture and history against the majority group’s culture
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most of the terms around identity politics have regrettable connotations :/
- nationalist 🤮
- loyalist 😱
- conservatism
i guess conservation is the closest to what op is asking for.
Brittany in France, Catalonia in Spain, Flanders in Belgium, Basque?
Not independentist or separatist but rather protectionist
- protectionism?
Economic connotations with that last one.
My “no wrong answers” assurances are looking pretty hilarious at this point.
yes. i had nothing but wrong answers 😅
maybe this can help:
A treasure language is one of the thousands of small languages still spoken in the world today. The term was proposed by the Rama people of Nicaragua as an alternative to heritage language, indigenous language, and “ethnic language”, names that are considered pejorative in the local context. The term is now also used in the context of public storytelling events.
The term “treasure language” references the desire of speakers to sustain the use of their mother tongue into the future
Preservationism has already been mentioned. Or “heterogenous” culture (also often called multiculturalism, but the latter term also have a lot of history which might not apply)
Nationalism could work if you add a spin on it to separate yourself from the right wing nuts. Combining it with some other word such as socialism could be better?
/s
🧟
In my country (Chile 🇨🇱) there are people and communities that are recognized for preserving history & culture that would be otherwise forgotten by modern society, they are given the title of “Living Human Treasures”.
I’ll leave a link to a goverment website (in Spanish) with further info:
https://www.cultura.gob.cl/patrimonio/tesoros-humanos-vivos/
In my country (Chile 🇨🇱) there are people and communities that are recognized for preserving history & culture that would be otherwise forgotten by modern society, they are given the title of “Living Human Treasures”.
I’ll leave a link to a goverment website (in Spanish) with further info:
https://www.cultura.gob.cl/patrimonio/tesoros-humanos-vivos/
cool, gracias!
Welsh.
Hell yeah! 🏴 (Or should I say, “o, fyn uffern ia!”)
The Welsh word for this would be gwrthryfelwr (insurgent, rebel).
I (a European jew) usually tk about assimilation and struggling against assimilation. I don’t know, maybe anti-assimilationist?
When we learned about assimilation in Geography class my mind imediately went to the Borg
Diversity kind of work too.
Duolingo has a Cantonese as a option for Mandarin, it won’t help for now just make things slightly easier when China stops doing this
Sociolinguistic Conservationist, perhaps?
Human.
Cultural preservationist?
If you were to listen to Anglo Canadians when they talk about French Canadians trying to protect their culture, that word would be “racist” because they feel persecuted by the fact that we don’t want to assimilate.
I think the racist label has more to do with the way french Quebec leaders go about supposedly protecting their culture. Limiting religious expression (Bill 21), no longer allowing anglos to access essential services in English, mandating that new immigrants become fluid in french within 6 months I believe? The idea that Quebec has language police has been a running joke for years.
They can claim these steps are taken to protect Quebec culture, but they seem pretty targeted to me. Anyway, I’m anglo and was born and raised in Quebec, so am I just not part of the culture?
Supposedly?
French was in decline until the introduction of Bill 101 and it needed to be updated to reflect today’s reality and to patch some of the flaws in it.
Anglos can still receive services in their language as it’s something protected by the Constitution.
Is it that far-fetched to communicate with immigrants in the official language of the place they decided to live in? No matter how long we would have given them, some people would have been mad that we didn’t just communicate with them in English forever meaning they would feel like they don’t need to learn French to live in Quebec (like many Anglo-Quebecois feel).
As for Bill 21, Quebec had a hard split with religion in the 60s contrary to the rest of Canada and religion is treated like something that stays in the private sphere by French Quebecois. Considering our history with the church and how it might have protected our culture but it also oppressed us, it’s no wonder that we want a true separation of religion and State.
I’ll ask you something I never get a real answer to, should a judge be allowed to wear a political party logo on their robe? Because that’s currently forbidden at both the provincial and federal level and it’s also something protected by freedom of expression, just like religious expression.
French being in decline is apparently not as straightforward as that.
Likewise, neither is the ability to access services. Even if service in your language is technically available according to the constitution, the quality and equality of these services arguably suffers for anyone who is not a french quebecer (see the healthcare, court and justice sections). Anecdotally, I had trouble accessing many government services in English even before bill 96. Ive been hung up on several times when asking for service in English, even when it was offered to me in a menu or whatever. Luckily I’m okay at French so I got by. Someone from a country that speaks a language which doesnt resemble French whatsoever may struggle. Or someone with a disability like Autism as cited in the gazette article above. Especially with only 6 months to learn a new language, which is just not a long enough time in many cases. Overall I agree that its reasonable to expect most people to learn french if they intend to stay in quebec long term.
The bill 21 debate is tough, because im not religious or French. I’m against the bill on a personal level, but dont feel I can really argue from that view alone. However, the bill does seem to impact non-christian faiths more negatively.
The political logo argument probably doesnt get many answers because its a pretty poor comparison in my opinion. I dont have to be religious to know that someone’s faith is more integral to who they are as a person, their identity, than any political affiliation in most cases. So long as that sort of expression isn’t hurting anyone in Quebec directly (religious violence, etc. specifically) I dont see what right Quebec politicians have to interfere with that.
As an outsider with no horse in the race, I thought this a good discussion.
In the end, I think maybe Quebec gets what it wants: I have no interest in visiting a place that tries to police its “culture” that much.
