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Is there a word in English to describe someone who wants to preserve a (minority) culture against erosion from a majority culture?

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.

WillRegex ,

Cultural preservationist?

Kecessa ,

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.

blunderworld ,

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?

Kecessa , (edited )

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.

blunderworld , (edited )

French being in decline is apparently not as straightforward as that.

Source 1Source 2

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.

andyburke ,
@andyburke@kbin.social avatar

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.

jernej ,

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

balls_expert ,

Regionalism is a word in France

neutron ,

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.

Cocoa6790 ,
@Cocoa6790@kbin.social avatar

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

Pratai ,

Human.

erusuoyera ,

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 www.gaidhlig.scot/en/our-work/ doesn’t seem to use any particular word or phrase to describe their work.

blunderworld ,

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?

wrath-sedan ,
@wrath-sedan@kbin.social avatar

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.

laxsill ,

I (a European jew) usually tk about assimilation and struggling against assimilation. I don’t know, maybe anti-assimilationist?

jernej ,

When we learned about assimilation in Geography class my mind imediately went to the Borg

yesdogishere ,

Cantonese is a dead language. China will execute anyone who looks canton or speaks canton. It's that bad. Same with hokkein and teochew and all dialects besides mandarin. And then China's population will dwindle to zero and this will save us from climate change.

conductor ,

Cool sorry bro

Carter ,

Welsh.

moogmouth ,

Hell yeah! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (Or should I say, "o, fyn uffern ia!")

The Welsh word for this would be gwrthryfelwr (insurgent, rebel).

MxM111 ,

Diversity kind of work too.

Eggyhead ,
@Eggyhead@artemis.camp avatar

Sociolinguistic Conservationist, perhaps?

bernieecclestoned ,

Heritage preservation?

edition.cnn.com/2019/04/09/asia/…/index.html

Arn_Thor ,

Minority advocate?

Granixo ,
@Granixo@feddit.cl avatar

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:

www.cultura.gob.cl/…/tesoros-humanos-vivos/

Pat12 OP ,

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:

www.cultura.gob.cl/…/tesoros-humanos-vivos/

cool, gracias!

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