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