- 21 Jun 2011 20:04
#13738080
Noemon I would say it was more due to having a very literate culture for a lot longer and being very faithful to tradition in many ways. And also not being wiped out or assimilated completely by other groups. Withstanding the pressure is what kills cultures. Many cultures are under pressure to give up their language, their tradtions and their ways and if they do they will live a 'better' life. That usually ends in complete disaster. Once you give up your language, your cultural heritage and your traditions you are very vulnerable to adopting another dominant cultures ways and forgetting your own...and in the process losing everything most important in this life. That is how cultures and languages die and become extinct. So many Native American languages died off because they depended heavily on their relationship with their ancestral lands and the lifestyles those created. And when they lost the land, and were subjected to laws foreign to their ways, and were expected to drop their languages and their traditions in order to get crumbs to survive on....it was the end of the end for them. They called those dead Native American cultures ghost nations. And there have been many in the past.
Greece never allowed herself to become a ghost nation. A Greek would die before giving up the nation to another invading force. And the Greeks fight stubbornly constantly for their world view. It makes them very strong. But Coca-Cola culture is everywhere. It is. And it has had an impact on many nations. It is not the best of human values...but marketing is part and parcel of modern capitalism.
That is because unlike other cultures, the Greek one is linguo-centric and does not take kindly any sort of lingual shift or change.
Noemon I would say it was more due to having a very literate culture for a lot longer and being very faithful to tradition in many ways. And also not being wiped out or assimilated completely by other groups. Withstanding the pressure is what kills cultures. Many cultures are under pressure to give up their language, their tradtions and their ways and if they do they will live a 'better' life. That usually ends in complete disaster. Once you give up your language, your cultural heritage and your traditions you are very vulnerable to adopting another dominant cultures ways and forgetting your own...and in the process losing everything most important in this life. That is how cultures and languages die and become extinct. So many Native American languages died off because they depended heavily on their relationship with their ancestral lands and the lifestyles those created. And when they lost the land, and were subjected to laws foreign to their ways, and were expected to drop their languages and their traditions in order to get crumbs to survive on....it was the end of the end for them. They called those dead Native American cultures ghost nations. And there have been many in the past.
Greece never allowed herself to become a ghost nation. A Greek would die before giving up the nation to another invading force. And the Greeks fight stubbornly constantly for their world view. It makes them very strong. But Coca-Cola culture is everywhere. It is. And it has had an impact on many nations. It is not the best of human values...but marketing is part and parcel of modern capitalism.
La historia de mi amor
se pudiera encontrar
en cada corazón,
en cada soledad.
Silvio Rodriguez
se pudiera encontrar
en cada corazón,
en cada soledad.
Silvio Rodriguez