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

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Pat12@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

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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Jordan117@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Traditionalist

Preservationist

Anti-colonialist

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Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

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- blunderworld@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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?
  
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  - Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    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.
    
    It’s 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 needing 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.
    
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Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

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- radix@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Cultural ~~conservative~~ conservationist
  
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- merde@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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?
  
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  - Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Economic connotations with that last one.
    
    My “no wrong answers” assurances are looking pretty hilarious at this point.
    
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  - Natanael@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    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)
    
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  - hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    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
    
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Carter@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Welsh.

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- moogmouth@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Hell yeah! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (Or should I say, "o, fyn uffern ia!")
  
  The Welsh word for this would be gwrthryfelwr (insurgent, rebel).
  
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MxM111@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Diversity kind of work too.

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Cocoa6790@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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

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WillRegex@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Cultural preservationist?

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