Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as
opposed to monoculture, as in the global monoculture, or a homogenization of
cultures, akin to cultural decay. For example, before Hawaii was conquered, the
culturally diverse Hawaiian culture existed in the world, and contributed to
the world's cultural diversity. Now Hawaii has been westernized; the vast
majority of its culture has been replaced with Western or American culture. The
phrase cultural diversity can also refer to having different cultures respect
each other's differences. The phrase cultural diversity is also sometimes used
to mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. The
culturally destructive action of globalization is often said to have a negative
effect on the world's cultural diversity.
With the onset of globalization, traditional nation-states have been placed under enormous pressures. Today, with the development of technology, information and capital are transcending geographical boundaries and reshaping the relationships between the marketplace, states and citizens. In particular, the growth of the mass media industry has largely impacted on individuals and societies across the globe. Although beneficial in some ways, this increased accessibility has the capacity to negatively affect a society's individuality. With information being so easily distributed throughout the world, cultural meanings, values and tastes run the risk of becoming homogenized. As a result, the strength of identity of individuals and societies may begin to weaken.[1] [2]
Some individuals, particularly those with strong religious beliefs, maintain that it is in the best interests of individuals and of humanity as a whole that all people adhere to a specific model for society or specific aspects of such a model. For example, evangelical missionary organisations such as the New Tribes Mission actively work to support social changes that some observers would consider detrimental to cultural diversity by seeking out remote tribal societies to convert them to Christianity;[4]
Nowadays, communication between different countries becomes more and more frequent. And more and more students choose to study overseas for experiencing culture diversity. Their goal is to broaden their horizons and develop themselves from learning overseas.
The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity adopted by UNESCO in 2001 is a legal instrument that recognizes cultural diversity as "common heritage of humanity" and considers its safeguarding to be a concrete and ethical imperative inseparable from respect for human dignity.
Beyond the Declaration of Principles adopted in 2003 at the Geneva Phase of the World Summit on the information Society (WSIS), the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, adopted in October 2005, is also regarded as a legally binding instrument that recognizes
There are several international organizations that work towards protecting threatened societies and cultures, including Survival International and UNESCO. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, adopted by 185 Member States in 2001, represents the first international standard-setting instrument aimed at preserving and promoting cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue.[2] Indeed, the notion of "cultural diversity" has been echoed by more neutral organizations, particularly within the UNESCO.
World population has physical and cultural characteristics that make them different from others. According to UNO culture is the group of characteristics that distinguish a society in material, spiritual, intelectual and emotional aspects and are shown in art , beliefs and traditions.
These group of cultural characteristics are what make one population different from other and are called CULTURAL DIVERSITY. Even within a same country, there could be cultural diversity: in food, music, clothes, craftwork, celebrations, festivals etc. that in group are called folklore.
Cultural contributions of different groups of people transform the geographical space, originating cultural regions in the world that are distinguished by their language, religion, economic and political organisation that give them identity.
Globalization has effects in the cultural diversity in one hand it makes it richer for being in contact with other cultures but in the other it imposses life styles from other nations that tend to uniform us. Mass media now a days allows us to know more about cultural diversity which is good to maintain peace around the world.
An ethnic group is conformed by people that shares a historical, cultural linguistic and religious identity, as well as life styles which are reflected in their festivities, ways of talking, dressing, their music an.d the way they live. Today there are more than 2000 ethnic groups in the world.
Asia: Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Hindu, Iranian, Arab and Malaysian.
Europe : Slavs, German, Celts, Basques and Latin.
North America: great variety of ethnic groups because of migration. Most people are Europeans that colonized the continent but there are also indigenous groups like the Algonquin, Inuit (Eskimos), Sioux-Hokan , and others.
Africa: Great diversity of ethic groups: Berebere, Tuareg, Zulu, Hausa, Xhosa, Bantu and Somali.
Latin America: Mestizos are predominant because of colonization from Spain and Portugal. There are numerous ethnic groups with well defined cultural characteristics for example Tarahumara, Mayan, Mixtec, Yaqui, Quechua, Araucan, Aimara and Guarani.
Oceania: Maori, Polynesian, Melanesyan, Papua, etc.
Australia: Population is from European orgigin but there is a native minority.
More Used languages around the World
Language
|
% of
world population
|
Mainly
spoken in
|
Notes
|
|
935 (955)
|
14.1%
|
Part of Chinese
|
||
387 (407)
|
5.85%
|
It has
some degree of mutual intelligiblility with Portuguese, see: Comparison of Spanish and Portuguese
|
||
365 (359)
|
5.52%
|
|||
295 (311)
|
4.46%
|
|||
280 (293)
|
4.23%
|
The
Arabic language contains many different dialects. Most are mutually
intelligible. See Varieties
of Arabic
|
||
204 (216)
|
3.08%
|
|||
202 (206)
|
3.05%
|
|||
160 (154)
|
2.42%
|
Mutually
intelligible with Ukrainian and Belarusian
|
||
127 (126)
|
1.92%
|
|||
96 (102)
|
1.44%
|
|||
92 (89)
|
1.39%
|
Austria, Belgium (Eupen-Malmedy), Germany, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, South Tirol (in Italy)
|
||
82
|
1.25%
|
Java (Indonesia)
|
||
80
|
1.20%
|
Shanghai (China)
|
Part of Chinese
|
|
77
|
1.16%
|
|||
76
|
1.15%
|
|||
76
|
1.14%
|
|||
76
|
1.14%
|
|||
74
|
1.12%
|
Belgium (Wallonia, Brussels), Canada
(particularly Quebec, New
Brunswick and Eastern parts of Ontario), France, Switzerland, Francophone
Africa
|
||
73
|
1.10%
|
Maharashtra
(India)
|
A global culture
is emerging in this world, one that seems to be connecting us all under one
major order. I believe that the causes are as follows: the dramatic increase in
technological advances, great leaps in communications; which have lead to a
commercialized culture, and dominating Imperial governments that have taken
over land under there power and political structure. These causes have all lead
to a unifying and homogenizing of a global culture in our world today.
Extreme
advances have been scene in human history and have followed in a micro scoping
like effect from agricultural man 10,000yrs ago, to anthropological man 700yrs
ago, to scientific revolutions 300yrs ago, on into extreme achievements in
modern technologies, 100yrs on into our present day. This micro scoping of
human development has also given birth to abilities, on our part, of mass
communication. In 1452 Gutenberg invents the printing press, allowing one
person to share his/her ideas with a great multitude of people, there by
allowing major cultural changes to occur. Some events that followed were the
Lutheran reformation, a major social change in itself, and also the gathering
of vast libraries of human recording at a very major scale seen throughout the
ages. In 1876 the telephone was invented and an even higher level of
communication was born, now allowing people at very far distances to carry on a
conversation like they were face to face. The invention that took our
civilization to a new level of communication, however, was the television in 1923.
Now people all over the globe could share, in the intake of an idea or set of
ideas produced by a show, there by influencing the way viewers thought and
acted. This broadcasting of ideas is highly commercialized and consumer driven,
unifying the thoughts and actions of viewers everywhere. It is easy to see in
this Mtv influenced McDonalds eating generation how a set of stars or
corporations can easily persuade viewers to act and think the way they want
them to. It seems to me that television all shares this underlying code,
driving our popular culture to all act and think the same. I hate when I go to
a friend’s house for a visit and walk into a group of people watching TV. The
entire conversation is motivated and influenced by the spectacles and activities
we are watching. I often wish I was alive before TV was invented to see how
different social interaction was at a house hold. I believe our culture then,
had a much different flavor then ours today. Now days it is so easy to for a
parent or friend to turn on the tube in order to dodge or get out of a social
interaction between parent and child or friend and neighbor. But now an even
greater form of communication has been born. Our generation has seen the birth of the internet
installed in 1973; a vast field of information has now been laid at our
fingertips. This service allows millions of users to share and use information
simultaneously, unifying the world even more. In minutes I can get on the net
and log on to a website, while, simultaneously someone in Russia could be on
the same site, indulging in the same information that I am taking in. This mass
form of communication is one of the greatest contributors to this global
melting of cultures. Mass communication has delivered us into a unified structure
of thought, that will inevitability give birth to a single global culture, but
who will be the premise looked at for a template of growth for everyone to
follow?
Multiculturalism (or ethnic diversity) relates to communities containing multiple cultures. The term is used in two broad ways, either descriptively or normatively.[1] As a descriptive term, it usually refers to the simple fact of cultural diversity: it is generally applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, sometime at the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighbourhoods, cities, or nations. As a normative term, it refers to ideologies or policies that promote this diversity or its institutionalisation; in this sense, multiculturalism is a society “at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit.” Such ideologies or policies vary widely, including country to country,ranging from the advocacy of equal respect to the various cultures in a society, to a policy of promoting the maintenance of cultural diversity, to policies in which people of various ethnic and religious groups are addressed by the authorities as defined by the group they belong to. However, two main different and seemingly inconsistent strategies have developed through different Government policies and strategies:The first focuses on interaction and communication between different cultures. Interactions of cultures provide opportunities for the cultural differences to communicate and interact to create multiculturalism. (Such approaches are also often known as interculturalism.) The second centers on diversity and cultural uniqueness. Cultural isolation can protect the uniqueness of the local culture of a nation or area and also contribute to global cultural diversity. A common aspect of many policies following the second approach is that they avoid presenting any specific ethnic, religious, or cultural community values as central.
Multiculturalism is often contrasted with the concepts of assimilationism and has been described as a "salad bowl" or "cultural mosaic" rather than a "melting pot".]
Most people realize that the national language of
Mexico is Spanish and that Mexico is the world’s largest Spanish speaking
country. In fact, its population, now numbering 105 million, represents about
one-third of all the 330 million or so Spanish speakers in the world. Spanish
is the majority language in nineteen other countries besides Mexico, and is the
world’s third most spoken language, after English and Chinese.
Far fewer
people realize that, in addition to Spanish, another 62 indigenous languages
are also spoken in Mexico. This makes Mexico one of the most linguistically
diverse countries in the world, in terms of the number of languages spoken,
behind Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and India, but well ahead of China, Brazil
and just about anywhere else.
The major indigenous groups in Mexico
Some estimates
put the number of different Indian languages in use at the time of the Spanish
Conquest in the 16th century as high as 170. This number had dwindled to about
100 by 1900, and has continued to decline to the present day. The latest
estimates are that at least 62 distinct languages (and 100 dialects) are still
spoken somewhere in the country.
The largest
indigenous groups are those speaking Nahuatl (2,563,000; dispersed locations,
and therefore not shown on the map), Maya (1,490,000), Zapotec (785,000) and
Mixtec (764,000), followed by those using Otomí (566,000), Tzeltal (547,000)
and Tzotzil (514,000). Other well known groups include the 204,000 having
Purépecha (or Tarasco) as their first language and the 122,000 speaking
Tarahumara.
At the other
end of the spectrum, only about 130 people still speak Lacandón and only 80 use
Kiliwa. Only 60 people still use Aguacateco in Mexico and only 50 speak Techtiteco
(or simply Teco), though both languages are spoken by several thousand Indians
in neighboring Guatemala.
Of course, we
shouldn’t forget that many Mexicans not only speak Spanish and/or an indigenous
language, but also manage pretty well in English, French, Japanese and many
others!
This is an
edited version of an article originally published on MexConnect – click here for the original
article
Indigenous
languages and cultures are analyzed in chapters 10 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and
dynamics of modern Mexico.
LINK INFO
INDIGENOUS GROUPS PROJECTS
Larger states
(in area and/or population) would surely be more likely to have more Magic Town
candidates. However, it is clear from comparing the maps of Magic Towns and
population density (above) that the number of Magic Towns does not appear to be
related to either the area of states, or to their population density.
The major indigenous groups in Mexico
Indigenous
groups are relevant because they tend to live in relatively remote areas of
great natural beauty, such as the Copper Canyon region or the Huasteca, and
they also exhibit many distinctive cultural traits, giving them a head-start in
the race to demonstrate their attractiveness for tourism. Again, though, there
is little common ground between the map of indigenous groups and the map of
Magic Towns. In particular, the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Campeche all
seem to have fewer Magic Towns than might be expected.
Indigenous Groups by state in Mexico
State
|
Indigenous Groups
|
Baja California
|
Cochimí,
cucapá, kiliwa, kumiai y paipai
|
Campeche
|
Maya
|
Coahuila
|
Kikapú
|
Chiapas
|
Cakchiquel,
chol, jacalteco, kanjobal, lacandón, mame, mochó, tojolabal, tzeltal
(tseltal) , tzotzil (tsotsil) y zoque
|
Chihuahua
|
Guarijío,
pima, tarahumara y tepehuán
|
Distrito
Federal*
|
Maya,
mazahua, mazateco, mixe, mixteco, náhuatl, otomí, purépecha, tlapaneco,
totonaco y zapoteco
|
Durango
|
Tepehuán
|
Guanajuato
|
Chichimeca
jonaz
|
Guerrero
|
Amuzgo,
mixteco, náhuatl y tlapaneco
|
Hidalgo
|
Náhuatl y
otomí
|
Jalisco
|
Huichol
|
México
|
Mazahua,
náhuatl y otomí
|
Michoacán
|
Mazahua,
otomí y purépecha
|
Morelos
|
Náhuatl
|
Nayarit
|
Cora y
huichol
|
Oaxaca
|
Amuzgo,
chatino, chinanteco, chocho, chontal, cuicateco, huave, ixcateco, mazateco,
mixe, mixteco, triqui y zapoteco
|
Puebla
|
Chocho,
mixteco, náhuatl y totonaca
|
Querétaro
|
Otomí y
pame
|
Quintana
Roo
|
Maya
|
San Luis
Potosí
|
Huasteco,
náhuatl y pame
|
Sinaloa
|
Mayo
|
Sonora
|
Mayo,
pápago, pima, seri y yaqui
|
Tabasco
|
Chontal y chol
|
Veracruz
|
Náhuatl,
tepehua, popoluca y totonaca
|
Yucatán
|
Maya
|
These are the main indigenous groups
established in each state. --- Note: Aguascalientes, Baja
California Sur, Colima, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala
and Zacatecas do
not have significant indigenous
population. It should also be noted
that in various states are several indigenous groups.
Sate for each Indigenous Group in Mexico
Indigenous Group
|
State
|
Amuzgo
|
Guerrero y
Oaxaca
|
Chatino
|
Oaxaca
|
Cakchiquel
|
Chiapas
|
Chichimeca
jonaz
|
Guanajuato
|
Chinanteco
|
Oaxaca
|
Chocho
|
Oaxaca y
Puebla
|
Chol
|
Chiapas y
Tabasco
|
Chontal
|
Oaxaca y
Tabasco
|
Cochimí
|
Baja
California
|
Cora
|
Nayarit
|
Cucapá
|
Baja
California
|
Cuicateco
|
Oaxaca
|
Guarijío
|
Chihuahua
|
Huasteco
|
San Luis
Potosí
|
Huave
|
Oaxaca
|
Huichol
|
Jalisco y
Nayarit
|
Ixcateco
|
Oaxaca
|
Jacalteco
|
Chiapas
|
Kanjobal
|
Chiapas
|
Kikapú
|
Coahuila
|
Kiliwa
|
Baja
California
|
Kumiai
|
Baja
California
|
Lacandón
|
Chiapas
|
Mame
|
Chiapas
|
Matlatzinca
|
México
|
Maya
|
Campeche,
Quintana Roo y Yucatán
|
Mayo
|
Sinaloa y
Sonora
|
Mazahua
|
México y
Michoacán
|
Mazateco
|
Oaxaca
|
Mixe
|
Oaxaca
|
Mixteco
|
Guerrero,
Oaxaca y Puebla
|
Mochó
|
Chiapas
|
Motozintleco
|
Chiapas
|
Náhuatl*
|
Distrito
Federal, Guerrero, Hidalgo, México, Morelos, San Luis Potosí, Puebla y
Veracruz
|
Otomí
|
México y
Michoacán
|
Paipai
|
Baja
California
|
Pame
|
San Luis
Potosí y Querétaro
|
Pima
|
Sonora
|
Pápago
|
Sonora
|
Popoluca
|
Veracruz
|
Purépecha
|
Michoacán
|
Seri
|
Sonora
|
Tarahumara
|
Chihuahua
|
Tepehua
|
Veracruz
|
Tepehuán
|
Chihuahua y Durango
|
Tlapaneco
|
Guerrero
|
Tojolabal
|
Chiapas
|
Totonaca
|
Puebla y Veracruz
|
Triqui
|
Oaxaca
|
Tzelta l (tseltal)
|
Chiapas
|
Tzotzil (tsotsil)
|
Chiapas
|
Yaqui
|
Sonora
|
Zapoteco
|
Oaxaca
|
Zoque
|
Chiapas
|
* It is the
indigenous language with more speakers in the country.
