Historical and Contemporary Causes of Diffusion

In this lesson, you'll learn how historical and modern events have influenced the way cultures have moved, spread, and mixed around the world. It explains how these processes have caused cultural traits like language, religion, and traditions to spread, change, or disappear, highlighting both cultural similarities and differences.

Do You Even Speak English, Dude?

Why is English the most dominant language in the United States?

teen saying "because this is america"

Okay... So then why is it also the most widely spoken language in Australia, when we are separated by thousands of miles of land and ocean?
Why are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism practiced all over the world, when all 3 religions originated in Southwest Asia?
Why and how has K-Pop become a global phenomenon?

As you learned in the past lesson, the answer has something to do with diffusion, but why? How? Do the reasons change at different times in history? Geographers study diffusion over time in great detail, and so will you as you work through this lesson.

Historical Causes of Diffusion

Contemporary Causes of Diffusion

Cultural Convergence or Cultural Divergence

When 2 or more cultures or cultural traits come in contact, the only guaranteed thing that will happen is that those traits will change.

One of two phenomena will occur – either cultural convergence or cultural divergence.

Cultural Convergence occurs when different cultures come together and adopt traits of one another.
- They start to become more alike.
- Because of time-space compression, cultural convergence happens more rapidly today than ever before.
- This can lead to cultural homogenization, where cultures become so similar that unique cultural traits will be lost.
  - The rapid spread of the English language, for example, often leads to the loss of indigenous languages as people who want to be able to access global culture will stop learning their local language and learn only English.

Cultural Divergence occurs when cultural groups become increasingly different over time.
- This can occur because of geographic or technological isolation or by purposeful preservation of local or indigenous cultural traits.
- Cultural traits in North and South Korea have diverged significantly since their separation in 1953, especially language.
- New inventions, ideas, and products that have been created since 1953 have very different names in North and South Korea.
- South Korea’s strong business and cultural relationship with the United States has resulted in words in South Korea being influenced by English.
- This same influence is not present in North Korea.

You should now be able to explain both the causes and effects of historical and contemporary diffusion. We will apply these concepts to language and religion in our next lesson.

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