Linguistic Imperialism : The Era Of Colonialism

Throughout the course, we have discussed how colonialism affects culture, and the UCSD powwow clearly demonstrates the impact that colonialism can have on a group of people. For

Many people have their ideas and opinions on the topic of imperialism of the different continents like Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Imperialism had different effects that came from the and different reasons for which it was done. There have been poems, essays, and short stories about the good and bad of imperialism. Those who read some of these works interpret them in different ways that can change the message the author originally had planned. Imperialism shed light upon that not everything is how it seems.

In history, colonization was a truly popular tradition practiced by great and powerful empires in order to extract and retrieve all materials necessary to support their homeland. However, in order to achieve such sense of commerce and well-being, those colonists who had the power, had to colonize weaker and far less advanced societies. Great powers such as Britain and France would then travel to these societies and implement their rule in order to gain prosperity. Some, those who benefited from colonization, felt that the practice of colonization was an obligation to better the “uncivilized,” societies and help them advance, but the emotional and physical hurt that came from colonizing outweighed the positive aspects. The intention was good, but the manner in which colonization was carried out was poor. This topic is immensely controversial that pieces such as Kipling’s poem, “A White Man’s Burden,” and Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart,” have been written in order to support or go against colonization. But despite much debate, colonization has been a tradition that has caused those regions being colonized much struggle and negativity.

Imperialism was an extremely big deal throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There were many occurrences where people who were involved in imperialism would succeed, but there were also failures. Throughout this time period, powers from Europe, the United States and Japan all contributed to both the positive and negative impacts of imperialism. These impacts affected parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Some of the few people that made huge changes during the “Age of Imperialism” are Dadabha Naoroji, J.A. Hobson, Mary Kingsley, Edgar Canisius, Albert Beveridge, and Rudyard Kipling.

Colonizers prefer to bend the colonized to their will and this will often lead to the colonizer introducing their language into the colonized culture. Many colonized countries will lose

The Age of Imperialism was an age of colonization for European countries. It began in the mid-1800s and ended in the early twentieth century. The most powerful countries of Europe raced to conquer and change the government, economic system, and social ways of Asian and African territories. But imperialism wasn 't wonderful, especially for the colonies. Innocent people were enslaved, forced to work all day long under no other options. Resources were exploited, stolen from people who couldn 't defend themselves from powerful new European weapons. Valuable cultures diminished as foreign lands took over and changed intriguing and unique languages and religions. Sickness spread to natives who hadn 't built up the immunity to deadly diseases.

It is a widespread belief that colonization of the Americas started and ended with the English and the 13 colonies, an exclusive and extremely condensed version of history. In American Colonies, Alan Taylor delves deeper into this condensed version of events to offer a more informative and truthful point of view on American history. In this document, Taylor presents the argument that American colonization was the result of the efforts of multiple cultures and races. He continues on to say that many of these groups of people were left out of the story of American history, which led to the English being established as the dominant force of colonization.[ Taylor, American Colonies, 1]

Colonial Expansion started as early as the fifteenth century with the European expansion into the Americas. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that was known as new imperialism (notes). During this time, new imperialism sparked the colonial empires expansion and this caused the colonial empires completely take off. These imperialist powers were inspired and motivated to build these colonial empires due to the economic, political and cultural values. These highly industrialized countries were in need of more raw materials like oil, copper, tin, and rubber along with industrial crops and stimulants (notes). Securing these raw materials would fuel their industrialized economies. Due to the domestic markets of Western Europe being full meaning no more increase of profit, these overseas colonies became more profitable. The economy was a large part important in building these colonial empires. In addition, each country wanted to further politically, so that each Western Empire wanted more prestige. This would show the more power and overall national security in competition with other Western countries. Culturally, each country wanted to be the most powerful and believed that their way of life was the greatest. With a strong feeling of cultural superiority, the Europeans felt a moral duty to their countries. This is where nationalism played a role. In many ways, the dominating countries like

English cultural domination: During the colonial period, English cultural domination was when the colonies (America) relied on their mother country, in this case England. The British population was the superior one and its expansion had begun.

Even though the terms Communism, Totalitarianism, and colonialism have varying definitions, the broad objective of all three follow the same patterns, which is to expand the Government’s influence on a given population. The Great expansionist Roman Empire has become entirely synonymous with the ideologies of colonialism, eerily similar to the political ideologies of Russia during the Cold War. Both Empires had the objective to spread their culture throughout the World as they conquered and subsequently took over different states. Even looking at the different languages spoken around the world in the 21st century, the most recognized languages pertain largely to the largest empires in history. A great example of this lies mainly with the British Empire and how large, not only by landmass, but by language, the expansion was. Columbia University (2012) provides a map from Bartholomew’s “Mini World Atlas” to illustrate the expansion of the British Empire throughout the world since the Beginning of the Empire in the late 1500’s, spanning to the 19th century. Although British Empire collapsed in the 1600’s, the English language continued to thrive, and still is, to over 100 Countries. A survey done by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (1999) reports that the English language is the second most spoken around the world with a population of 330,000,000 million people. However, language is just one influence left behind. it's safe to assume people aren't complaining about the language they speak, language isn't the issue when a country spreads its cultural to others: the problem lies within the individuals themselves. The whole reason why in the modern world there are many different types of Government systems is because people strive for uniqueness and individuality: to live

Under the British, it allowed limited self -governance in some places such as Canada and Australia and direct rule in other places like India. The British did not try to spread their culture to their daughter countries. They are aware that if they educated the colonist then the colonist realized that they have been oppressed by British and it is certain that the colonist will rebel. Essentially, the British wanted to keep their colonies in the dark to prevent any uprising. British adopted specific aspects of it to help in the running of the empire.

literature” does not refer to time “after” colonialism, but to “place”, that is to say, places

It is apparent that colonialism and imperialism influence the characters’ identities in both Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 1822 and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 2006. Colonialism was first becoming acknowledged in the 16th century. However, it was not well known until the 19th and 20th century better referred to as the Victorian era. When discussing literature and its impact on the nineteenth-century, it is almost guaranteed to have some form of imperialism to it. How it forms a strong part of the British culture within England.

Colonialism has been portrayed as leaving negative impacts on countries, however many do not take into consideration the positives effects of colonization. The people of Africa established a mainstream religion to follow (Christianity), including new laws and a new political system. Countries bonded with one another and signed agreements to prevent conflict between countries. It has benefited many people that were illiterate; schools and education were given importance by the British, whether it was education in India or Africa all of them were given universal education. Colonization has brought many benefits to countries like Africa, Pakistan and India. Each country was given the opportunity to shape themselves, to be able to stand up on their own with British aid. Colonialism moulded the countries to what they are, and in return the British requested much less than the countries it supported. With the help of the British, countries managed to stabilize their justice systems, boost their economy, and introduce a new religion. People misunderstood the British because of the power they had and assumed that if they were to take over their land, they would lose all control over their country. However contradicting their common beliefs, countries remained to have control over their colonies and Britain continued to do its job as a provider. The power Britain encompassed provided countries with safety and

The purposes of colonialism included economic exploitation of the colony's natural resources, creation of new markets for the colonizer, and extension of the colonizer's way of life beyond its national borders.