From: Chris Taylor (christ@ebi.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 27 Apr 2005 - 00:13:20 GMT
Hiya.
Variety, in the sense of standing heterozygosity, is better-maintained
in large populations. The evolutionary consequence of that is that the
old persists way longer. Inertia. And I think I'd rather refer to my
other mail than repeat the complement of that w.r.t. invasion of the
novel (the 'no curry houses without curry lovers' chicken/egg argument).
And of course the UK has had lots of input, from loads of places; the
difference is that we tend to maintain less standing variety, which
means whole-population shifts are easier.
> "Mogul", "pundit", "bungalow" readily come to mind. :-)
To extend that point, there is no 'British' version of pyjamas (also
Indian) or bungalow or jungle etc. QED.
I would still assert that the current variety in the US is
long-standing, as opposed to being the result of continual ingresses;
mostly having come in at a time when the population was much smaller and
less interconnected.
> We have hiphop,
> jazz, salsa, etc. There are Spanish only radio
Only hip hop is even remotely new (and swept the world cf. my incredibly
bloated other mail). And the hispanic thing seems more to be a shifting
of the northern limit of central america into the US by mass movement
> There seems to be an increasing number of ethnically
> mixed couples and more biracial and multiracial
> offspring too, so cultural stuff ain't all that's
> hybridizing. I wonder how many kids out there have a
> mixture of Asian, African, and European heritage, both
> cultural and genetic...
But in contrast to all of the above I agree completely that the whole
world is changing very fast now, as several important brakes on culture
have finally been put to the sword. It's not the internet, but that
certainly hasn't hindered things. It may well be cheap air travel and
shipping. And drift ("tell me again why I shouldn't be friends with the
'foreign' guy dad?"). But predominantly ignorance is fear, and knowledge
the antidote, so as you say cultures start to mix and once the barriers
come down we're well on our way to a brighter world (as soon as we work
out how to rid ourselves of the NeoCon nutters in Europe and the US).
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4117&n=1
Cheers, Chris.
Scott Chase wrote:
> --- Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>>Dear Kate and Chris,
>>
>>Chris:
>>>>I'd suggest that the persistence of many cultural
>>thingies in the
>>>>US is as a result of the slower pace of cultural
>>evolution for the
>>>>exact same reasons that genetic evolution occurs
>>more slowly (on
>>>>average) in large interbreeding populations.
>>Inertia essentially;
>>>>cf. the persistence of words like 'gotten', which
>>have died out in
>>>>British English -- a much smaller population in
>>which stochastic
>>>>effects are more pronounced and change more
>>straightforward.
>>
>>Kate:
>>
>>>This is a really interesting explanation for this
>>sort of example.
>>>Does it hold beyond particular words like
>>"gotten"? I know there are
>>>lots more like this, which we in the UK think of
>>as US imports but
>>>actually originated over here. But is this a
>>principle that can be
>>>extended over "bigger" meme pools like the US?
>>I think that maybe this is an example of the general
>>tendency of
>>emigrant culture to change less than the parent
>>culture. From what I
>>hear the English dialect that is the closest to
>>Elizabethan English is
>>spoken in the hills of Tennessee, which are still
>>pretty isolated.
>
> If the US is a "melting pot" so to speak, we should
> consider how much cultural cross-fertilization has
> occurred between the immigrant (voluntary and forced)
> cultures and what has resulted. We are hardly stagnant
> over on this side of the pond (excepting some parts of
> Dixie who can't forgive Sherman). We have hiphop,
> jazz, salsa, etc. There are Spanish only radio
> stations popping up all over my neck of the woods that
> offer a diversity of music different than your
> standard country and classic rock format. We have all
> kinds of cuisines to sample, from octopus sushi to
> curry. OK maybe Miami and L.A. shouldn't be
> extrapolated to the Midwest, but still, we are
> evolving at a good click nonetheless or at least
> hybridizing. Sure English language and Anglo culture
> is still a dominant norm, but within this context
> other stuff is making inroads.
>
> There seems to be an increasing number of ethnically
> mixed couples and more biracial and multiracial
> offspring too, so cultural stuff ain't all that's
> hybridizing. I wonder how many kids out there have a
> mixture of Asian, African, and European heritage, both
> cultural and genetic...
>
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-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chris Taylor (christ@ebi.ac.uk) HUPO PSI: GPS -- psidev.sf.net ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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