Examine the operation of colonialism as a means of cultural exchange

Examine the operation of colonialism as a means of cultural exchange
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Colonialism across the globe has significant cultural implications on host countries’ cultural heritage. Colonialism leaves a legacy that is evident through tangible and intangible aspects such as colonial landscaping and languages respectively (Oostindie, 2008). Colonists deem their culture as superior to the hosts and strive to infiltrate them with their own cultures. In some instances, colonists endeavour to eradicate and replace the host culture with their own cultural aspects. Language is one of the strongest intangible cultural legacies that colonizers leave owing to the need to communicate with their conquests. Other forms of cultural exchanges have been observed such as in clothing, religion, community set ups, and food. They are evident years after the colonies achieve their independence and often influence their community structures. European colonies entrenched these cultural aspects on their conquests. The hosts also influenced European colonists albeit to a smaller degree owing to power differences. This paper outlines the legacy of American colonization of the Philippines and Hawaii and the different types of cultural exchanges that occurred in the America as a result of European colonization.
It is common knowledge that colonization inscribes the colonizers’ language as the most dominant and prestigious in all colonies. The colonizers’ language is elevated as a necessity for all the people that hoped to advance in the public social sphere in the colony. Historically, many people eschewed local languages in favour of the colonial language. In the attempts to adopt new languages, new languages emerged from the contact with colonizers. For example, Creole emerged from contact between European and non-European languages and Europeans referred to it as a broken language. Europeans considered such languages as irrational and as a form of resistance to civilization (Migge & Leglise, 2007).
Many European colonizers held learning the colonizer’s language in high esteem and it was portrayed as an asset. In some instances, they learned that learning the colonizers’ language would result in the total eradication of indigenous language. For instance, Europeans replaced Aboriginal languages of Australia, many Native American languages and Hawaiian with English. Under the United States Hawaiian began to lose its predominance due to strong influences from American culture and European language in the 1800s. Hawaii had in the previous years experienced massive influx of Europeans, people from Portugal China and Japan that immigrated to North America to work in plantations. In the 1900s, the Hawaiian government was overthrown and the United States relegated Hawaiian and Hawaiian English Creole as inferior languages. This accelerated English as prestigious and diminished Haw...