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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Which nation that was colonised by a European power between 1500-1920 has retained most of the culture and customs of that colonial nation?
Just so we're clear here...let's remove those nations which have been settled in large numbers by the colonial nations. So the US, Canada, Australia, Latin America, Caribbean...let's focus on Africa and Asia.
I'm not sure about the situation in Africa. South Africa is an interesting example because there was a large population of white settlers who controlled the nation. Zimbabwe too until recently. I'd say Kenya and Nigeria and Ghana were probably the most influenced by the British, but I think the West African nations - e.g. Ivory Coast, Cameroon - retain the most French legacy in terms of language etc. I don't know much about Africa so I'll leave that to those who know more.
When it comes to Asia I'm more familiar with it.
Number 1 would be Singapore. Singapura predates British settlement, which occured in 1819 when Stamford Raffles arrived. Singapore abounds with British architecture, place names, and English is still the official language understood by the majority of people. Many British expats resided there until independence in 1957, and Singapore is still one of the most prime places of investment for Western, including British, business. Many Singaporeans today are exposed to a lot more English language culture than in other nations.
No. 2 is Malaysia: The colony of Malaya shows heavy British influence, particularly in George Town, in Penang (first British settlement in Malaya) and Melaka. English is less widely spoken as a first language, but widely understood, because of Malay nationalism.
No. 3 is Pakistan: While part of British India prior to 1948, Pakistan now seems even more tied to it's former colonial ruler than India. Many Pakistanis are fluent in English, and many have immigrated to the UK.
No. 4 is a tie out of India (including Ceylon/Sri Lanka) or Hong Kong. While English is widely understood in India, most Indians either cannot speak it or are not fluent in it. Most richer Indians are reasonably fluent in English and many aspire to send their children to the UK to study. Many retain English customs and enjoy Western food. Cricket is extremely popular in India, as is polo.The English legacy is strongest in the major cities and the southern hill stations. Ceylon would be on equal footing.
Hong Kong was very British in the economic sense, and has a lot of British names, old colonial bungalows...it's police force.etc are all a legacy of the colonial system. But the people still mostly speak Cantonese and remain fiercely Chinese (yet modern) in many ways. They do have many Anglo customs like a love for horse racing, for instance. It's still a popular place for British ex-pats.
No. 5 is the Philippines, but this is the combined Spanish/American influence. Spanish culture is evident in the rich historical legacy of buildings, in the systems of law, currency...many Filipinos have Spanish last names, something that didn't happen to large degree in the other colonies. Loses out because English, not Spanish, is the most widely spoken European language today.
No. 6 is Macau, the former Portuguese territory. Macau looks very much like the Lisbon of the East, and a vibrant Macanese community remains. In terms of food, Portuguese cuisine influenced Macau more than the other colonial states. Portuguese egg tarts and milk pudding (dairy not being indigenous to the Far East) are just one example.
No. 7 is Vietnam. Colonial buildings remain mainly in HCM/Saigon, Hanoi, Dalat and some of the hill stations like Sapa. Culturally, however, the only real legacy the French seemed to have is a bit in the food; baguettes, pastries. Very few Vietnamese people can speak French.
The French influence is even less evident in Laos and Cambodia, except for specific country retreats in places like Siem Reap.
I can't speak for Burma and Bangladesh. While Burma seemed like an important British possession, the Myanmar of today doesn't seem to really consider it's colonial past much at all.
Indonesia's evidence of Dutch colonisation is hardly even evident, except in Batavia (Java) with some old buildings.etc.
I would vote for India, due to its continued ties with the "Western" economies. That became more important to India during British rule, AFAIK. They continue to place a lot of importance on English education, and also they still have government and other institutions that were established during the British India era. All this is despite the fact that there were very few British military in the country, relative to the population as a whole, and there certainly aren't many people in India today who are descendants of the British.
From what little I know about francophone Africa, apart from language and some economic ties that continue, the influence on culture overall hasn't been as profound, IMO, as the India/Britain situation. Some African countries actually became just as likely to adopt "Western" influences in the post-colonial period as during it. There are places in francophone Africa where the people are trying to promote literacy and education in native languages rather than French. And some African areas are promoting the use of English as a second language nowadays.
Singapore sounds like a sensible example. South Africa has a fairly high percent of white people for African nations. Liberia, last time I checked, retained the US measuring system as opposed to metric. Although possibly they weren't a US colony as such. Is East Timor still fairly Portuguese?
I'd say Cape Verde. It's an old colony, and everyone speaks a Portugese creole and the cuisine, while very good and unique, is a variant of Portugese cuisine, like Cajun food is an off shoot of French cuisine.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomas R.
Singapore sounds like a sensible example. South Africa has a fairly high percent of white people for African nations. Liberia, last time I checked, retained the US measuring system as opposed to metric. Although possibly they weren't a US colony as such. Is East Timor still fairly Portuguese?
In some ways, like religion, it's actually the most Catholic country in Asia ahead of the Philippines. I think the mixed population is similar to what you'd find in Macau. Only 5% of the population is proficient in Portuguese so it seems like a similar situation to Macau.
Australia was instrumental in helping East Timor gaining independence from Indonesia after occupation from 1974-1999.
Most of the ones that, as you mention, Latin America and the English settler nations are that way because of physical presence of the colonists and often replacement of the original culture (at one extreme in places like most of the US, Canada, Australia where the most the average Joe encounters from the native culture on a day-to-day basis is the reading of town place and street names from an extinct tongue).
On the other end it can be hard to find former colony that very strongly holds on to a bunch of aspects of it's colonial legacy, if that country itself had a single strong and proud identity/culture pre-colonization, rather than being just a roughly scattered grouping of tribes on an area of land. Indeed, when many countries desired or fought strongly to gain independence, after the colonists leave, the solidarity of the "native culture" will often try to re-assert itself, and not want anything to do with that it threw off.
In many cases, the European influence is not large enough so that most people don't think of it as a particularly memorable part of its history (for example Morocco or Vietnam; out of foreign rule, few people think of France as playing a huge role in shaping their culture as opposed to Arabic or Chinese influence, which at one point were also foreign influences).
Those elements of retaining influence, are probably the ones where the European colonists' culture trickled down or appealed to the masses (which often involves interaction between the populations, rather than the locals seeing the colonizers as "overlords" or a foreign ruling elite).
Parts of the colonists' legacy that are practical, such as administrative aspects, trade languages, legal systems may survive, if they are helpful. Introduced foods and products that have become part of the colonial experience might also be popular.
An interesting linguistic situation arises with say, linguistically diverse countries -- the African countries (let's say, Ivory Coast or Angola) or India and the languages they retained from colonialism (English, French, Portuguese etc.). In these places there are multiple regionalisms and after decolonization no single dominant language/ethnic group can then claim to speak for the rest of the new country (contrast with say, the Phillipines or Indonesia where one dominant lingua franca as official language has been decided on -- Tagalog/Bahasa Indonesia), ironically, they might as well stick to the colonist's one, to equalize things.
For example, in India, Hindi was proposed as an official language of the newly independent country. Non-Hindi-speaking Indians (especially those with their own literary traditions like Tamil and Bengali) did not like this at all, opposed the policy from coming into place, and banded together to get English recognized as an official language to counteract Hindi's influence.
From what little I know about francophone Africa, apart from language and some economic ties that continue, the influence on culture overall hasn't been as profound, IMO, as the India/Britain situation. Some African countries actually became just as likely to adopt "Western" influences in the post-colonial period as during it. There are places in francophone Africa where the people are trying to promote literacy and education in native languages rather than French. And some African areas are promoting the use of English as a second language nowadays.
The French language is certainly still very dynamic in almost all of the former French colonies in Africa. There is no discernable movement away from it in favour of English in the former French colonies of sub-Saharan Africa. Note that there are still many cultural and economic ties with France, and also military and political involvement (some would say interference) by France in many of these countries.
Where there is a movement away from the French language is in the former Belgian African colonies in the African Great Lakes region: Rwanda, Burundi and to a lesser degree Congo-Kinshasa (former Zaire). In these areas because of ties (geographic, economic and political) with their neighbours English is growing by leaps and bounds and French is slowly declining.
m going to take the OP's question and tweek it a little:
Which former colony of the original 13 has retained most of it's colonial legacy?
Probably Delaware or one of the other smaller states like New Hampshire. Aside from the English language we dident retain much from our British colonial past.
As for which colony retains much of it's colonial past I would have to say any former British colony in the Caribbean. All of them except for Dominica and Trinidad & Tobago retain the British monarch as head of state, many use the British Supreme Court as the final court of appeals, they still use the British style government and judicial systems, etc.
Do existing "colonies" like Bermuda, Aruba, St. Martin, Martinique, the Caymans, etc count? Yeah, they have a degree of self government but at the end of the day they are possessions of an external power (UK, France, Netherlands, Denmark, or the US). Puerto Rico for instance is a US territory (aka "colony") but it still retains much of it's pre 1898 Spanish legacy.
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