Cultural Boundary
A cultural boundary (also cultural border) in ethnology is a geographical boundary between two identifiable ethnic or ethno-linguistic cultures. A language border is necessarily also a cultural border (language being a significant part of a society's culture), but it can also divide sub-groups of the same ethno-linguistic group along more subtle criteria, such as the Brünig-Napf-Reuss line in German-speaking Switzerland, the Weißwurstäquator in Germany or the Grote rivieren boundary between Dutch and Flemish culture.
In the history of Europe, the major cultural boundaries are found
- in Western Europe between Latin Europe, where the legacy of the Roman Empire remained dominant, and Germanic Europe, where it was significantly syncretized with Germanic culture
- in the Balkans, the Jireček Line, dividing the area of dominant Latin (Western Roman Empire) from that of dominant Greek (Eastern Roman Empire) influence.
Macro-cultures on a continental scale are also referred to as "worlds", "spheres" or "civilizations", such as the Islamic world, the Western world, etc. (c.f. The Clash of Civilizations).
In a modern context, a cultural boundary can also be a division between subcultures or classes within a given society, such as blue collar vs. white collar etc.
Read more about this topic: Cultural Region
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or boundary:
“Barbarisation may be defined as a cultural process whereby an attained condition of high value is gradually overrun and superseded by elements of lower quality.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The boundary line between self and external world bears no relation to reality; the distinction between ego and world is made by spitting out part of the inside, and swallowing in part of the outside.”
—Norman O. Brown (b. 1913)