Meaning

(uncountable) The systematic destruction of a culture, particularly one unique to a specific ethnicity, or a political, religious, or social group..

Definitions by Sense

1. (uncountable) The systematic destruction of a culture, particularly one unique to a specific ethnicity, or a political, religious, or social group.
2. (countable) An instance of such destruction.

Example Sentences

If culturicide is to be prevented, certain means must be employed.

In effect, the textbooks commit what we term culturecide: the destruction of a culture, either by physical force or through symbolic means. The textbooks contribute to such destruction by distorting and omitting information […]

When culture-groups, in majority or minority, in national or political systems, attempt to eliminate the social practices of other culture-groups over which they have power, there is cultural domination and hypothesized Culturicide. Culturicide examples include Germans stamping out Hebrew language of Jews in the 1930s, Spanish outlawing Aztec and Maya codexes in 16th century Central America, Chinese establishing provincial restrictions of Mandarin in various dynasties, and the United States suppressing native languages of our indigenous "Indian" nations for over one hundred years.

Though culturecide is in and of itself not genocide, it does threaten the existence of a group if individual actions assume a quantitative mass whose collective impact can result in the demise of a group.

In contrast, culturicide is an attempt to kill a culture, whether or not its members survive and whether or not they retain a separate identity […]

Culturecide, referred to also as cultural genocide or deculturation, signifies processes that have usually been purposely introduced and that result in the decline or demise of a culture, without necessarily resulting in the physical destruction of its bearers.

Ethnic cleansing is a poor euphemism for forms of culturcide, ethnocide, ghettoization, displacement of people to reservations, and forced removal of populations.

While situated in Darwinian ideas of evolutionary progress, [Edward Burnett] Tylor's work shows interesting analogies with both [Immanuel] Kant's moral telos and its implied culturcide, and [Johann Gottfried] Herder's universalism of partitioned cultures.

Word Forms

• culturicides
• culturacide
• culturcide
• culturecide
• culturocide

Related Words

When Should You Use Culturicide?

Use culturicide when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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