What is the reason for this phenomenon? The most obvious example is China, where the foreign Manchu elite was almost totally sinicized even by the end of the Qing Dynasty. But it's happened elsewhere too: For example, after the Fulani conquered the Hausa city-states, the Fulani adopted the Hausa language and culture. Some degree of influence from a conquered people on the conquerors is almost always inevitable (such as the adoption of non-Roman deities by the Romans), but the degree of influence in these cases is quite startling. So why were Chinese and Hausa culture so resilient and even dominant when, for example, most pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas have yielded to the cultures of the European invaders?
This only happened like 2 or 3 times and the intervening periods were not persian empires
It happened 3 times over the course of less than a millennium. That's too many times dude.
Many of these conquering tribes were just that, tribes. All they had going for them was vast military might. Which is gerat and all, but sometimes you don't want to go around murdering people, you want to sit at home and get blowjobs from your harem all day.
>What is the reason for this phenomenon?
The mongols/Manchus being outnumbered by the Chinese Han natives 1,000 to 1 and having to keep their conquered subject hordes happy or at least not angry enough to not rise up and kick them out, so they Larp as a legitimate dynasty and that eventually snowballs into them slowly assimilating into Han culture themselves over the generations as they realize they would much rather rule a huge and wealthy sedentary kingdom than go back to prowling the steppes again.
The same applies to India’s foreign conquerors
to add to this; there's also (sometimes) the fact that some foreign conquerors were just plain 'boos for whatever country they were conquering with an element of admiration mixed in with the typical Steppenagger desire to plunder.
the Khitans that founded the Liao dynasty were full-fledged muh superior Middle Kingdom culture Sinoboos and genuinely wanted to be full-fledged Chinese right from the get-go of their conquest. the Liao were militarily superior but China's vast riches and culture rubbed off on their impressions of the place in the same manner that many Turkic tribes began to admire neighboring Persia and larp as Iranians. The first Liao emperor fit that description, anyway.
When you're the minority, you'll always end up influenced by the majority at least to an extent, even if you have a culture that strongly promotes endogamy and believes their culture to be superior.
It often starts with shit like eating the local food, especially since that's influenced by climate and the natives are usually better at cooking the local veggies and meat or fish than you, the stranger. Already that means linguistic borrowings since you usually don't have words that adequately describe the foreign plants and animals and just adopt the foreign ones.
Next thing is having sexy time with local women, which naturally leads to having sympathy with local people generally and also mixed children with a strong attachment to the local land and people.
This goes on for a number of generations until your separate group is looking considerably less separate.
Because cultures cannot be ranked objectively but the pragmatical benefits they give to people can. There's a reason for euros hating on the USA while they're all thoroughly americanized.
It’s a sign of superior culture.
Imo it's what makes the Spanish conquest of the America's so sad in comparison. No other conquest ever came so total in the destruction of native customs and culture than what the Spanish did in America except for maybe the initial IE conquests in Europe, Mongol conquests in Central Asia, or Arab eradication of Arabian history. Just completely unnecessary and resulted in so much lost knowledge.
The Chinese conquest of everything south of the yellow river.
Many of the roman conquests.
>the initial IE conquests in Europe
Didn't destroy the native culture it survived among Europeans.
>Mongol conquests in Central Asia,
Didn't destroy the native culture.
>Arab eradication of Arabian history
Arabian history was not eradicated.
>No other conquest ever came so total in the destruction of native customs and culture than what the Spanish did
Not disagreeing, but had the Amerindian culture been better able to preserve itself, this wouldn't have happened.
The culture was incredibly vulnerable to conquest. The people were incredibly superstitious, and took their lead from the top. The Spanish only capitalized on that.
But a lot of the cultural destruction happened after the conquests and a lot if it occured post-Spanish colonial rule.
Yeah, as far as I know most Peruvians spoke Quechua well into the 20th century, and in Guatemala the indigenous elements in the syncretic Christianity of the Maya are being suppressed by recent converts to Protestantism. The assimilation of the Indians to European culture is an ongoing process.
Because Fulani historically tended to be in professions where they kinda had to adapt to the area like herders, merchants and craftsman as well as being nomadic in general.
In the example of steppe people like the Manchu, their nomadic cultural traditions are largely incompatible with being the ruling class of a sedentary kingdom
manchus weren't nomads. Just because they lived in the steppes doesn't mean they were nomadic.
Jurchen as a group covered plenty of nomadic people. The Jiangzhou Jurchen, the group to which the Aisin Goro clan belonged were mostly settled. But the rest of the Jurchen groups were mostly semi-nomadic.
The Manchu were never nomadic
The Manchu were actually already sinicized. Their ancestors were the Jurchens who 500 years prior, invaded Northern China and established the Jurchen Jin Dynasty. After that they were a province of the Yuan Mongol and Ming Dynasties. You can see this in their art which shows their elites living in palaces and cities. You can even visit their former capital in Mukden and look at the Pre-Qing palaces the Manchus kept there. They have more in common with Korea & Vietnam (a Sinocentric sedentary people) than with Mongolia.