I'm not an ethnomusicologist, so I can't really provide an answer to the first part of your question (but also, that progression isn't straight forward like that, it's a more complicated story--if you want to know more, I can point you toward some things if you give me an idea about what level of technical things you know), but the second part is a definitive yes. Composers, typically beginning in the 19th century and most evidently in the 20th century Impressionists onward (Debussy, Ravel, etc.) began incorporating non-Western idioms into their music, which included making use of exotic sounding scales. They might not sound odd to us now, but those scales were used for their peculiar flavor, which in other words sounded odd. Here's an example from Ravel's Ma mere l'oye. He's using a pentatonic (five note) scale that he felt represented Asian music.

Take a look at this answer to another recent post. That details things a bit more.