APHUG Unit 3 Test

Culture

The shared practices, technologies, attitudes, and behaviors passed on from person to person through society

Cultural Traits

Elements developed through social interaction that are transmitted or transmuted in some form, Can be language, clothing, food, architecture, and land use

Land Use

Sacred Spaced, community functions

Cultural Relativism

Evaluating a culture by one’s own standards or within that culture to create an understanding

Ethnocentrism

Evaluating a culture through the lens of ones own culture creating a sense of superiority

Cultural Landscape

The combination of cultural, economic, and natural elements, that make up any land space. Includes: physical features, agricultural and industrial practices, religious and linguistic characteristics, evidence of sequent occupancy, traditional and modern architecture, and land-use patterns.

Place

A location’s physical and cultural characteristic

Centripetal forces

 Forces that bring people together

Centrifugal Forces

Forces the divide people

Diffusion

The spread of a cultural idea

Hearth

The starting point of a cultural idea

Relocation

When a group is moved and brings their cultural ideas with them and they diffuse into the new area

Expansion

The process by which cultural ideas, innovations, or phenomena spread from their original hearth (source) to larger areas and populations.

Contagious

A cultural idea that spreads rapidly to almost everyone

Hierarchical and Reverse Hieraachrical

When a cultural idea spreads from people or areas in power to lower class people or areas, and vice versa

Acculturation

When a group of people in one culture adopts traits from another

Creolization

the process of mixing cultural traits, primarily languages

Lingua Franca

language mutually understood by the members of a society

How diffusion occurred historically

• Colonialism/imperialism - an outside force imposes its culture

• War - legacy of cultural interaction that can be by force

• Migration - through all forms of migration, including diasporas

• Trade - the trade of new products from another culture

Cultural Divergence

people start to leave their culture or abandon certain elements of it

Cultural Convergence

 people start having one massive global culture

Assimilation

When you leave your previous culture and completely adopt a new one

Syncretism

The combination of different cultures/blending of beliefs ideas practices and traits

Placemaking

The process by which people infuse meaning, identity, and culture into a specific location, turning a "space" into a "place" that reflects community values and social practices.

Spacemaking

Focuses on the physical and functional organization of a space for specific purposes, often lacking cultural or emotional attachment.

Religion

Refers to the global distribution and followers of religions. Religions are often categorized as universalizing (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) or ethnic (e.g., Hinduism, Judaism).

Adherents

the people who follow these religions, impacting cultural landscapes and demographic patterns.

Dialects

Variations of a language distinguished by pronunciation, vocabulary, and spelling. They often emerge due to geographic or social separation and reflect local identity.

Ethnic Neighborhoods

Areas within cities where people of the same ethnic background cluster, maintaining cultural practices and providing a sense of community (e.g., Chinatown, Little Italy)

Toponyms

The names given to places, reflecting cultural heritage, historical events, or physical geography (e.g., New York, derived from the Duke of York).

Sequent Occupancy

the idea that successive societies leave cultural imprints on a landscape, creating layers of cultural history (e.g., ancient Roman roads still being used in Europe).

Role of the Internet in Cultural Change

The internet accelerates cultural diffusion by providing instant access to global ideas, media, and trends. It fosters convergence by spreading globalized culture but can also support divergence by enabling preservation of niche cultures.

Language families

• are groups of languages with a shared common ancestor.

  • Indo-European: Includes languages like English, Spanish, and Hindi, found across Europe, the Americas, and South Asia.

  • Sino-Tibetan: Includes Mandarin Chinese, spoken in East Asia.

  • Afro-Asiatic: Includes Arabic and Hebrew, predominant in the Middle East and North Africa.

  • Niger-Congo: Includes Swahili, predominant in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Origin of languages

 Languages often originate in cultural hearths and are influenced by migration, conquest, and trade