AP Human Geography Vocab Test 5

Epidemiological transition

Distinctive causes of death in each stage of the demographic transition

Hearth

An area where an idea or cultural trait originates

Dialect

A minor variation within a language

Cultural landscape

A landscape that reveals the many ways people modify their local environment (also called built landscape)

Taoism

Religion believed to have been founded by Lao-Tsu and based upon his book entitled “Tao-te-ching,” or “Book of the Way.” Lao-Tsu focused on the proper from of political rule and on the oneness of humanity and nature

Theocracy

A government guided by a religion

acculturation

process in which one culture substantially changes through interaction with another (one-way transfer)

Assimilation

The process through which people lose originally differentiating traits, such as dress, speech particularities or mannerisms, when they come into contact with another society or culture.

ethnocentrism

evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one’s own culture

Language families

The languages which are related by descent from a common protolanguage

TFR

The average number of children that could be born to a woman over her lifetime in a given population.

Toponym

Place name

Lingua franca

A second language held in common for international discourse

Eugenic policy

Government policies designed to favor one racial sector over others

Remittance

Money migrants send back to families and friends in their home countries, often in cash, forming an important part of the economy in many poor countries

Ethnic religion

A religion that is particular to one, culturally distinct, group of people. Adherents do not actively seek converts through evangelism or missionary work

Folk culture

Culture that preserves traditions

Culture trait

A single aspect of the complex of routine practices that constitute a particular cultural group

Amalgamation

in ethnic geography, the concept that multiethnic societies become a merger of the culture traits of their member groups

Zionism

The belief that the Jews should have a homeland of their own