unit 3 human geo

Acculturation

The adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.

Assimilation

The social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another.

Contagious diffusion

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.

Creole

A mother tongue that originates from contact between two languages.

Cultural determinism

The belief that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral levels.

Cultural diffusion

The spread of cultural elements from one society to another.

Cultural ecology

A geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.

Cultural geography

The subfield of human geography that looks at how cultures vary over space.

Cultural hearths

Heartland, source area, innovation center, place of origin of a major culture.

Cultural landscape

The visible imprint of human activity and culture on the landscape.

Cultural relativism

The practice of judging a culture by its own standards.

Cultural transmission

The process by which one generation passes culture to the next.

Culture region

An area in which people have many shared culture traits.

Culture system

A collection of interacting elements that shape a group's collective identity.

Culture trait

A single element of normal practice in a culture, such as the wearing of a turban.

Environmental determinism

The view that the natural environment has a controlling influence over various aspects of human life.

Ethnic religion

A religion with a concentrated spatial distribution whose principles are based on the physical characteristics of its location.

Ethnocentrism

Belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group.

Hierarchical diffusion

The spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places.

Indo-European language family

Family of languages with the greatest number of speakers, spoken in most of Europe and areas of European settlement.

Isogloss

A boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate.

Language families

Group of languages with a shared but fairly distant origin.

Lingua franca

A common language used by speakers of different languages.

Linguistic fragmentation

Many languages spoken by a small group of people.

Linguistic geography

The study of the geographical distribution of linguistic features.

Official language

The language adopted for use by the government for the conduct of business and publication of documents.

Pidgin

An artificial language used for trade between speakers of different languages.

Relocation diffusion

The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people.

Standard language

The form of a language used for official government business, education, and mass communications.

Stimulus diffusion

The spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected.

Syncretism

The fusion of originally different inflected forms.

Time-distance decay

The declining degree of acceptance of an idea or innovation with increasing time and distance from its point of origin.

Toponymy

The branch of lexicology that studies the place names of a region or a language.

Transculturation

Cultural borrowing that occurs when different cultures of approximately equal complexity and technological level come into close contact.

Universalizing religion

A religion that attempts to appeal to all people, not just those living in a particular location.