AP Human - Unit 3 Vocab Part 1

Custom

A traditional, widely accepted behavior, practice, or norm shared by a group of people

Habit

A repetitive act performed by a single individual

Taboos

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture

Indigenous Culture (Local)

When members of an ethnic group reside in their ancestral lands and possess unique cultural traits such as an exclusive language

Pop Culture (Global)

When cultural traits spread quickly over a large area and are adopted by various groups, or worldwide

Terroir

The contribution of a location’s physical features to the way food and drinks taste

Hierarchical Diffusion

The spread of culture outward from the most interconnected places or from centers of wealth and influence

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

The diffusion of a trait from a group of lower status to a group of higher status

Relocation Diffusion

The spread of culture and/or cultural traits by people who migrate and carry their cultural traits with them

Expansion Diffusion

The spread of cultural traits outward through exchange without migration

Contagious Diffusion

When a cultural trait spreads continuously outward from its hearth through contact among people

Stimulus Diffusion

When an underlying idea from a culture hearth is adopted by another culture but the adopting group modifies or rejects one trait

Space-Time Compression

The shortening of the time required for movement, trade, or interaction between two places caused by improvements in transportation and communication

Material Culture

Culture which consists of tangible things

Sociofacts

The ways people organize their society and relate to one another

Afro-Asiatic

A major global language family centered across North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Middle East

Heterogeneous

Made up of people or elements that are diverse and different from one another

Language

A system of communication through speech

Literary Tradition

A language that is written as well as spoken

Creole

When two or more separate languages mix over time and develop a more formal structure and vocabulary so that they are no longer a pidgin language

Homogenous

Made up largely of ethnically similar people

Language Branch

A subgroup of languages within a language family that are related through a common ancestral language

Official Language

A language designated by law to be the language of government

Dialect

Regional variations of a language

Ideograms

A symbol that represents an idea, concept, or object directly, rather than by spelling out a spoken word phonetically

Language Family

A collection of individual languages related to each other through a common ancestral proto-language

Pidgin Language

A simplified mixture of two languages

Denglish

A combination of Deutsch (German) and English

Indo-European

One of the 15 major language families; a large group of languages that might have descended from a language spoken ~6,000 years ago; includes about 2.8 billion native speakers

Language Group

A collection of individual languages within a language branch that share a common origin from the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences

Sino Tibetan

The second largest language family in the world, spoken by roughly 1.4 billion people primarily across China & Southeast Asia

Ebonics

A distinct dialect of English spoken by some African Americans

Isogloss

A boundary between a variation in pronunciations or word usage

Lingua Franca

A common language used by people who do not share the same native language

Spanglish

A combination of Spanish and English

Extinct Languages

A language that is no longer spoken or used by anyone

Isolated Languages

A natural language that does not belong to a larger language family

Linguists

Scientists who study languages

Standard Language

The form of language that is published, widely distributed, purposely taught, and promoted as the accepted norm for government, education, mass media, and formal communication

Franglais

A combination of French and English; or English words & terms that have entered the French language

Swahili

A language spoken by 50-100 million people in Africa that is an official language of five African nations, with proponents who believe it should be used as the common language of Africa

Assimilation

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

Artifact

Any item that represents a material aspect of culture that is tangible; clothing, food, music

Cultural Hearth

Locations on the Earth’s surface where specific cultures first arose

Cultural Landscape

The visible imprint of human activity and culture on the landscape

Ethnic Enclaves

A neighborhood, distract, or suburb which retains some cultural distinction from a larger, surrounding area

Multicultural

Having to do with many cultures

Nativist

An anti-immigrant attitude sometimes bringing violence or government actions against the immigrant or minority