APHG Unit 3 Vocab

Culture

All of a group's learned behaviors, actions, beliefs, and objects

Cultural Traits

Elements of culture that can be both visible and invisible

Cultural Complex

A series of interrelated traits

Cultural Hearth

The area in which a unique culture or a specific trait develops

Taboos

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture

Traditional Culture

Passing down long-held beliefs, values, and practices and are generally resistant to rapid changes in their culture

Popular Culture

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

Material Culture

Tangible things that include artifacts

Nonmaterial Culture

Intangible concepts, or those that do not have a physical presence. Includes mentifacts

Cultural Landscape

Built environment; The modification of the environment by a group and is a visible reflection of that group's cultural beliefs and values

Ethnicity

Membership within a group of people who have common experiences and share similar characteristics, such as ancestry, language, customs, and history

Ethnic Enclaves

Clusters of people of the same culture that are often surrounded by people of the dominant culture in the region

Cultural Regions

Regions determined based on characteristics such as religion, language, and ethnicity

Culture Realms

Larger areas that include several regions with a few culture traits they all share

Sacred Places

Specific places and natural features that have religious significance

Ethnocentric

People that believe their own cultural group is more important and superior to other cultures

Cultural Relativism

The concept that a person's or group's beliefs, values, norms, and practices should be understood from the perspective of the other group's culture

Cultural Appropriation

The action of adopting traits, icons, or other elements of another culture

Diffusion

The spread of information, ideas, behaviors, and other aspects of culture from their hearths to wider areas

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

Hierarchical Diffusion

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

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

A trait diffuses from a group of higher status

Stimulus Diffusion

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

Lingua Franca

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

Pidgin Language

A simplified mixture of two languages

Creole Language

Overtime, as two or more separate languages can mix and develop a more formal structure and vocabulary they create a new combined language

Social Constructs

Ideas, concepts, or perceptions that have been created and accepted by people in a society or social group and are not created by nature

Cultural Divergence

The idea that a culture may change over time as the elements of distance, time, physical separation, and modern technology create divisions and changes

Language Tree

The relationship among language families that suggests how several languages are related to each other, as well as how one language grows out of another

Indo-European Language Family

A large group of languages that might have descended from a language spoken around 6,000 years ago

Dialects

Variations in accent, grammar usage, and spelling; Regional variations of a language

Official Language

A language designated by law to be the language of the government

Ethnic Religions

Belief traditions that emphasize strong cultural characteristics among their followers. Followers are born or adopted into it

Universal Religions

Actively seeks converts to its faith regardless of their ethnic backgrounds

Hinduism

An ethnic religion that originated in India.

Buddhism

A universalizing religion that originated in India

Sikhism

A relatively new universalizing religion that originated in India and Pakistan

Judaism

An ethnic religion that began in the Middle East. The first of the Abrahamic religions.

Christianity

An Abrahamic universalizing religion that began with the teachings of Jesus

Islam

An Abrahamic universalizing religion that began with teachings from a series of prophets with Muhammad being the last

Acculturation

When an ethnic or immigrant group moving to a new area adopts the values and practices of the larger group that has received them while still maintaining valuable elements of their own culture.

Assimilation

Happens when an ethnic group can no longer be distinguished from the receiving group

Syncretism

The fusion or blending of two distinctive cultural traits into a unique new hybrid trait

Multiculturalism

The coexistence of several cultures in one society with the ideal of all cultures being valued and worthy of study

Nativism

Anti-immigrant attitudes