APHUG APR

Alternative fact (alt fact)

A statement that can be proved to be false.

Cultural homogenization

The process of reduction in cultural diversity through the diffusion of popular culture.

Culture

The body of material possessions, customary beliefs, and social norms that together constitute the distinct tradition of a group of people.

Custom

The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act.

Cyber espionage

The unauthorized and clandestine deployment of a computer virus to observe or destroy data in the computer systems of government agencies and large corporations.

Esports

Sports competitions using video games.

Fake news

A false report disseminated under the guise of an authentic news report, created to maliciously spread misinformation and mislead consumers of the content.

Folk culture

Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups.

Franchise

An agreement between a corporation and businesspeople to market that corporation's products in a local area.

Habit

A repetitive act performed by a particular individual.

Malware (malicious software)

Hostile or intrusive computer software designed to cause intentional harm.

Popular culture

Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits and seeks similar material goods despite differences in other personal characteristics.

Ransomware (cryptoviral extortion)

A form of malware that encrypts the victim's computer files, making them inaccessible, until a ransom is paid to decrypt them.

Taboo

A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

Terroir

The contribution of a location's distinctive environment to the way food produced there tastes.

Trolling

The practice of posting deliberately inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in social media in order to provoke quarrels or otherwise upset people.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

A dialect used by some Blacks.

Centrifugal force

A cultural value that tends to pull people apart.

Centripetal force

A cultural value that tends to unify people.

Creole (or creolized) language

A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated.

Denglish

A combination of Deutsch (the German word for German) and English.

Dialect

A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.

Endangered language

A language that is endangered or dying because it is losing users and may not be retained by the younger generation.

Extinct language

A language that was once used by people in daily activities but is no longer used.

Franglais

A combination of français and anglais (the French words for French and English, respectively).

Institutional language

A language used in education, work, mass media, and government.

Isogloss

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

Isolated language

A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family.

Language

A system of communication through speech, movement, sounds, or symbols that a group of people understands to have the same meaning.

Language branch

A collection of languages related through a common ancestor that can be confirmed through archaeological evidence.

Language family

A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.

Language group

A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.

Lingua franca

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.

Literary tradition

A language that is written as well as spoken.

Logogram

A symbol that represents a word rather than a sound.

Mutual intelligibility

The ability of people communicating in two ways to readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort.

Official language

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

Pidgin language

A form of language that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca; used for communications among speakers of two different languages.

Received Pronunciation (RP)

The dialect of English commonly used by politicians, broadcasters, and actors in the United Kingdom.

Spanglish

A combination of Spanish and English spoken by Hispanic Americans.

Stable language

A language that is used for face-to-face communication within all generations, including children.

Standard language

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

Subdialect

A subdivision of a dialect.

Agnosticism

The belief that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven empirically.

Animism

The belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have discrete spirits and conscious life.

Atheism

The belief that God does not exist.

Autonomous religion

A religion that does not have a central authority but shares ideas and cooperates informally.

Branch

A large and fundamental division within a religion.

Caste system

The class or distinct hereditary order into which a Hindu is assigned, according to religious law.

Congregation

A local assembly of persons brought together for common religious worship.

Cosmogony

A set of beliefs concerning the origin of the universe.

Denomination

A division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations into a single legal and administrative body.

Ethnic religion

A religion with a relatively concentrated spatial distribution whose principles are likely to be based on the physical characteristics of the particular location in which its adherents are concentrated.

Monotheism

The doctrine of or belief in the existence of only one God.

Pilgrimage

A journey to a place considered sacred for religious purposes.

Polytheism

Belief in or worship of more than one god.

Fundamentalism

Literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion (or a religious branch, denomination, or congregation).

Ghetto

During the Middle Ages, a neighborhood in a city set up by law to be inhabited only by Jews; now used to denote a section of a city in which members of any minority group live because of social, legal, or economic discrimination.

Hierarchical religion

A religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control.

Lunar calendar

A calendar with months that correspond to cycles of moon phases.

Lunisolar calendar

A calendar with lunar months that are brought into alignment with the solar year through some process.

Missionary

An individual who helps to diffuse a universalizing religion.

Solar calendar

A calendar that relates to the season or the apparent position of the sun in relation to the stars.

Solstice

An astronomical event that happens twice each year, when the tilt of Earth's axis is most inclined toward or away from the Sun, causing the Sun's apparent position in the sky to reach its northernmost or southernmost extreme, and resulting in the shortest and longest days of the year.

Syncretic

Combining several religious traditions.

Universalizing religion

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

Utopian settlement

A community built around an ideal way of life, often based on a religion.

Apartheid

Laws (no longer in effect) in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas.

Black Lives Matter (BLM)

Movement that campaigns against violence and perceived racism toward Blacks and educates others about the challenges that Black Americans continue to face in the United States.

Blockbusting

A deceptive business tactic whereby real estate agents convince White property owners to sell their houses at low prices by warning that persons of color will soon move into the neighborhood and cause a significant fall in housing prices.

Ethnic cleansing

A purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.

Ethnicity

Identity with a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth.

Ethnophobia

Fear of people of a particular ethnicity.

Genocide

The mass killing of a group of people in an attempt to eliminate the entire group from existence.

Nationalism

Loyalty and devotion to a particular nationality.

Nationality

Identity with a group of people who share legal attachment to a particular country.

Race

Identity with a group of people who are perceived to share a physical trait, such as skin color.

Racism

The belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

Racist

A person who subscribes to the beliefs of racism.

Redlining

A process by which financial institutions draw red-colored lines on a map and refuse to lend money for people to purchase or improve property within the lines.

Sharecropper

A person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays the loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.

Social construction

An idea or a meaning that is widely accepted as natural by a society but may not represent a reality shared by those outside the society.

Triangular slave trade

A practice, primarily during the eighteenth century, in which European ships transported enslaved people from Africa to Caribbean islands, molasses from the Caribbean to Europe, and trade goods from Europe to Africa.

Xenophobia

Fear of people who are from other countries.