Human Geography Unit 3

Culture trait

Features of a culture (language, clothing, religion, etc)

• Often a learned trait

Culture complex

The combination of related traits that identify a specific culture group

Examples of culture traits:

• How people dress

• Language

• Material culture

• Artifacts (utensils, furniture, etc)

• Skills

• Vaules

• Fine arts

• Attitude towards the unknown

• Social institutions (like government)

Diffusion

The distribution or spreading of a culture and/or culture trait

How many types of diffusion (and what are they!)

4

1. Relocation diffusion

2. 1Expansion diffusion

3. Hierarchical diffusion

4. Contagious diffusion

Relocation diffusion

People relocating and bringing culture complexes with them

Physical relocation —> transplanted culture

Expansion diffusion

Culture remains in original location but spreads out

Hierarchical diffusion

Diffusion that moves from large or powerful to weaker or smaller items

Contagious diffusion

Similar to expansive diffusion

BUT

Involves rapid and invasive diffusion of a trait through a culture group

(moves through all levels of a group all at once)

Acculturation

A process where a culture is changed because it has adapted traits or complexes from a different culture group

The change that results from two culture groups coming into contact with one another

Assimilation

Where an immigrant culture gradually adopts the language, beliefs, and behaviors of the host culture, gradually causing the immigrant culture to lose their own original culture identity

Syncretism

The acquired culture traits mix with the original traits to form a blend of culture traits

Culture regions

Areas where a social group possesses all the behaviors and structures that identify it as a culture group

Culture realms

Largest culture regions

Cultural differences

Broad categories or themes that geographers study such as a language or religion

Language families

Groups of languages that are very similar and have developed from an original parent language

• Example: indo-european

• greek, german, russian, hindi, urdu, spanish, etc

Migration

People moving from one place to another

Dialects

How a language is used in different regions

Distribution

How language families spread and develop

Pidgin languages

When two cultures with different languages meet and a language is made up of both with made up words and simplified grammar to let both communicate

Competition

When 2 languages exist in the same area, they often compete for dominance. The smaller one disappears and with it clues od human cultural history

Toponymy

The study of place names

Emile Durkhein

Argued that totemism (belief that humans have a relationship with a spirit being like an animal) was the beginning of all other forms of religion

Wrote “The Elementsry Forms of Religious Life”

• Many use to decide what state of religious development a particular culture is in

Two categories of religion

Universalizing and ethnic

Universalizing Religion

Attempts to gain people regardless of location or previous culture identity through missionary efforts

Examples: christianity, Islam, buddhism

Ethnic religions

Remian in their own culture group and doesn’t intentionally spread

Example: zoroastrianism and Judaism

Ethnic group

Not the same as a racial group (but often connected)

Believed to revolve around a culture group’s location, territory, or national origin

Folk culture

Beliefs and customs of a cultural group that is relatively isolated from the influences of other culitre groups

Popular culture

Customs and beliefs that arise with a culture realm that is made up of a variety of culture groups

Cultural landscape

The natural landscape that has been reforms as an effect of human culture groups