Cultural Geography

Toponym

Name given to a place on Earth.

Cultural Diffusion

The spread of cultural beliefs and social activities to another group.

Stimulus Diffusion

The spread of an underlying principle even when a specific characteristic fails.

Folk Culture

Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group in relative isolation.

Cultural Landscape

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

Lingua Franca

A language mutually understood and used for trade by speakers of different languages.

Creolized Language

A language resulting from the mixing of a colonizer's language with an indigenous tongue.

Hierarchical Diffusion

The spread of a trend from a node of power to other places.

Taboo

A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

Cultural Convergence

The interaction and assimilation of different cultures as they come closer together.

Monotheistic Religion

A religion that believes in the existence of only one God.

Religious Hearth

The place of origin of a major religion.

Friction of Distance

The reduction in interaction between two objects due to increasing distance.

Cultural Appropriation

The inappropriate adoption of elements from a minority culture by a dominant culture.

Dialect

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

Acculturation

The adoption of certain traits of another culture while retaining one's own.

Assimilation

The complete absorption of a minority culture into a dominant cultural group.

Popular Culture

Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society sharing habits despite differences.

Ethnocentrism

Judging another culture solely by the standards of one's own culture.

Cultural Relativism

The practice of judging a culture by its own standards, not yours.