Chapter 7: Geographies of Culture and Landscape

Why has our culture tended to have the unfortunate consequences?

- Our world is divided, mainly due to differences in culture.
- By culture, we mean the human ability to develop ideas from experiences and subsequently act on the basis of those ideas.
- One task humans may choose to tackle is to create new sets of values - in effect, to re-engineer ourselves.

For determining cultural regions what points are to be kept in mind?

- Criteria for inclusion, that is, the defining characteristic.
- Date or time period (since these regions change over time).
- Spatial scale
- Boundary lines

Why are North American Regions easy to subdivide?

This is because the development of its contemporary cultural regions is recent enough that we are able to trace their origins.

According to historians how are world regional cultures classified as?

- Abortive and surviving.
- Some as “arrested” because of their overspecialized response to a difficult environment; left them unable either to expand into different regions or to cope with environmental change.
-Some as; Western Christendom, Orthodox Christendom, the Russian offshoot of Orthodox -Christendom, Islamic culture, Hindu culture, Chinese culture, and the Japanese offshoot of -Chinese culture - (named after religion).
-And the most important feature as; manner in which it has responded to the environment.

What are the problems associated with scaptial scale?

Problems associated with scaptial scale are:
-The larger the area to be divided, the more likely it is that the regions identified will be either too numerous or too superficial to be helpful.
-Like regionalizations based on physical variables, cultural regionalizations are more appropriately seen as useful classifications than as insightful applications of geographic methods.

What is meant by vernacular regions?

Vernacular region can formally defined as the region perceived to exist by those living there and/or by people elsewhere. Such regions are most clearly characterized by a sense of place.

What are basic similarities between all cultures?

Similarities are; all need to obtain food and shelter and to reproduce—they differ in the methods used to achieve those goals.

How are cultural region or landscapes divided into three areas?

- Core (the hearth area of the culture),
- Domain (the area where the culture is dominant),
- And sphere (the outer fringe),
- And cultural identity decreases with increasing distance from the core.

What is cultural diffusion?

Can be best described as the process of spread in geographic space and of growth through time.

Why are languages disappearing?

- Language with few speakers tends to be associated with low social status and economic disadvantage, so those who do speak it may not teach it to their children.
- Globalization depends on communication between previously separate groups, it is becoming essential for more and more people to speak a major language such as English or Chinese.

What are some mixed reactions to disappearance of language?

- To some it represents culture loss and is just as serious a threat as loss of biodiversity.
- Loss of languages is also an important practical issue because most languages include detailed knowledge—about local environments and culture and lifestyle of people living in the era.
- Others see the loss of linguistic diversity as a sign of increasing human unity.

How are languages spread?

- Migration
- When people find that speaking a particular language is benefit to their economic.
- Language is associated with a culture that is in some way impressive, perhaps in military,
artistic, economic, or religious terms.

Why are places named?

- In order to understand and give meaning to landscape - landscape without names is like individuals without names.
- Naming places probably serves an important psychological need—to name is to know and control, to remove uncertainty about the landscape.

Mention a few religiously recognized regions.

- Israel for Jews,
- All of India for some Hindu fundamentalists,
- Saudi Arabia (Mecca and Madinah) for muslims,
- Palestine for Christians.