APGH Language and Folk culture

acculturation

The process of adjustment to the dominant culture.

assimilation

The process of giving up cultural traditions and adopting the social customs of the dominant culture of a place.

custom

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

folk culture

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

habit

A repetitive act performed by a particular individual.

popular culture

Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics.

taboo

A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

terroir

The contribution of a location's distinctive physical features to the way food tastes.

creole

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).

developing language

A language spoken in daily use with a literary tradition that is not widely distributed.

dialect

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

ebonics

A dialect spoken by some African Americans.

extinct language

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

franglais

A combination of francais 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 the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people 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.

official language

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

pidgin language

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

received pronunciation

The dialect of English associated with upper-class Britons living in London and now considered standard in the United Kingdom.

spanglish

A combination of Spanish and English spoken by Hispanic Americans.

standard language

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

subdialect

A subdivision of a dialect.

vigorous language

A language that is spoken in daily use but lacks a literary tradition.

vulgar latin

A form of Latin used in daily conversation by ancient Romans, as opposed to the standard dialect, which was used for official documents.