Unit 3 APHUG Vocab

Cultural complex

A combination of related cultural traits, such as prevailing dress and food habits.

Culture hearths

The regions from which innovative ideas, customs, and crafts originate.

Traditional culture

Customs and practices passed down through generations, often in rural or close-knit communities.

Indigenous culture

Culture originating naturally in a particular place by its original inhabitants.

Cultural landscape

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

Mentifacts

Ideas, beliefs, and values that build a culture's belief system.

Sociofacts

Structures and organizations that influence social behavior and institutional interactions.

Placelessness

The loss of unique local features in favor of standardized, uniform landscapes.

Diaspora

The dispersion of a group of people from their original homeland.

Charter group

The first dominant settlement group to establish a lasting cultural imprint.

Sequent occupancy

The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place.

Neolocalism

A conscious effort to re-embrace traditional regional culture and localize identity.

Cultural patterns

Behavior and practices shared across a distinct group of people.

Ethnicity

Identity with a group of people sharing cultural traditions of a homeland or hearth.

Centripetal forces

Forces that tend to unify a country and bind its people together.

Centrifugal forces

Forces that tend to divide a country and pull people apart.

Fundamentalism

A strict and literal adherence to a set of basic religious or cultural principles.

Cultural relativism

The practice of assessing a culture by its own standards rather than another's.

Cultural appropriation

The unacknowledged adoption of the customs of a minority group by a dominant culture.

Contagious diffusion

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout a population.

Hierarchical diffusion

The spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority to other places.

Reverse hierarchical diffusion

The spread of a trait from small or remote places to larger urban centers.

Animism

The belief that non-human entities possess a spiritual essence.

Lingua franca

A language mutually understood and used for trade by people with different native tongues.

Pidgin language

A simplified form of speech developed from two or more languages for basic communication.

Creole language

A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with an indigenous language.

Social constructs

Ideas or concepts created and accepted by the people in a society.

Time-space convergence

The reduction in the time it takes to travel between places due to technology.

Cultural convergence

The tendency for cultures to become more alike as they increasingly interact.

Cultural divergence

The likelihood or tendency for cultures to become increasingly dissimilar over time.

Linguists

Scholars who study the structure, history, and development of human language.

Indo-European Language family

A large language family spoken across Europe and parts of South and Southwest Asia.

Isoglosses

Geographical boundaries separating regions where different linguistic variants are used.

Toponyms

Place names given to certain features on the Earth's surface.

Adherents

People who support or follow a particular religious belief or philosophy.

Ethnic religions

Religions focused on a particular ethnic group that generally do not seek converts.

Universal religion

A religion that attempts to appeal to all people, regardless of location or culture.

Hinduism

A major world religion originating on the Indian subcontinent, emphasizing dharma and reincarnation.

Karma

The sum of a person's actions in this and previous lives, deciding their fate.

Caste system

A rigid social stratification system historically prominent in Hindu society.

Buddhism

A path of practice and spiritual development emphasizing the elimination of suffering and desire.

Sikhism

A monotheistic religion founded in Punjab, India, emphasizing equality and honest work.

Homogenization

The process of making things uniform or similar, often reducing cultural diversity.

Acculturation

The adoption of behavioral and cultural traits of a host culture by a minority group.

Assimilation

The complete blending of an ethnic group into the host society, losing distinct cultural traits.

Syncretism

The blending of different religious or cultural beliefs and practices into a new form.