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Long-Lot Settlement Pattern
A linear settlement pattern in which each farmstead is situated at one end of a long, narrow rectangular lot; each lot has access to a major linear resource, usually a river or a major road.
Material Culture
The physical, visible objects made and used by members of a cultural group; includes buildings, furniture, clothing, food, artwork, and musical instruments.
Nonmaterial Culture
Intangible elements of culture including a wide range of beliefs, values, myths, and symbolic meanings passed from generation to generation within a given society.
Cultural Trait
A single aspect of a given culture or society.
Local Culture
Rural, ethnically homogenous culture that is deeply connected to the local land; the opposite of a popular culture.
Indigenous Culture
A local culture that is no longer the dominant ethnic group within its traditional homeland because of migration, colonization, or political marginalization.
Popular Culture
Heterogeneous culture that is more influenced by key urban areas and quick to adopt new technologies; the opposite of a local culture.
Cultural Attitudes
Concepts and ideas in a society that are shaped by cultural opinions, beliefs, and perspectives.
Language
A mutually agreed-upon system of symbolic communication.
Polyglot
A person who is fluent in more than two languages.
Religion
A structured set of beliefs and practices through which people seek mental and physical harmony with the powers of the universe.
Ethnic Group
A people of common ancestry and cultural tradition; characterized by a strong feeling of group identity.
Race
Historically defined by the physical characteristics of a group, especially skin color.
Ethnic Geography
The study of the spatial aspects of ethnicity.
Multiculturalism
A set of policies that promote the active participation and inclusion of minority groups in national histories, national politics, and cultural institutions with the goal of embracing difference within society.
Ethnocentric Approach
An approach to understanding other cultures that evaluates them from the perspective of the observer's culture.
Cultural Relativism
An approach to understanding other cultures that seeks to understand individuals and cultures from a wider perspective of cultural logic.
Physical Landscape
All the natural physical surroundings that create and shape the places we are living in or examining.
Placelessness
The feeling resulting from the standardization of the built environment; occurs where local distinctiveness is erased and many places end up with similar cultural landscapes.
Modernist Architecture
A functional, rational, and orderly style for building designs.
Postmodern Architecture
A design style that is a reaction against modernist architecture; it has a flair for the dramatic, creating a spectacle while serving a variety of functions.
Sequent Occupance
Refers to the fact that many places have been controlled or affected by a variety of groups over a period of time; those groups have reshaped the functions or meanings of those places and left behind layers of meaning.
Sacred Spaces
Natural or human-made sites that possess religious meaning and are recognized as worthy of devotion, loyalty, fear, or esteem.
Secular
Less influenced or controlled by religion.
Subculture
A group of people with distinct norms, values, and material practices that differentiate them from the dominant culture surrounding them.
Sense of Place
The distinctive feeling of a place, or a person's perception of place.
Placemaking
Efforts to use and design public places to better serve the needs of residents and to foster a stronger community.
Centripetal Force
A force that brings people together and unifies a neighborhood, society, or country.
Centrifugal Force
A force that threatens the cohesion of a neighborhood, society, or country.
Secularization
The process whereby religion become a less dominant force in everyday life than it was in the past.
Absorbing Barriers
Barriers that completely halt diffusion.
Permeable Barriers
Barriers that slow diffusion, but still allow some partial or weakened diffusion.
Pidgin
A trade language, characterized by a very small vocabulary derived from the languages of at least two or more groups in contact.
Creole
A combined language that has a fuller vocabulary than a pidgin language and becomes a native language.
Creolization
The linguistic process where languages converge and create new languages and forms of communication.
Lingua Franca
A language of communication and commerce spoken across a wide area where it is not a mother tongue.
Bilingualism
The ability to speak two languages fluently.
Empire
A sovereign political entity that seek to expand beyond their origin land to control more territory politically and/or economically.
Imperialism
The motivating impulse to control greater amounts of territory.
Colonization
The act of forcefully controlling a foreign territory, which becomes known as a colony.
Genocide
The systematic killing of members of a racial, ethnic, or linguistic group.
Time-Space Convergence
The phenomenon whereby the introduction of new transportation technologies progressively reduces the time it takes to travel between places.
Endangered Language
A language that is not taught to children by their parents and is not used actively in everyday matters.
Extinct Language
A language that has only a few elderly speakers still living or no living speakers.
Convergence Hypothesis
The idea that cultures are converging, or becoming more alike.
Globalization
Adapting global practices to fit local cultural practices and preferences.
Culture Hearth
A focused geographic area where important innovations are born and from which they spread.
Language Family
A group of related languages that share a common ancestry.
Dialect
A regional variation of a language that is understood by people who speak other variations of that language.
Accent
A way of pronouncing words.
Monotheistic
Relating to the belief in only one god.
Universalizing Religion
A religion that actively seeks new members and believes its message has universal importance and application.
Ethnic Religion
A religion identified with a particular ethnic or tribal group that does not seek converts.
Proselytic
Describing a religion that spreads its message to others through missionary work.
Toponyms
The names given to places.
Generic Toponym
The generic part of a place-name, often a suffix or prefix, such as -ville in Louisville.
Polytheistic
Relating to the belief in many gods.
Animistic Religion
A faith that subscribes to the idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans, but also in animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, and other entities of the natural environment.
Acculturation
Occurs when an ethnic or immigrant group adopts enough of the ways of the host society to be able to function economically and socially.
Assimilation
Occurs when an ethnic or immigrant group blends in with the host culture and loses many culturally distinctive traits.
Transculturation
The notion that people adopt elements of other cultures as well as contribute elements of their own culture, thereby transforming both cultures.
Syncretism
The blending of beliefs, ideas, practices, and traits, especially in a religious context.
Syncretic Religion
Religion that combines elements of two or more different belief systems.
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