AP Human Geography - Vocab Quiz 1 Unit 3

For Mrs. Yi's class :)

Custom

Traditional, widely accepted way of doing an act. Established practices, behaviors, and rituals.

Indigenous Culture (Local)

When members of an ethnic group reside in their ancestral lands, and typically possess unique cultural traits.

Hierarchical Diffusion

Spread of culture outward from the most interconnected places or from centers of wealth and influence.

Expansion Diffusion

The spread of cultural traits outward through exchange without migration

Space-Time Compression

Shrinking “time-distance” or relative distance between locations because of improved methods of transportation.

Habit

A repetitive act performed by an individual.

Pop Culture (Global)

When cultural traits spread quickly over a large area and are adopted by various groups.

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

A trait diffuses from a group of lower status to a group of higher status.

Contagious Diffusion

When a cultural trait spreads from outward of its hearth through contact among people.

Material Culture

Physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture.

Taboos

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture.

Sequent Occupancy

When ethnic groups move in and out of neighborhoods and create new cultural imprints on the landscape.

Relocation Diffusion

The spread of culture by people who migrate and carry their cultural traits with them.

Stimulus Diffusion

When an underlying idea from a culture hearth is adopted by another culture but the adopting group modifies or rejects one trait.

Sociofacts

Ways people organize their society and relate to one another.

Afro-Asiatic

Relating a family of languages spoken in the Middle East and North Africa.

Creole

Natural language that arises from mixing two or more languages.

Dialect

Variations in accents, grammar use, and spelling.

Denglish

The term used in all German speaking countries to refer to the increasing strong influx of macaronic English or pseudo English.

Ebonics

Dialect spoken by some African Americans

Extinct Languages

A language that no longer has any speakers or native users.

Franglais

A term used by French for English words that entered the French language

Heterogeneous

Society that shares certain habits despite differences in other cultures.

Homogeneous

Quality or state of being all the same or similar in nature.

Ideograms

System of writing used in China and East Asian countries in which each symbol represents an idea or concept rather than a sound.

Indo-European

A large diverse group of related languages that originated from Europe and parts of Asia.

Isogloss

The boundaries between variations in pronunciation and word usage.

Isolated Languages

A language that is unrelated to other languages; not in a language family.

Language

System of communication that consists of sounds, symbols, and gestures to convey thoughts, ideas, and emotions.

Language Branch

A group of languages which share common linguistic and have evolved from a common ancestor. Not as old.

Language Family

Group of related languages that share a common ancestral language long back before recorded history.

Language Group

A collection of languages within a branch that share similar origins.

Lingua Franca

A language that is used as a common means of communication between speakers of different native languages.

Linguists

Scientists who study languages

Romance Languages

The unifying of Latin diverged into dozens of distinct regional languages.

Official Language

One designated by law to be the language of a government (legal).

Pidgin Language

A simplified form of lingua franca used for communication between 2 groups of people that speak different languages.

Sino Tibetan

Major language family that includes languages spoken in China and Tibet.

Spanglish

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 (social)

Swahili

Lingua franca of East Africa, it is a Bantu language.

Acculturation

The adoption of cultural traits such as language by one group under the influence of another.

Assimilation

The process through which people lose originality differentiating traits such as dress, speech, particularities, or mannerism, when they come into contact with another society or culture.

Artifact

Any item that represents a material aspect of culture that are tangible. Ex. Clothing, food, music.

Cultural Convergence

The contact and interaction of one culture to another.

Cultural complex

The group of traits that define a particular culture.

Cultural Divergence

The restriction of culture from outside cultural influences.

Cultural Extinction

Obliteration of an entire culture by war, disease, acculturation, or a combination of the three.

Cultural Geography

The subfield of human geography that looks at how cultures vary over space

Cultural Hearth

Locations on the Earth’s surface where specific cultures first arose

Cultural Imperialism

The dominance of one culture over another.

Cultural Landscape

The visible imprint of human activity and culture.

Cultural Region

An area where groups share similar but not identical cultural traits.

Cultural Relativism

The idea that a person’s beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person’s own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another.

Cultural Trait

The specific customs that are part of the everyday life of a particular culture such as language, religion, ethnicity, social institutions, and aspects of popular culture.

Ethnic Enclave

A neighborhood, district, or suburb which retains some cultural distinction from a larger surrounding area.

Globalization

The process of intensified interaction among peoples, governments, and companies of different countries around the globe.

Mentifacts

Comprise a group’s nonmaterial culture and consist of intangible concepts such as beliefs and values.

Multicultural

Having to do with many cultures.

Multilingualism

Generally understood to mean knowledge of more languages than a native language. It is a language term that moves from monolingualism (knowing one language) beyond bilingualism (knowing two languages) into the realm of knowing many, or multiple languages.

Nativist

An anti-immigrant attitude sometimes bringing violence or government actions against the immigrant or minority.

Perceptual region

A region whose boundaries are determined by people’s beliefs and not a scientifically measurable process.

Syncretic

Traditions that borrow from both the past and the present.

Syncretism

The blending traits from two different cultures to form a new trait.

Tradition

A cohesive collection of customs within a cultural group.