AP Human Geography Mega Vocab Test Study Guide

Acculturation

The process of changes in culture that results from the meeting of two groups, each of which retains distant cultural features.

Assimilation

The process by which a group's cultural features are altered to resemble those of a more dominant group.

Cultural Landscape

An approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.

Custom

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

Folk Culture

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

Habit

A repetitive act performed by a particular individual.

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate.

Maladaptation

A trait that is more harmful than helpful to a culture or society, often a result of cultural diffusion.

Mentifact

The shared ideas, values, and beliefs of a culture.

Popular Culture

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

Sociofact

The structures and organizations of a culture which influence social behavior.

Taboo

A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

Terroir

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

Trait

A single characteristic of a culture, such as language, customs, or artifacts.

Transculturation

The process where cultures influence each other and blend together, leading to the creation of new cultural forms.

Uniform Landscape

A cultural landscape that looks similar regardless of the location due to the spread of popular culture.

Vernacular Region

A cultural region defined by the perceived or informal boundaries that people associate with it.

Creole (creolized language)

A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated.

Denglish

A blend of German and English, often used in casual or humorous contexts.

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, grammar, spelling, and pronunciation.

Ebonics

A dialect spoken by some African Americans.

Ethnologue

A comprehensive reference work cataloging all of the world's known living languages.

Extinct Language

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

Institutional Language

A language used in education, work, mass media, and government.

Isogloss

A boundary that separates regions in which different languages predominate.

Isolated Language

A language that is unrelated to any other languages, 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 ancestral language from before recorded history.

Language Group

A collection of languages within a language branch that share more recent common ancestry and are more closely related.

Lingua Franca

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.

Literary Tradition

A language that is not only spoken but also has a written form

Logogram

A symbol that represents a word rather than a sound.

Official Language

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

Pidgin Language

A simplified language that develops between two groups who do not share a common language, used for communication.

Received Pronunciation (RP)

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

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 spoken in daily life, but lacks a literary tradition.

Vulgar Latin

The form of Latin used in daily conversation by ancient Romans, as opposed to the standard dialect.

Agnosticism

The belief that the existence of God cannot be proven.

Animism

The belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence.

Atheism

The belief that god doesn't exist.

Autonomous Religion

A religion that does not have a central authority but shares ideas and cooperates informally.

Branch

A large and fundamental division within a religion.

Caste

The class or distinct hereditary order into which a Hindu is assigned according to religious law.

Congregation

A group of people who gather together for religious worship.

Cosmogony

A set of religious beliefs concerning the creation of the universe.

Denomination

A division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations into a single legal and administrative body.

Ethnic Religion

A religion with a relatively concentrated spatial distribution whose principles are likely to be based on the physical characteristics of the particular location in which its adherents are concentrated.

Fundamentalism

Literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion.

Ghetto

A part of a city where members of a minority group live, often due to social, economic, or legal pressures.

Hierarchical Religion

The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority to other persons or places.

Intrafaith Boundary

A boundary that divides different branches or denominations within the same religion.

Interfaith Boundary

A boundary that separates different religions from each other.

Missionary

An individual who is sent on a religious mission to promote and spread their faith/universalizing language.

Monotheism

The belief in one God.

Pagan

The word for a follower of a polytheistic religion in ancient times.

Pilgrimage

A religious journey to a sacred site or place.

Polytheism

The belief in multiple gods.

Sect

A relatively small group that has broken away from an established denomination.

Secularism

The principle of separation between religion and the state.

Shamanism

Seeing divinity in all living things, interacting with the supernatural and co-existing with other dimensions.

Solstice

The time when the sun is farthest from the equator, leading to the longest or shortest day of the year.

Syncretic

The blending of cultural elements from different societies to create a new, hybrid cultural practice or belief system

Theocracy

A state whose government is either believed to be divinely guided or a state under the control of a group of religious leaders.

Universalizing Religion

A religion that attempts to appeal to all people.

Apartheid

Laws in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas.

Balkanization

The process by which a state breaks down through conflicts among its ethnicities.

Balkanized

A small geographic area that cannot successfully be organized into stable countries because it is inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, longstanding antagonisms towards each other.

Blockbusting

The process by which real estate agents convince white property owners to sell their house at low prices because of fear that persons of color will soon move into the neighborhood.

Centripetal Force

An attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state.

Ethnic Cleansing

The forced removal or killing of members of an ethnic group to create a homogeneous society.

Ethnicity

Identity with a group of people who share cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth.

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one's own culture or ethnic group is superior to others.

Ethnic Enclave

A place with a high concentration of an ethnic group that is distant from those in the surrounding area.

Genocide

The mass killings of a group of people in an attempt to eliminate an entire group from existence.

Nationalism

A strong sense of pride in and loyalty to one's nation, often accompanied by the desire for political independence.

Nationality

Identity with a group of people who share a legal attachment to a particular country.

Race

A social construct used to categorize people based on physical traits such as skin color.

Racism

The belief that one race is superior to others, leading to discrimination and prejudice based on race.

Sharecropper

A person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.

Triangular Slave Trade

A historical trade system in which enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas, raw materials from the Americas were sent to Europe, and European goods were sold to Africa.