AP HUMAN GEO 3.4-3.8

What are cultural hearths?

Original sources of culture from which cultural traits spread.

What is diffusion in a cultural context?

The spreading of information, ideas, behaviors, and other aspects of culture over wider areas.

What is relocation diffusion?

Spread of a cultural trait by people who migrate and carry their cultural traits with them.

Give an example of relocation diffusion.

Pizza was brought to the USA by Italian immigrants in the 1800s.

What is expansion diffusion?

Spread of cultural traits through direct or indirect exchange without migration.

What is contagious diffusion?

When cultural traits spread continuously outward from their hearth through contact among people.

Provide an example of contagious diffusion.

Blues music.

What is hierarchical diffusion?

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

How does hierarchical diffusion differ from contagious diffusion?

Hierarchical diffusion may skip some places while moving to others.

What is reverse hierarchical diffusion?

Processes in which a trait diffuses from a lower class to a higher class.

Give an example of reverse hierarchical diffusion.

Tattoos.

What is stimulus diffusion?

Occurs when people adopt an underlying idea from another culture but modify it because they reject one trait.

What are some barriers to diffusion?

Cultural, economic, political, and environmental differences.

Define colonialism.

The establishment and maintenance of political and legal domination by a state over a separate and alien society.

What is imperialism?

Extension of the power of a nation through direct or indirect control of the economic and political life of other territories.

What does cultural convergence refer to?

Cultures interact, becoming more similar and adopting one another’s ideas and innovations.

What is cultural divergence?

When conflicting beliefs or barriers cause cultures to become less similar.

What does diaspora mean?

A scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic locale.

What is acculturation?

Cultural modification that results when one group adopts traits of a dominant society.

What is assimilation?

The process through which people lose distinguishing traits when coming into contact with another culture.

Define syncretism.

Fusion of old and new cultural elements.

What does multiculturalism advocate for?

Recognition of cultural, racial, and ethnic differences within a dominant culture.

What is cultural appropriation?

The adoption of elements of one culture by members of another culture.

What is time-space compression?

Advancements in technology that make distant places feel closer and increase interaction.

What is a standard language?

A well-established language recognized for government, business, and education.

What is an official language?

A language designated by law to be the language of government.

What does homogenous mean?

Composed largely of ethnically similar people.

What characterizes multilingual countries?

Countries that have several large ethnic groups with different languages.

What are language families?

The largest group of languages that share a common hearth.

What are language branches?

Groups of languages that share a common origin and may show grammar or structure similarities.

What is a language group?

Languages within a branch that share a common ancestor in the relatively recent past.

What is a language tree?

A diagram showing the relationships among language families.

Provide examples of Romance languages.

Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Romansch.

What is an isogloss?

The geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature.

What role did colonialism play in language diffusion?

It facilitated the spread of languages through conquest and governance.

What is a lingua franca?

A common language used by people who do not share the same native language.

What is a pidgin language?

A simplified version of two languages with fewer grammar rules or words.

Give an example of a creole language.

Afrikaans, which combines Dutch with several European and African languages.

What is unique about the Basque language?

It is a language isolate with no known connections to other languages.