Ch 3: Cultural Patterns and Processes Vocab Flashcards
Acculturation
The adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.
Animism
Most prevalent in Africa and the Americas, doctrine in which the world is seen as being infused with spiritual and even supernatural powers.
Artifact
Any item that represents a material aspect of culture.
Buddhism
System of belief that seeks to explain ultimate realities for all people—such as the nature of suffering and the path toward self-realization.
Caste System
System in India that gives every Indian a particular place in the social hierarchy from birth. Individuals may improve the position they inherit in the caste system in their next life through their actions, or karma. After many lives of good karma, they may be relieved from the cycle of life and win their place in heaven.
Christianity
The world’s most widespread religion. Christianity is a monotheistic, universal religion that uses missionaries to expand its members worldwide. The three major categories of Christianity are Roman Catholic, Protestant, and eastern Orthodox.
Creole
A pidgin language that evolves to the point at which it becomes the primary language of the people who speak it.
Cultural Complex
The group of traits that define a particular culture.
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 Hearths
Locations on the Earth’s surface where specific cultures first arose.
Cultural Imperialism
The dominance of one culture over another.
Cultural Relativism
Understanding a culture on its own terms rather than judging it by the standards or customs of one’s own culture.
Cultural Traits
The specific customs that are part of the everyday life of a particular culture, such as language, ideology, behavior, technology, and government.
Culture
A total way of life held in common by a group of people, including learned features such as language, ideology, behavior, technology, and government.
Customs
Practices followed by the people of a particular cultural group.
Denomination
A particular religious group, usually associated with differing Protestant belief systems.
Dialects
Geographically distinct versions of a single language that vary somewhat from the parent form.
Diaspora
People who come from a common ethnic background but who live in different regions outside of the home of their ethnicity.
Ecumene
The proportion of the Earth inhabited by humans.
Environmental Determinism
A doctrine that claims that cultural traits are formed and controlled by environmental conditions.
Esperanto
A constructed international auxiliary language incorporating aspects of numerous linguistic traditions to create a universal means of communication.
Ethnic Cleansing
The systematic attempt to remove all people of a particular ethnicity from a country or region either by forced migration or genocide.
Ethnic Neighborhood
An area within a city containing members of the same ethnic background.
Ethnic Religion
Religion that is identified with a particular ethnic or tribal group and that does not seek new converts.
Ethnicity
Refers to a group of people who share a common identity.
Ethnocentrism
An evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions of one’s own cultural standards and traditions.
Evangelical Religion
Religion in which an effort is made to spread a particular belief system.
Fundamentalism
The strict adherence to a particular doctrine.
Gender Inequality Index
A United Nations index, introduced in 2010, which measures a country’s loss of achievement due to gender inequality, based on reproductive health, employment, and general empowerment.
Genocide
A premeditated effort to kill everyone from a particular ethnic group.
Ghetto
A segregated ethnic area within a city.
Global Religion
Religion in which members are numerous and widespread and whose doctrines might appeal to different people from any region of the globe.
Hinduism
A cohesive and unique society, most prevalent in India, that integrates spiritual beliefs with daily practices and official institutions such as the caste system.
Indigenous Culture
Refers to a constellation of cultural practices that form the sights, smells, sounds, and rituals of everyday existence in the traditional societies in which they are developed.
Indo-European
Language family containing the Germanic and Romance languages that includes languages spoken by about 50% of the words people.
Islam
A monotheistic religion based on the belief that there is one God, Allah, and that Muhammad was Allah’s prophet. Islam is based in the ancient city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Muhammad.
Isoglosses
Geographical boundary lines were different linguistic features meet.
Judaism
The first major monotheistic religion. It is based on a sense of ethnic identity, and its adherents tend to form tight-knit communities where they live.
Language Extinction
This occurs when a language is no longer in use by any living people. thousands of languages have become extinct over the eons since language first developed, but the process of language extinction has accelerated greatly during the past 300 years.
Language Family
A collection of many languages, all of which came from the same original tongue long ago, that have since evolved different characteristics.
Language Group
A set of languages with a relatively recent common origin and many similar characteristics.
Literacy
The ability to read and write.
Local Culture
A set of common experiences or customs that shapes the identity of a place and the people who live there. Local cultures are often the subjects of preservation or economic development efforts.
Local Religions
Religions that are spiritually bound to particular regions.
Minority
A racial or ethnic group smaller than and differing from the majority race or ethnicity in a particular area or region.
Missionary
A person of a particular faith who travels in order to recruit new members into the faith represented
Monotheism
The worship of only one god.
Multicultural
Having to do with many cultures.
Official Language
Language in which all government business occurs in a country.
Pidgin
Language that may develop when two groups of people with different languages meet. The pidgin has some characteristics of each language.
Pilgrimage
A journey to a place of religious importance.
Polyglot
A multilingual state
Pop Culture
Dynamic culture based in large, heterogeneous societies permitting considerable individualism, innovation, and change; having a money-based economy, division of labor into professions, secular institutions of control, and weak interpersonal ties; and producing and consuming machine made goods.
Race
A group of human beings distinguished by physical traits, blood types, genetic code patterns, or genetically inherited characteristics.
Romance Languages
Any of the languages derived from Latin, including Italian, Spanish, French and Romanian.
Sino-Tibetan
Language area that spreads through most of Southeast Asia and China and comprises Chinese, Burmese, Tibetan, Japaneses and Korean.
Stimulus Diffusion
When a specific cultural element is diffused to another culture that gives it a new and unique form.
Syncretic
Traditions that borrow from both the past and present.
Toponyms
Place names given to certain features on the land, such as settlements, terrain features, and streams.
Tradition
A cohesive collection of customs within a cultural group.
Transculturation
The expansion of cultural traits through diffusion, adoption, and other related processes.
Universalizing Religion
Religion that seeks to unite people from all over the globe
