Vocabulary

Cultural Geography
Acculturation: Cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to
or borrowing traits from another culture
Artifacts: The process by which someone acquires the characteristics of a group (ex.
Immigrants who come to America and become Americans)
Assimilation: The process by which a person or persons acquire the social and
psychological characteristics of a group (ex. Immigrants into America)
Cultural adaptation: The processes of less dominant cultures losing their culture to a
more dominant one
Cultural core/periphery pattern: Core-periphery idea that the core culture is the
main economic power of region and the outlying region has lesser economic ties
Cultural ecology: The study of human adaptations to social and physical
environments. (ex. Studying how a population changes to survive and reproduce in
an environment)
Cultural identity: Identity of a group or individual that is influenced by belonging to a
specific group of people
Cultural landscape: A geographic area that includes both cultural and natural
resources associated with a historic event, activity or culture. Includes a visible
imprint of human activity on a landscape (ex. State parks)
Cultural realm: Distinct traditions, beliefs and social life brought or controlled by the
leaders of a group or culture
Culture: The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement
regarded collectively (ex. Harlem)
Culture region: An area inhabited by people who have one or more cultural traits in
common (ex. Reservations)
Innovators: A person who introduces new methods, ideas or products (ex. Bill Gates
of Microsoft)
Majority adopters: Those who eventually use a new product/adopt a new idea
around the time when the majority of people do
Laggards: Those who use/adopt much later than usual
Mentifacts: Describe how cultural traits take on a life of their own spanning over
generations and eventually conceived as objects themselves (ex. religion)
Sequent Occupance: Idea that successful societies leave their cultural imprints on a
place each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape. Change in geography
of a place but in the same location (ex. English taking over America and creating
societies)
Sociofact: How people organize their society and relate (ex. Family structure)
Folk & Popular Culture
Built environment: A material, spatial, and cultural product of human labor that
combines physical elements and energy in forms for living, working and playing.
The human-made space in which people live, work, and recreate on a day-to-day
basis
Folk culture: Unifying, expressive components of everyday life as enacted by
localized, tradition-bound groups (ex. Mormons)

Folk food: Food that is traditionally made by the common people of a region and
forms part of their culture (ex. Sweet bread)
Folk house: Houses that reflect the cultural heritage, current fashion, functional
needs, and impact of the environment (ex. Pueblos)
Folk songs: Songs composed anonymously and transmitted orally. Usually derived
from events in daily life and are familiar to the majority of the people. It tells a story
or conveys information about daily activities or mysterious events (ex. songs Native
Americans use to tell their history)
Folklore: Unwritten lore (stories, proverbs, riddles, songs) of a culture (ex. Native
Americans stories)
Material culture: Objects of natural or cultural significance (ex. cars, monuments)
Nonmaterial culture: Abstract or non-tangible creations of society that influence
behavior (ex. religion, political views)
Placelessness: Places that lack a "sense of place". They have no spatial relationship
to the places in which they are located
Popular culture: Totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, images and other
phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the
mainstream of a given culture (ex. Western culture during the late 20th century)
Geography of Religion
Polytheism vs. Monotheism: Polytheism is a religion that worships more than one
God, monotheism is a religion that worships one God (ex. Ancient Greeks were
polytheistic, Christians are monotheistic)
Universalizing vs. Ethnic Religions: Universalizing religions seek to convert others to
their religion and to operate on a global scale. Ethnic religions are generally specific
to one group of people living in one place (ex. Christianity is an universalizing
religion, many of the religions of African tribes are ethnic)
Animism: The attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects and natural
phenomena (ex. a person who believes that all natural objects have souls and a
supernatural power controls the universe)
Hinduism: A major religious cultural tradition of south Asia, worships many gods and
believes that after you die you return to life in a different form
Buddhism: A path of practice and spiritual development leading to insight into the
true nature of reality. Buddhist practice meditation and believe in changing yourself
in order to develop the qualities of awareness, kindness, and wisdom
Judaism: A religion developed among ancient Hebrews and characterized by belief
in one God who revealed himself to the prophets
Christianity: Religion with the belief in one God and based on the person and
teachings of Jesus, and his believes and practices
Islam: A religion in which people worship one God and follow the Koran
Eastern Religions Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto: Confucianism is a system of
ethics, education and statesmanship stressing love for humanity, ancestor worship,
reverence for parents and harmony. Taoism is a Chinese philosophy that advocates
a simple and natural life, emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. Shinto is a
Japanese religion incorporating the worship of ancestors and nature spirits and
belief in sacred power
Freedom of Religion vs. Separation of Church & State: Freedom of Religion means
that people have the right to practice whatever religion they choose. Separation of
Church and State says that government must remain neutral towards religion (ex.
expressed in the first amendment of the United States)

Theocracy: A government influenced by and run based on religion (ex. Iran)

Societal impacts of religion: Causes conflict in areas where multiple religions aren't
tolerated (ex. Middle East,) influences beliefs and values of everyone, including
leaders and prominent political figures, no matter what religion they have.
Ultimately religion affects everyone
Syncretism: Merging (or attempting to merge) different religions, cultures or schools
of thought (ex. US)
Secularization: Historical process in which religion loses social and cultural
significance. The role of religion in modern societies becomes restricted (ex.
America & the separation of Church and State)
Fundamentalism: A form of religion, especially Islam or Protestant that upholds the
belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture (ex. nuns and monks)
Landscapes of the dead: Designated areas where people are commonly buried/have
all been buried always (ex. cemetery)
Sharia law: Legal framework within which public (and some private) aspects of life
are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Muslim principles (ex. Rule
of Halal)
Fatwa: A ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority (ex. There
was a fatwa issued that concerned observing a fast during Ramadan)
Madrasa: A college for Islamic instruction (ex. Al Akhawayne Ifrane School of
Humanitites and Social Sciences)
Geography of Language
Language: Method of communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use
of words in a structured and conventional way (ex. English, French, Spanish, etc.)
Language divisions families, branches, groups, languages, dialects, accents:
Family is a group of languages related through a descent from a common ancestor.
Dialect is the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people.
Accent is a distinctive manner of oral expression. Branch is a newer or less
commonly spoken language that has an older "parent language" (Parent language
of American English is British English, and we have, over the years, changed our
branch of the English language, and have our own dialect and accents)
Worlds leading languages, total numbers and distribution: Mandarin Chinese (955
million), Spanish (405 million), English (360 million), Hindi (310 million)
Endangered/Extinct Languages: Endangered languages are those at risk of falling
out of use (ex. Alemannic German). Extinct languages are no longer spoken by
people (ex. Ancient Egyptian)
Ideograms: A written character symbolizing the idea of a thing without indicating
the sounds used to say it (ex. Roman Numerals)
Indo-European languages: Large family of languages spoken by about half of the
population. The largest family in terms of number of native speakers (includes
German, Latin, Persian, Greek, etc.)
Sino-Tibetan: Family of more than 400 languages spoken in East, Southeast and
parts of South Asia. Second largest family (includes Burmese, Tibetan, etc.)
Afro-Asiatic: Family of languages distributed over southwestern Asia and northern
Africa (includes Egyptian, Berber, etc.)
Development of English: Began with Germanic tribes invading Britain, 5th century.
All spoke similar languages which developed into Old English, the roots of which
many modern English words come from. Middle English had heavy French influence.

In 1500 there was a Great Vowel Shift, a change in pronunciation, and the British
began having contact with more people in the world, which led to the addition of
many new words and phrases. It has continued changing in that way
Polyglot states: A state that has more than one official language (ex. Canada)
Ethnolinguistic group: Groups that perceives the world via their relationship
between language and culture (ex. ethnic African tribes)
Pidgin: A grammatically simplified form of a language, used when people who don't
share a common language communicate (ex. Pidgin Spanish would be basic Spanish
used to communicate)
Creole: A stable natural language that has developed from a pidgin (ex. Haitian
Creole language)
Social vs. vernacular dialects: Social = a variety of language associated with a
social group. Vernacular = native language of a specific population (ex. Native
Americans can speak with one another with vernacular languages, but speak
English has a social language)
Isolated language: A language that has no known linguistic affiliation with any other
language (ex. Basque)
Toponym: A place name, especially derived from a topographical feature (ex. Grand
Canyon)
Isogloss: A line on a dialect map marking the boundary between linguistic features
(ex. The line between France and Spain on a dialect map of Europe)
Lingua franca: A language that is adopted as a common language between
speakers whose native languages are different (ex. A mixture of Italian, French,
Greek, Arabic and Spanish that used to be used in the Mediterranean ports)
Geography of Ethnicity
Acculturation: A process in which members of one cultural group adopt the beliefs
and behaviors of another group
Apartheid: A policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race
(ex. In South Africa)
Assimilation: The process by which a person or persons acquire the social and
psychological characteristics of a group
Barrio: A town in Spanish-speaking countries with a higher poverty level (ex. A
"ghetto")
Balkanization: To divide a region or state into similar regions or states that are often
non-cooperative with one another (ex. Yugoslavia has become 5 independent
countries)
Cultural shatterbelt: A politically unstable region where differing cultural elements
come into conflict (ex. Indonesia, because of a background of multicultural
ethnicities and religions)
Ethnic cleansing: Mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic of
religious group (ex. The Holocaust)
Ethnic conflict: Armed conflict between ethnic groups (ex. Pakistanis vs. Jews)
Ethnic enclave: Geographic area with highly minority
Ethnic group: A people of the same race or nationality who share a distinctive
culture (ex. Somali population in Minneapolis)
Ethnic homeland: Hearth of an ethnic group, where their ancestry came from (ex.
Israel)

Ethnic landscape: Spatial distributions and interactions of ethnic groups and of the
cultural characteristics on which they are based (ex. New Orleans)
Ethnic neighborhood: An area within a city that has a much higher concentration of
a particular ethnic or cultural group (ex. Harlem)
Ethnocentrism: Evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating
in the standards and customs of one's own culture. Believing your culture is superior
(ex. Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and the extermination of the Jews)
Ghetto: Part of the city occupied by a minority group (ex. slums downtown)
Multi-ethnic state: A sovereign state which is viewed as compromising two or more
nations (ex. Russia)
Multi-national state: A sovereign state which is viewed as comprising two or more
nations. Such a state contrasts with a nation-state where a single nation comprises
the bulk of the population
Nationality: Status of belonging to a particular nation (ex. American)
Nationalism: Patriotic feeling, principles, or efforts (ex. Early Americans fighting
during the Civil War)
Plural society: Society composed of different ethnic groups or cultural traditions (ex.
United Kingdom)
Race: A category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits (ex.
African-American, Caucasian, etc.)
Segregation Index: Dissimilarity index that measures the degree to which the
minority group is distributed (ex. Measures segregation between whites & blacks in
America)
Social distance: Distance between different groups of society as opposed to
locational distance (ex. distance between social classes)