AP Human Geo Unit 4

Material Culture

The things a group of people construct, such as art, houses, clothing, sports, dance, and food.

Nonmaterial Culture

The beliefs, practices, aesthetics, and values of a group of people

Custom

frequent repetition of an act until it becomes characteristic of a group of people.

Taboo

a restriction on behavior imposed by social custom

Habit

repetitive act performed by an individual

Folk culture

Homogenous, Stable and Close Knit, Tradition.

Hearth

The point of origin of a cultural trait.

How do cultural traits diffuse?

Contagious and Hierarchial

Dwellings

created from local materials; often uniquely and traditionally arranged; always functionally tied to physical environment.

Neolocalism

seeking out the regional culture and reinvigorating it in response to the uncertainty of the modern world.

Distance Decay

the likelihood of diffusion decreases as time and distance from the hearth

increases

Time Space Compression

the likelihood of diffusion depends upon the connectedness among

places. Which applies more to popular culture?

Cultural Landscape

The visible human imprint on the landscape

Wallerstiens World Systems Model

An interconnected system wherin the technology and economics of the core regions directly effect the economic/political well being of other countries.

Dialect

a regional variation within a language

Isogloss

A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature

occurs

Standard Language

A well established dialect

Cognates

Words that are the same in multiple languages

Sound Shifts

A slight change in a word across languages over time

Language Divergence

Lack of spatial interaction among speakers of A language eventually breaks the language into distinct dialects and then into new languages. (Isolation)

Language Convergence

When peoples with different languages have consistent, repetitive spatial interaction and their languages collapse into one. (Interaction)

Backward Reconstruction

tracking sound shifts and the hardening of consonants backward to reveal an “original” language.

Indo European Languages Theories

Sedentary Farmer and Nomadic Warrior

Afro Asiatic most largely spoken language

Arabic

Altaic Most Largely Spoken

Turkish

Uralic Most Spoken

Estonian, Hungarian, and Finiish.

Lingua Franca

A language used among speakers of different native languages for the purposes of trade and commerce.

Pidgin Langauge

a language created when people combine parts of two or more languages into a simplified structure and vocabulary

Creole

a pidgin language that has developed a more complex structure and vocabulary and has become the native language of a group of people.

Folk Housing

A region in which the housing stock prodominantly reflects styles of building that are particular to the culture of the people who have long inhabited the area. Transmitted slowly.

Pop Housing

only small regional variations, more generally there are trends

over time (split-level→ McMansion). Differences from place to place, uncommon.