Human Geo. Chapters 4, 5, 6, & 7 Vocabulary

Front 1

Custom

Back 1

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

Front 2

Folk Culture

Back 2

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

Front 3

Habit

Back 3

A repetitive act performed by a particular individual.

Front 4

Popular Culture

Back 4

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

Front 5

Taboo

Back 5

A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

Front 6

Terrior

Back 6

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

Front 7

British Recieved Pronunciation (BRP)

Back 7

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

Front 8

Creole or Creolized Language

Back 8

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

Front 9

Denglish

Back 9

Combination of German and English.

Front 10

Dialect

Back 10

A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.q

Front 11

Ebonics

Back 11

Dialect spoken by some African Americans.

Front 12

Extinct Language

Back 12

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

Front 13

Franglais

Back 13

A term used by the French for English words that have entered the French language; a combination of francais and anglais, the French words for "French" and "English", respectively.

Front 14

Ideograms

Back 14

The system of writing used in China and other East Asian countries in which each symbol represents an idea or a concept rather than a specific sound, as in the case with letters in English.

Front 15

Isogloss

Back 15

A boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate.

Front 16

Isolated Language

Back 16

A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family.

Front 17

Language

Back 17

A system of communcation through the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.

Front 18

Language Branch

Back 18

A collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago. Differences are not as extensive or as old as with language familie, and archaeological evidence can confirm that the branches derived from the same family.

Front 19

Language Family

Back 19

A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.

Front 20

Language Group

Back 20

A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.

Front 21

Lingua Franca

Back 21

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

Front 22

Literary Tradition

Back 22

A language that is written as well as spoken.

Front 23

Official Language

Back 23

The language adopted for use by the government for the conduct of business and publication of document.

Front 24

Pidgin Language

Back 24

A form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca; used for communications among speakers of two different languages.

Front 25

Spanglish

Back 25

Combination of Spanish and English, spoken by Hispanic Americans.

Front 26

Standard Language

Back 26

The form of a language used for official government business, education, and mass communications.

Front 27

Vulgar Latin

Back 27

A form of Latin used in daily conversation by ancient Romans, as opposed to the standard dialect, which was used for official documents.

Front 28

Animism

Back 28

Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.

Front 29

Autonomous Religion

Back 29

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

Front 30

Branch

Back 30

A large and fundamental division within a religion.

Front 31

Caste

Back 31

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

Front 32

Cosmogony

Back 32

A set of religous beliefs concerning the origin of the universe.

Front 33

Denomination

Back 33

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

Front 34

Ethnic Religion

Back 34

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.

Front 35

Fundamentalism

Back 35

Literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic prinicples of a religion (or a religious branch, denomination, or sect).

Front 36

Ghetto

Back 36

During the Middle Ages, a neighborhoos in a city set up by law to be imhabited by Jews; now used to denote a section of a city in which members of minority group live because of social, legal, or economic pressure.

Front 37

Hierarchial Religion

Back 37

A religion in which a central authority excercises a high degree of control.

Front 38

Missionary

Back 38

An individual who helps to diffuse a universalizing religion.

Front 39

Monotheism

Back 39

The doctrine or belief of the existence of only one god.

Front 40

Pagan

Back 40

A follower of polytheistic religion in ancient times.

Front 41

Pilgrimage

Back 41

A journey to a place considered sacred for religious purposes.

Front 42

Polytheism

Back 42

Belief in or worship of more than one god.

Front 43

Sect

Back 43

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

Front 44

Solstice

Back 44

Astronomical event that happens twice each year, when the tilt of Earth's axis is most inclined toward or away from the Sun, causing the Sun's apparent position in the sky to reach it most nothernmost or southernmost extreme, and resulting in the shortest and longest days of the year.

Front 45

Universalizing Religion

Back 45

A religion that attempts to appeal to all people, not just those living in a particular location.

Front 46

Apartheid

Back 46

Laws (no longer in effect) in South Africa that physically separated different geographic areas.

Front 47

Balkanization

Back 47

Process by which a state breaks down through conflicts among ethnicities.

Front 48

Balkanized

Back 48

Descriptive of a small geographic area that could not successfully be organized into one or more stable states because it was inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, long-standing antagonisms toward each other.

Front 49

Blockbusting

Back 49

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

Front 50

Centripetal Force

Back 50

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

Front 51

Ethnic Cleansing

Back 51

Process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region.

Front 52

Ethnicity

Back 52

Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common heredity and cultural traditions.

Front 53

Multiethnic State

Back 53

State that contains more than one ethnicity.

Front 54

Multinational State

Back 54

State that contains two or more ethnic groups with traditions of self-determination that agree to coexist peacefully by recognizing each other as distinct nationalities.

Front 55

Nationalism

Back 55

Loyalty and devotion to particular nationality.

Front 56

Nationality

Back 56

Identity with a group of people that share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular place as a result of being born there.

Front 57

Nation-state

Back 57

A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality.

Front 58

Race

Back 58

Identity with a group of people descended from a common ancestor.

Front 59

Racism

Back 59

Belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce and inherent superiority of a particular race.

Front 60

Racist

Back 60

A person who subscribes to the beliefs of racism.

Front 61

Self-Determination

Back 61

Concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves.

Front 62

Sharecropper

Back 62

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.

Front 63

Triangular Slave Trade

Back 63

A practice, primarily during the eighteenth century, in which European ships transported slaves from Africa to Carribean to Europe, and trade goods from Europe to Africa.