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Unit 3 Culture, Language, and Religion

Terms in this set (82)

British Revised Pronunciation (BRP)
The dialect of English associated with upper-class Britons living in the London area and now considered standard in the United Kingdom.
Creole Language
A language that results from the mixing of the colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated.
Dialect
Local or regional characteristics of a language. In addition to pronunciation variation it has distinctive grammar and vocabulary.
Extinct Language
A language that was once in use, but no longer spoken or read in daily activities by anyone in the world.
Ideograms
The system of writing used in China and other East Asian countries in which each symbol represents an idea or concept rather than a specific sound, as is the case with letters in English.
Isogloss
A boundary that separates regions in which different language uses predominate.
Isolated Language
A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family.
Language
A system of communication through speech, a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning.
Language Branch
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 families, and archaeological evidence can confirm that the branches derived from the same family.
Language Family
A group of languages with a shared but fairly distant origin.
Language Group
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.
Lingua franca
A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.
Literary Tradition
A system of written communication produced by a language.
Official language
The language used by the government for laws, reports, and public objects, such as road signs, money, and stamps.
Pidgin language
A very basic language which is used to communicate between cultures, involving a blend of words and concepts from at least two, and sometimes more, cultures.
Standard language
The variant of a language that a country's political and intellectual elite seek to promote as the norm for use in schools, government, and is recognized by other states.
Vulgar Latin
A form of Latin used in daily conservation by ancient Romans, as opposed to the standard dialect, which was used for official documents.
Revived language
are languages which have experienced near or complete extinction (either a spoken or written language), but were intentionally revived and have eventually regained some of their former status
Built environment
the part of the physical landscape that represent material culture; the buildings, roads, bridges, and similar structures large and small of the cultural landscape
Custom
The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act.
Folk culture
Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups
Folk housing
building styles that are particular to the culture of the people who have long inhabited the area
Forklore
the traditional beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people; lore of a people
Folk songs
A song that is derived from events in daily life that are familiar to the majority of the people; composed anonymously and transmitted orally.
Habit
a repetitive act performed by a particular individual.
Hearth
the region from which innovative ideas originate
Hierarchical diffusion
The spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places
Indigenous architecture
architecture that is native to a certain place
Material culture
All physical, tangible objects made & used by a group; Example; clothes, books, desks....
Popular culture
Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics.
Relocation diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.
Taboo
A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.
Terroir
The contribution of a location's distinctive physical features to the way food tastes.
relocation diffusion
Folk culture is an example of what kind of diffusion?
uniform landscape
Features of the U.S. landscape, such as gas stations, supermarkets, and motels promote a ...
Animism
The belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.
Animistic religion
A religion that is based off of the idea all things have souls.
Autonomous religion
A religion that doesn't have a main person in power, they cooperate and praise informally.
Branch
A large and fundamental division within a religion.
Buddhism
A widespread Asian religion or philosophy, founded by Siddhartha Gautama in northeastern India in the 5th century BC.
Caste system
A social structure in which classes are determined by heredity.
Christianity
The religion based on the person and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth or beliefs and practices.
Cosmogony
A set of religious beliefs concerning the origin of the universe.
Denomination
A division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations in a single legal and administrative body.
Diaspora
The dispersion of any people from their original homeland.
Eastern Orthodox Church
The body of modern churches, including among others the Greek and Russian Orthodox, that is derived from the church of the Byzantine Empire, adheres to the Byzantine rite, and acknowledges the honorary primacy of the patriarch of Constantinople.
Ethnic religion
Religion that is particular to one, culturally distinct, group of people.
Feng Shui
A system of laws considered to govern spatial arrangement and orientation in relation to the flow of energy (qi), and whose favorable or unfavorable effects are taken into account when siting and designing buildings.
Fundamentalism
A literal interpretation and a strict and intense adherence to basic principles of a religion.
Genocide
The deliberate killing of a large group of people in a particular group or culture.
Ghetto
A part of a city especially a slum area occupied by a minority group of people.
Hajj
A pilgrimage to Mecca, preformed as a duty by Muslims.
Hearth
The place from which an innovation originates.
Hierarchical religion
A religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control.
Hinduism
World's third-largest religion, but 97 percent of Hindus are concentrated in India. Hindus believe that it is up to the individual to decide the best way to worship God.
Immorality
The failing of maintaining moral standards.
Interfaith boundaries
Boundaries between religion and government. Usually an agreement with a stated goal to protect faith and freedom by respecting individual rights.
Islam
The youngest of the major world religions, it is based on the teachings of Muhammad.
Jihad
A holy war undertaken by Muslims against nonbelievers, as a religious duty.
Judaism
The religion that originated out of Israel, and is classified as an ethnic religion.
Minarets
A tall slender tower, typically part of a mosque, with a balcony from which a muezzin calls Muslims to prayer.
Missionary
A person sent by a religious community to promote their beliefs and ideas so that they may get more followers in their religion.
Monotheism
The belief in the existence of only one god. Ex: Christianity.
Monotheistic religion
Monotheism (from Greek) is the belief in theology that only one deity exists. The concept of "monotheism" tends to be dominated by the concept of God in the Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.
Pilgrimage
A journey to a place considered sacred for religious purposes.
Polytheism
The belief in or worship of more than one god.
Polytheistic religion
This is the belief of multiple deities, usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals.
Protestant
An adherent of any of those Christian bodies that separated from the Church of Rome during the Reformation, or of any group descended from them.
Religion
The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
Religious extremism
Ideology or practical act far outside of the perceived religious practices of a society.
Religious fundamentalism
A belief in a strict adherence to a set of basic principles (often religious in nature), sometimes as a reaction to perceived doctrinal compromises with modern social and political life.
Roman Catholic Church
The largest Christian church, lead by the Pope. This mostly dominates Southern Europe and South America.
Sacred sites
A location that is held by a certain religion to be holy and worthy of reverence, such as a temple.
Sect
A group with distinctive religious, political, or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and principles.
Secularism
Denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual backgrounds.
Shari'a law
Shariah: the code of law derived from the Koran and from the teachings and example of Mohammed; "sharia is only applicable to Muslims"; "under Islamic law there is no separation of church and state".
Shaman
A person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits.
Shi'ite
A member of the branch of Islam that regards Ali as the legitimate successor to Mohammed and rejects the first three caliphs.
Shintoism
The ancient indigenous religion of Japan lacking formal dogma; characterized by a veneration of nature spirits and of ancestors.
Sunni
Sunni is an Islam religion and is the largest branch of Islam.
Universalizing religion
A religion that attempts to appeal to all people, not just those living in a particular location.
Zionism
A Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland.
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