Comprehensive Review of AP Human Geography Unit 3: Culture and Diffusion

all right time to review everything you need to know about unit 3 of AP human geography and that exam you've got

coming up is already breathing its hot nasty meatball breath down your neck and it wants to destroy you it wants to make

you fail but that is not going to happen if you get everything I'm about to say in this video then you will show up to

that exam punch it in the throat and then wait till it's gasping for air on the floor and then deliberately hurt its

feelings so if that's what you want I'm Steve heimler and I am here to help you so if you're ready to get them brain

cows milked let's get to it now this unit is all about culture what it is is how it affects human environments and

how it spreads so let's begin in the beginning what is culture Now by definition culture refers to the shared

practices Technologies attitudes and behaviors passed down by a society now some of these things are more obvious

like language like here I am flapping my mouth hole in English because it's part of my culture but then other parts of

culture are less obvious so think of culture kind of like an iceberg above the water the cultural Iceberg includes

everything you can easily observe about a society you know their language their clothing their behavior the way they use

their Lang land their built environment Etc but then below the water is everything about a culture that is more

difficult to observe like a group's thought patterns in their cultural Rule and speaking of icebergs I know you want

to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May but that is just the tip of the iceberg below the surface is

hard work studying practicing the skills of the course crying yourself to sleep at night Etc if you have no idea how to

get that a and earn that five then you should absolutely click the link in the description and grab my AP Human

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so check it out and just maybe you won't have to go to bed weeping into your pillow and now back to the cultural

Iceberg okay so look at these two women this one American and this one Saudi Arabian now to be clear not all American

women dress like this and not all Saudi Arabian women dress like this there are Regional and cultural variations but

this is just one example the tip of the iceberg tells us what's obvious that these two women dress differently but to

understand why they're dressed differently you've got to look at the giant honking hind parts of that Iceberg

below the water which tells us about the different values of their culture so she might dress like this because she lives

in a patriarchal culture which just means that men call all the shots in which religious beliefs teach that women

must present themselves modestly and then she might dress like that because she lives in a culture that values

Liberty and individual choice so basically everything that lives up here on the tip of the iceberg we call

cultural traits and a trait is something that is obvious to your eyeball for example I am bald bearded and gap tooth

and devastatingly handsome all very obvious things but on a broader level cultural traits fall into three big

categories first food preferences tell us a lot about a society's culture for example much of the food in Singapore is

heavily influenced by Southern Chinese food and that's because a huge portion of their population is of Southern

Chinese Heritage so by understanding their food we can understand that society's history second architecture

can reveal a society's culture for example many suburbs Across America look relatively the same which is an

indication of a shared National aspect of American culture but the architecture in some regions is a reflection of more

local taste like Adobe homes in the American southwest in which they make use of local Clay and other building

materials and third land use shows the society's culture as well for example people in Nevada build houses with grass

in their front and backyard which to use the technical term is you know weird I mean Nevada is a stinking desert so why

did they do it well because many of the Americans who originally populated the Southwest came from the East Coast where

grass was abundant and they wanted to keep it out there in their new home so you know you do you boo so the point is

each culture around the world has unique cultural traits that are rooted in unique cultural values there are two

basic attitudes toward those cultural differences that you need to know first is cultural relativism which is the

evaluation of another culture by that culture's own standards so cultural relativists look at cultures different

from theirs and embrace them because they understand that cultures arise from distinct beliefs just as their own

culture does so you know no judgy here just a warm cultural hug but the second attitude is less like a hug and more

like a punch in the cultural kidneys and we call it ethnocentrism this is the evaluation of of another culture by a

group's own cultural stand in other words my own culture is awesome yours is different from my awesomeness so your

culture is therefore stupid and weird and often accompanying ethnocentrism is xenophobia which is a fear or a dislike

of foreigners who possess different cultural traits Okay so we've established that every people group on

Earth has their own distinct culture and now we need to consider how a people's culture shapes the land on which they

live and for that let me introduce you to what's known as a cultural landscape which describes how people modify a

physical landscape in a way that reflects their culture and there are five big categories that describe how

people do that first cultural landscapes are shaped through Agricultural and Industrial practices agricultural

practices refer to farming so corn fields in the midwestern United States or terrace rice patties in Southeast

Asia are distinctive agricultural practices in those areas and when you see pictures of each of these ways of

modifying the land there's a distinct cultural feel to them industrial practices on the other hand include all

the ways people engage in economic activity which also leaves a mark on their physical environment now in some

cases that Mark is pretty generic American leads to a sense of placelessness for example if you're

standing on a corner with a gas station and a McDonald's that is an indication of human economic activity but you could

be anywhere those two kinds of establishments exist in like a gajillion other places throughout the world so

there's not anything really you know distinct about it in other cases the economic Market is more reflective of

the regional culture for example here are a bunch of row houses in Baltimore which are distinct to that region

because Baltimore was an industrial center in the 19th century and these roow houses were constructed for all the

rural people flooding into the the city to find work in the industrial sector as part of their history and their identity

which is why they continue to build them today okay now the second category of influence on cultural landscapes is

religion people in many religions construct buildings which reflect their faith so Christians build churches

Muslims build mosques Hindus build temples and Jews build synagogues all of which create sacred spaces in a

landscape in other words Believers build these structures to communicate that this place is different or you know

other than any other place and that's a huge marker of cultural Valu now the third category of influence inuence on

cultural landscapes include linguistic characteristics which have to do with language here you can think about the

signs you've seen in various places for example here in New York City's Chinatown restaurants and stores have

signs written both in English and in Chinese which tells you a lot about the people who live there now the fourth

category of influence on cultural landscapes is evidence of sequent occupant and those are two words that

make absolutely no sense to you so let me explain sequin is related to sequence which is you know one thing after

another and then occupants is related to occupi so sequent occupants refers to the cultural marks left on the landscape

by each group of people that have occupied a place over the course of history for example look at this it's a

structure known as the Dome of the Rock which is a holy site for Muslim but then zoom out a little and look at its

foundation this is the Jewish Temple Mount which is the remaining foundation of the first century Jewish temple which

is the holy place for Jews but the Dome of the Rock was built in the 11th century so each of these groups of

people have left a cultural imprint on this site over time that is sequent occup now the fifth category of

influence on cultural landscapes is the presence of traditional and post-modern architecture traditional Arch arure

means that the buildings in a place are constructed with the local materials available to build and reflect the needs

of the local people for example the nippa Hut in rural Philippines is framed mainly of bamboo and its roof is made of

nipple leaves which grow natively in that area many Filipinos consider this Hut to be like a symbol of their

national identity and so this traditional architecture tells us a lot about who they are and what they value

but then there's post-modern architecture which arose in the 1960s as a reaction against the modernist style

and in a nutshell modernist architecture emphasized function over for form which just means that what gets done in that

building is more important than how it looks and how it looks is about as Bland as a khaki jumpsuit but then postmodern

architecture emphasized form over function which means that how the building looks is just as important as

what gets done inside in other words postmodern architecture is more culturally expressive for example here's

the Guggenheim Museum in baloa Spain its function is to display art but the building itself is also a work of art

okay now we've looked at the features of cultural landscapes and how they reflect the values of the people who live in

them but now let's consider it from the the other side how do people's values and society's values affect the way they

occupy a space and let's consider three ways to look at this first the culture's attitude towards ethnicity is a big

factor in how people shape their space and ethnicity refers to the cultural traits that they share that distinguish

them from other groups and in many cases the distinct markers of ethnicity can't be seen with the eye but they can be

smelled and heard and tasted for example to pass by an urban street with a significant Indian ethnic Enclave which

is you know just a cluster of ethnically similar people living in the same place is to smell the food of their native

culture specifically their lovely and Oho tasty curage and in that way that place is marked by their culture second

attitudes about gender effect cultural landscape for example in Kenya which is a more traditional Society women lack

property rights and so the land is owned by the men and then passed down to Sons even though women basically run the

Farms or go to India and you'll find that in some places public parks are segregated by gender you've got men only

and women only additionally cultural landscapes are affected by a society's attitude towards women in the workplace

for example in societies where women are more encouraged to work like Europe and the United States you can see a growing

number of child care facilities being built both within Office Buildings and around them okay the Third Way of

cultures identity affects the way they occupy space is with the presence of ethnic neighborhoods often when migrants

reach their receiving Society they find each other and they live together in a concentrated area and over time they

shape the landscape according to their cultural values as you can see here in New York City's Chinatown but also

ethnic neighborhoods can be a result of historic discrimination like throughout the 20th century local laws and cultural

norms of White Society dictated where black Americans could and could not live and though these laws have been struck

down many of those settlement patterns still exist today and then the Fourth Way a culture's identity shapes their

space can be seen in the presence of indigenous communities for example throughout the United States there are

several Indian reservations in which Native American communities live for the most part under their own government

okay now when people modify the landscape to live in a place they are engaging in what we call placemaking but

when people think about that place and fill it with meaning geographers call this their sense of place so for example

to build a house out of wood and Concrete is to engage in placem but the think about that house is the place

where you grew up and the backyard and the camping and the macaroni and cheese and all that came with it that is your

sense of place and that sense of place is true for whole cultures when they think about the places where they live

so let's consider three factors that contribute to a people's sense of place and the first is language the French for

example love their language speaking French is a big part of what makes France French only worse than an

American Tourist walking through Paris speaking stupid English is for an American Tourist to try to speak French

but speak it badly inwa us lur eiel seu plate now on a more Regional scale different dialects of the same language

can shape a people's sense of place now a dialect is simply a unique way of speaking a particular language so here

in America the southern dialect differs from the northern dialect here in the South we park the car in the north they

park the car and in Boston they park the car and formal apologies to everyone I just offended with my cartoonish accents

but anyway those dialects contribute to a people's sense of their place second religion is a significant factor in

people's sense of place also for example white Evangelical Protestants live overwhelmingly in the South and Midwest

of the United States and you can tell because those regions have many Baptist and Presbyterian churches which have

their own distinct architecture but Catholics on the other hand live overwhelmingly in the Northeast and that

landscape is dominated by Cathedral and then third ethnicity contributes to a people's sense of place for example the

massive Somali immigrant population in Minnesota established a mosque long ago that has become part of their

neighborhood's cultural landscape there they worship they have a school they host community events all of which

contrib to their sense of identity as Somali so those are the three main factors that contribute to a people's

sense of place and I know that sounds all warm and fuzzy like a nostalgic rainbow and cheese sandwich but these

three factors language ethnicity and religion while they can bring people together and create a sense of place

they can also drive people apart so if those factors are bringing people together they're known as centripetal

forces and you can see a good example of religion as a centripetal force in India Hinduism is a strong force binding South

Asians together especially after the end of the British colonial period or in the case of language the fact that Spanish

is spoken spoken throughout Central America has a binding effect on people from different regions or in China

ethnicity acts as a cental force because over 90% of the Chinese population is ethnically Han which binds them together

as a people however when these three factors drive people apart they are known as centrifugal forces so in terms

of religion in some Islamic countries there can often be tension and sometimes violence between two different sects of

Islam the Shiite and the Sunni they're both Muslim but the differences between these two versions of Islam can

sometimes drive them apart in terms of language as a centrifugal force you can see this debate here in the United

States various bills have been introduced into Congress to make English the official language of the United

States and usually this is done because English-speaking Americans fear that their culture is being threatened by the

various languages of dominant ethnic minorities and then ethnicity can also act as a centrifugal force which can

lead to violence as it did in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 their European Colonial Powers had long aggravated the

tension between the tootsie and the Hutu ethnic groups in Rwanda and after the rwandans had established their

independence the Hutu systematically killed about half a million tosis okay we've talked a lot about culture and

place and all that but now let's turn the corner and talk about cultural diffusion what's that you want a

definition I got you cultural diffusion is the process by which a cultural trait spreads from one place to another now a

cultural trait is a characteristic of a cultural Hearth which is the place where people of particular ethnic and cultural

identities originate and so these cultural traits can then diffuse or spread from the cultural Hearth to

places beyond the heart you feel me okay so two kinds of diffusion you need to know first is relocation diffusion which

is the spread of cultural traits as people migrate or you know relocate and just for poops and Giggles let's

consider the diffusion of religion many Latin American and South American countries practice forms of Catholicism

but that's not the religion of their ancient ancestors so why did it change well relocation diffusion like during

the age of European imperialism the Spanish and the Portuguese for example came plowing into these lands not only

with their swords and guns and nasty germs but also with their Catholicism and through large scale efforts at

forceable conversion many of the indigenous peoples became Catholic and remain so today okay now the second type

of cultural diffusion is known as a expansion diffusion and buckle up because this one gets a little more

complex in relocation diffusion people move away from their cultural Hearth and carry their cultural traits with them to

a new location in expansion diffusion it's the cultural trait itself that spreads while the people to whom it

belongs remain in their cultural heart okay so that's easy enough to understand but there are three subtypes of

expansion diffusion which can be distinguished by their spatial patterns first is contagious diffusion which

describes a cultural trait spreading rapidly to adjacent populations without regard for class race or any other

culture category it's like the spread of contagious diseases it's like when that kid named Carl who sits next to you at

lunch and has been coughing into his hand and wiping his runny nose hands you a pringle and ask if you want it no Carl

nobody wants your nasty Pringle but the thing is Carl's nasties don't care who you are whether you're rich or poor male

or female they'll get in you if you eat that Pringle so in contagious diffusion cultural traits spread to other people

rapidly no matter who they are and a good example will be slang words like I still remember the first time a student

in my class used the word sus but then all of a sudden everyone was saying it like athletes RT kids popular folk all

without distinction okay now the second type of expansion diffusion is known as hierarchical diffusion which describes a

top down spread of a cultural tra it originates in a person or group or place of power and then spreads downward to

those with less power and influence for example in the ' 80s and '90s hipop and rap were purely Urban forms of music

that originated in New York City and Los Angeles but now they've spread to Suburban and rural areas of the United

States and all throughout the world and then the third type of expansion diffusion is known as stimulus diffusion

this describes what happens when an original cultural trait does not itself spread but inspires or stimulates the

creation or innovation of a new but related cultural trait for example over the course of the 20th century

McDonald's restaurant spread throughout the world which is great because why would you want to go anywhere in the

world without experiencing the sinking disappointment of the Ubbi is broken ice cream machine anyway McDonald's

signature sandwich is the Big Mac two all beef patty Special Sauce in an evening with diarrhea to evaluate your

life choice but anyway when McDonald's came to South Asia Indians were not fans of the two beef patties since you know

cows are sacred to them so McDonald's innovated and introduced the Maharaja Mac which is chicken based boom new

cultural trick okay now we've seen the various ways that cultural trait spread so now let's consider why those traits

spread and for this section we're going to crack open the history books because cultural diffusion always has its roots

in historical processes so first let's begin with diffusion through the processes of colonialism and imperialism

and I reckon we need some definitions first imperialism is when a powerful State enacts policies to extend power

over another place colonialism is when one powerful state establishes settlement in another place for the

purpose of economic or political gain so colonialism is one kind of imperialism but imperialism includes all sorts of

different ways that one state can attempt to dominate another you mowing what I'm growing good then let's talk

about the two waves of European imperialism and how it led to the diffusion of cultural trait so starting

in the late 15th century which you know means the 1400s Europeans began colonizing enormous portions of the

Americans I'll take that and that and that and one of the most significant result of these massive projects of

Empire building was the diffusion of cultural trait for example the fact that English is largely spoken in North

America as evidence of British imperialism or the fact that Portuguese is spoken in Brazil as evidence of

Portuguese imperialism and the same goes with Spanish and Central America you get the idea now part and partial to the

European Imperial Venture in the Americas was the metric buttloads of economic gain that could be made on

agriculture specifically crops like tobacco and sugar and that reality led to an increased demand for enslaved

laborers from Africa resulting in the transatlantic African slave trade in which Africans were the subject of

forced migration to the new world despite being the subjects of forceable migration enslaved Africans also brought

their cultural traits with them to the Americas including new foods like okra and religious beliefs and musical

instruments native to their home okay now during the second wave of European imperialism which occurred in the second

half of the 19th century Europeans turned their attention to dominating Africa this became known as the Scramble

for Africa and again in this wave of imperialism cultural traits were diffused for example today in Algeria

the official languages established by their constitution are Arabic and Berber but some media channels and much of

their children's education is carried out in French which is a testament to the Colonial history in that country

okay now the second historical cause of diffusion is trade for example starting from ancient times Merchants traveled

across afro Eurasia along a network of routes known as the Silk Roads and when they traveled they exchanged ideas or

cultural traits as well as goods for example Buddhism was carried by Merchants Westward and Christianity was

carried by Merchants Eastward now with all this mingling of cultures via imperialism and trade sometimes these

encounters led to the emergence of new cultural Trad I'll give you two examples relating to language first is the

emergence of a lingua franka lingu WKA lingua franka it's a single language adopted by many people of different

languages that facilitates communication for example today English is the global lingua franaqua and a big part of this

has to do with the export of American movies and television shows and other forms of entertainment and so the world

has adopted English as the main language of Commerce and transcultural interaction now a second effect of the

diffusion of cultural traits can be the creolization of language this occurs when two languages are combined to form

a new distinct language for example the Africans language spoken in South Africa South Africa was a Dutch Colony starting

in the 17th century and they brought their Dutch language with them but over time a new language developed called

Africans which combined elements of Dutch with other European languages and African languages okay now you didn't

think the diffusion of cultural traits only occurred in the dusty pages of History did you you so crazy no

diffusion continues to occur today and we need to consider the Contemporary causes of that diffusion now it's

important to understand that cultural ideas and practices are socially constructed which means that they are

created by a group of people those ideas and practices can change through both small scale and large scale processes on

a small scale the changing of cultural practices this is pretty easy to understand for example because of the

increasing ease of international travel many people visit other cultures and then bring those experiences home with

them and then in some cases those experiences alter the Traveler's own cultural ideas but then on a large scale

changes occur because of more complex processes which we shall consider present the first process leading to

cultural interaction and change is globalization which is the increasing interweaving and growing dependence of

peoples throughout the world on each other economically politically and socially in other words because of the

process of globalization we're no longer longer just citizens of one country or one region we are Global Citizens

connected to many other places and peoples which if you remember from unit one is the result of time space

compression now in the 21st century the speed of globalization has increased quick fast and in a hurry thanks to the

arrival of digital technology it take the rise of the internet for example it's given everyone who has access the

ability to interact instantly with cultural ideas from all over the dang World a good example here is the rise of

K-pop it began as a distinct musical style in South Korea in the early 2000s but a decade later viral internet videos

of K-pop groups like BTS spread across the world and now K-pop is a global phenomenon and now we're all Sid

stepping right left to their beat I'm so hit anyway the second contemporary process leading to cultural

interaction and change is increasing urbanization which describes the movement of people from rural areas into

cities and at this point more than 50% of the world's population lives in cities and that's important for

diffusion because people from all different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds live in cities packed

tighter than the tattoo ink between Dwayne Johnson's pectal and you know in that situation that exposes them to

cultural ideas different from their own and so that cultural change occurs in urban areas on both small and large

scale on a small scale a person might encounter a new cultural trait by moving to a city and hearing a new genre of

music or tasting an ethnic food which he or she has never experienced before but then on a large scale cities can create

various cultural traits that then spread outward for example new fashions often originate in New York and Paris like

this lovely piece from a recent New York Fashion Show and I'm telling you it's only a matter of months before this

spreads to the rural areas and farmers are harvesting their crops but now the question becomes how do people in the

areas outside the city become exposed to these new Urban ideas and I got four ways that my uncle Cletus in rural

Georgia is going to hear about cultural ideas coming out of these big cities first is through the media for example

Hollywood films are released globally the two highest grossing films of all time as of this recording are Avatar and

Avengers endgame both of them were conceived and created in Hollywood and all the ideas contained in those stories

spread from there throughout the world you know uncus loves it when Captain America is found worthy to wield mol I

feel you Uncle Cletus anyway the second way people outside cities are exposed to Urban ideas is through technological

change with the ubiquity of smartphones and social media people from all over the world are watching the same videos

on the same platforms and then the Third Way people outside cities are exposed to Urban ideas is through politics for

example the United Nations which is an international Council made up of 193 different nations condemned Russia's

2022 invasion of Ukraine in essence the UN is a collective of global cultural ideas and is saying to Russia this is

not how we act in the global community and then the fourth way people outside side cities are exposed to Urban ideas

is through economics for example with the rise of global online retailers like Amazon and Alibaba people can have

access to goods from all over the world just by clicking a button now there are two major effects or results of these

various processes of diffusion you've got cultural convergence and cultural Divergence the idea of cultural

convergence is that as two or more cultures interact they adopt one another's cultural traits and ideas and

the outcome is that the two cultures become more similar than different and a major factor in this process is time

space convergence essentially as transportation Technologies Advance the time and space between places shrink

that sounds confusing but it's not really so think about it this way Christopher Columbus sailed across the

Atlantic in 36 days but today we can fly across the Atlantic in 7 hours so although Europe and North America

haven't changed geographical positions the time it takes to travel between them has significantly shortened time space

convergence and the point you need to remember here is that in general this time space convergence makes various

cultures less distinct as their interaction with one another increases for example as English becomes more and

more the lingua franka of the world some cultural leaders worry that indigenous languages are falling out of use and

will eventually disappear the second effect of global diffusion of culture is the opposite namely cultural Divergence

here the exact same process that brings cultures together and makes them more alike can also make them more distinct

for example the large omish population of the American Northeast has been exposed to all the new technologies

we've already mentioned but instead of adopting them and surrendering the cultural traits that make them unique

they have rejected those Technologies in order to uphold their own cultural Traditions like you see Amish families

going down the road their horse and bugging you're like have they heard of cars like they've heard of cars right

yeah they have but in order to uphold their distinct cultural Traditions they're sticking with their horses and

Buggies okay now we've been talking about the diffusion of cultural traits in general but now we need to look at

the diffusion of two cultural traits at the heart of a people's sense of themselves namely language and religion

and just for poops and Giggles let's start with the diffusion of language now to understand this you need to know how

languages are categorized and will go from biggest to smallest category first is the language family which is the

largest categorization of related languages Al languages in the family share a common ancestral language which

no longer exists for example the most well-known language family is the Indo-European language it includes most

of the languages of Europe and South and Southwest Asia so languages as different sounding as German and Hindi after close

inspection have many similarities and thus belong to the same language family and what you're seeing here is a

language family chart that visually represents how these languages have diffused over time then the second

smaller category of languages is the language Branch as languages develop from the same family they Branch out and

separate and each branch has similarities in grammar and syntax but the speakers cannot understand languages

from other branches hello say what now so what you're looking at here is the Romantic language Branch whose origin

language was Latin and then from Latin you get French Italian Spanish Portuguese Etc within this Branch

speakers of these languages can understand a good deal of what the others are saying for example if you

speak Spanish and you're lost in Lisbon Portugal you're probably going to be okay because there's a lot of overlap

between Spanish and Portuguese but then you've got the Germanic branch which includes German English Dutch Etc again

speakers within this Branch can understand understand some of what the others are saying but the thing to

remember is that there is very little understanding between the branches what I mean is is that though both of these

branches have a common Indo-European Source German speakers cannot understand Spanish speakers naturally and vice

versa and then the smallest category here includes individual languages and dialects for example both citizens of

Spain and Mexico speak Spanish but they have different dialects in Spain Z's and s's are mostly pronounced as T whereas

in Mexican Spanish they are pronounced with an S sound so this is the word for hug in Spanish if you're in Mexico

you'll ask for an abraso but if you're in Spain you'll ask for an abrao and look I don't care how you say it I'll

take the hug regardless okay that's language and now let's turn the corner and consider how religion diffuses from

cultural Hearts so all major religions have distinct places of origin and if they diffuse they will spread from that

place for example Christianity originated in Israel 2,000 years ago and from there spread across most of the

world or take Islam it began on the Arabian Peninsula and now has become the world's second largest religion after

Christianity but not all religions spread so easily ultimately a key factor in determining how widely a religion

will spread as impacted by the religion's practices and belief systems and there are two categories of

religions you need to know first universalizing religions and these are religions that appeal to people of a

wide variety of cultures and here you've got Christianity and Islam and Buddhism and Sikhism and others and these are

considered universalizing religions because each of those belief systems can be planted and grow in any culture in

the world so Christianity and Kenya will retain the essentials of Christian doctrine but the church will take on the

characteristics of Kenyan culture same with Islam or Buddhism and so by Nature universalizing religion religions lend

themselves to diffusion typically by relocation and expansion diffusion so if missionaries go to far off places

seeking new converts that's relocation but something like the Great Awakening in the 18th century swept many Americans

into Christianity through expansion diffusion in that case contagious diffusion but the other category of

religion namely ethnic religions they don't spread as well and that's because these religions are tied very closely to

particular ethnic groups in particular regions for example Hinduism or Judaism or Shinto let's just look at Hinduism

like one of the core Hindu doctrines organizes Society into various levels called casts so it would be impossible

to plant Hinduism in a culture that would reject the cast system therefore ethnic religions tend to remain close to

the cultural Hearth and whatever diffusion does occur typically is through relocation diffusion okay now

the last thing on this topic both diffusion of languages and religions can be visually represented on maps charts

or toponyms which is just a fancy word that means the name of a place we've already seen this in maps and charts but

how do toponyms indicate religious diffusion well one of the main ways is by noticing how toponyms change for

example Constantinople was the Center of Eastern Christianity and named for the first Christian emperor of Rome

Constantine but in 1453 Muslims in the Ottoman Empire went ahead and sacked it and renamed it istan buul so changing

toponyms evidence of religious diffusion okay now this is the last section of the unit stick with me here all of these

meetings of different cultures and diffusion of languages and religions can have four basic outcomes or effects the

first effect is called a culturation this is when a people in a culture adopt some traits of another culture while

they simultaneously maintain their own cultural trait for example immigrants May learn the language of the receiving

country while speaking their native language at home among their families the second effect is assimilation this

is when people assume almost all of the characteristics of the culture around them and there are two flavors of

assimilation you need to know first is forced assimilation for example policies in 19th century America gave Native

Americans the choice to either leave their lands or assimilate to American culture this meant that they had to

speak English dress in American attire be educated in the American tradition Etc but the other flavor is voluntary

assimilation for example Irish immigrants to the United States in the 19th century endured harsh

anti-immigrant sentiment among native born Americans many of them assimilated to American culture in order to be more

accepted and be more eligible for jobs the third effect is called syncretism which was when two or more cultural

traits blend together to create a new cultural trade for example in the 16th century Africans melded their

traditional indigenous religions with the Christianity of the Europeans and in doing so they combine Christianity's

major doctrines with beliefs about the African spirit world and the importance of dance and movement and then finally

the fourth effect of the diffusion of culture is multiculturalism and this is when members of a cultural group don't

fully assimilate but still maintain their own cultural identities while other groups around them do the same

this reality is especially prevalent in urban areas and that's it if you want to keep reviewing in more detail go ahead

and click this playlist and check out all my videos for unit 3 also click here to get my AP hug heimler review guide

which is everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May and I'll catch you on the flipflop

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