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1. Culture:
- Particular way of life such as a set of skilled activities, values, and meanings
surroundings a particular type of practice
- It is a shared set of meaning that is lived through the material and symbolic
practices of everyday life
- Dynamic concept that revolves around and intersects with complex social,
political, economic, and even historical factors.
Cultural Systems: includes traits, territorial affiliations and shared history and
other elements such as language and religion
Religion and Language are two key components of a cultural system for most of
the world’s people

2. Religion is a belief system and a set of practices that recognize the existence of a
power higher than humankind
• Religious beliefs and practices are subject to change when advanced or new
spiritual influences are adopted
• Most important influences on religious change has been conversion from one
set of beliefs to another
• From Arab invasions following Muhammad’s death in 632, to Christian crusades
of the middle ages, to the onset of globalization in the 15th century, religion
missionizing as well as forceful and violent conversion have been key elements
in changing geographies of religion

3. Basic Facts of Religion
• Belief in Supernatural Power: which is beyond man and this physical
world.
• Man’s Adaptation to supernatural power
• Concept of sacredness
• Concept of Taboos and sinful acts
• Method of salvation
• Sacred places and objects

5. • Religious beliefs are organized and codified, often based on teachings and
writings of one or more founders.
• Hinduism was the first religion to emerge, among the peoples of the Indo-
Gangetic Plain, about 4000 years ago.
• Oldest religion
• Codified in the Veda and Upanishads
• Hinduism’s most central deities are the divine trinity, representing the cyclical
nature of the universe: Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva,
the destroyer

7. • Buddhism and Sikhism evolved from Hinduism as reform religions, with
Buddhism appearing around 500 B.C. and Sikhism in the fifteenth century
• Buddhism slowly and steadily dispersed to other parts of India and was
carried by missionaries and traders to:
- China (100 B.C- 200 C.E_
- Korea and Japan (300-500 C.E.)
- Southeast Asia (400-600 C.E.)
- Mongolia (1500 C.E.)
• Buddhism was founded by Gautama- known as the Buddha (Enlightened One)
• Central tenets of Buddhism are:
- Meditation and practice of good religious and moral behaviour, which can lead
to nirvana, the state of enlightenment

9. Four noble truths in Buddhism:
- Existence is a realm of suffering
- Desire, along with belief in the importance of one’s self, cause suffering
- Achievement of nirvana ends suffering
- Nirvana is attained only by meditation and by following the path of
righteousness

10. • Christianity, Islam and Judaism all developed among the Semitic –speaking
people of the deserts of the Middle East and all three religions are related
• Judaism is the oldest (monotheistic) of the three, it is the least widespread.
• Judaism originated about 4000 years ago, and Christianity about 2000 years ago,
and Islam about 1300 years ago
• Judaism developed out of the cultures and beliefs of bronze age peoples and was
the first monotheistic (belief in one god) religion
• It is numerically small because it doesn’t seek converts
• It is also based on the teachings of the prophets Issac and Jacob as well as
Abrahm

11. - Jews believe that God’s word is revealed in the Hebrew Bible, especially in part
known as Torah
- Adherents of Judaism also believe that they are the people chosen by god to
follow his ethical and moral principles.
- They also believe that human conditions can be improved, and that the letter
and spirit of the Torah must be followed and that a messiah will bring the world
to a state of paradise
- 83% (14.5 million) live in Israel (44%) and USA(39.5%)
- Sizeable number in France, Canada and UK
- Israel established as a state of holy land (promised land) and homeland for Jews
in 1948

12. Christianity:
• Developed in Jerusalem among the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth , who
proclaimed that he was the Messiah expected by Jews
• Religion based on life and teachings of Jesus as written in new testament of the
holy bible
• World’s largest religion
• Believe that Jesus is the son of God, a revered teacher, the model of a pious life,
manifestation of god and savior of humanity
• Upon his death, Jesus ascended into heaven, and he will return to judge the
living and the dead and grant life everlasting to those who have followed his
teachings.

15. Islam:
• Arabic term meaning ‘submission’ especially submission to the will of god’s will
• Muhammad is the last prophet and god’s messenger on the earth
• Quran-the holy book is considered the word of god as revealed to Prophet by
the Angel Gabriel beginning in about 610 C.E.

19. LANGUAGE
• Significant aspects of cultural systems and the cornerstone of culture
• An important focus for study as it is a central aspect of cultural identity
• Cultural form of enduring value and culture will hardly survive if it has no language
• Significant means by which spatial and temporal diffusion of culture takes place
• Distribution and diffusion of languages reflect the changing history of human geography and the impact
of globalization on culture
• Language: ‘a way of communicating ideas or feelings by means of a conventionalized system of signs,
gestures, marks, or articulate vocal sounds’
• Language involves the use of words as symbols for communicating ideas among humans
• It is symbolic, and the symbols have conventional meanings and sounds; which are intelligible by
general members of the particular language groups

20. • Within standard languages, regional variations, known as dialects, exist.
• Dialects have differences in terms of pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary which are place-based
• According to Hussain ( Hussain, 2009), Dialect are “distinct linguistic form peculiar to a region or social
group but which, nevertheless, can be understood by a speaker of other forms of same language”
• Language Family: a collection of individual languages believed to be related in their prehistorical origin
• Language Branch: a collection of languages that possesses a definite common origin but has split into
individual languages
• Language Group: a collection of several individual languages that is part of a language branch, share a
common origin in the recent past, and have relatively similar grammar and vocabulary
Example: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian and Catalan are a language group, classified under
the Romance branch as part of the Indo-European Language family.

21. • Traditional approaches in cultural geography have identified the source areas of the world’s
languages and the paths of diffusion from their places of origin
• Cultural hearths are geographic origins or sources of innovations, ideas or ideologies.
• Language hearths: source areas of languages

22. Factors Affecting Evolution and Development of Languages:
• Geographical Factors: relief or topography; plays a significant role in the origin and evolution
of a language
- Himalayan mountains separate the Indian subcontinent and Tibet and China
- Pyrenees mountains separate the Spanish and French languages
• Migration of Population
• Socio-cultural Factors: influence of social segregation, social organizations, religion, cultural
assimilation etc.,
E.g.: Spread of the Arabic language from Egypt to Morocco in North Africa and from Saudi Arabia
to India and Afghanistan through religious conversion and superiority of culture.
• Political Factors: European languages reached throughout the world following the European
colonization