3.6-3.7

• social constructs - ideas, beliefs, and values that are shared by a society or social group and are not created by nature
• time-space convergence - the greater interconnection between places that results from improvements in transportation
• cultural divergence - the idea that culture may change over time as the elements of distance, time, physical separation, and modern technology cause cultural change
• cultural convergence - cultures are becoming similar to each other and sharing more cultural traits, ideas, and beliefs
• linguists - people who study languages
• indo-european language family - a large group of languages that might have descended from a language spoken around 6,000 years ago
• romance languages - the unifying language of latin diverged into dozens of distinct regional languages like portuguese, spanish, french, italian and romanian
• isoglosses - the boundaries between variations in pronunciations or word usage
• dialects - the regional variations of a language
• adages - a short, pithy saying that expresses a truth or a general truth about life
• homogeneous - made up largely of ethnically similar people
• adherents - believers in their faith
• ethnic religions - belief traditions that emphasize strong cultural characteristics among their followers
• universal religion - actively seeks converts to its faith regardless of their ethnic background
• karma - the idea that behaviors have consequences and that these consequences will be experienced in the future
• caste system - a rigid class structure
• gurdwara - a sikhs place of worship
• pilgrimage - a religious journey taken by a person to a sacred place of his or her religion