Continuation of Cultural Characteristics

    Today in class we continued to talk about cultural characteristics. Three main culture characteristics are: language, religion, and ethnic heritage. If you recall, cultural characteristics are parts of a group's everyday life and are the ideas and themes in which the group will teach to all of the members. These can either link regions together or they can divide a region. An example of language is that it units the Arab world. Because they can all speak the same language, it allows them to be able to communicate and understand each other. Brazil is the only South American nation that doesn't speak Spanish. Instead, they speak Portuguese. This caused Brazilians to be separated from the rest of the other nations. An example of ethnic heritage is Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia used to be made up of many different groups all combined in one place. Those groups were the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and the Albanians. All of these groups got along and accepted each other. When the strong leadership died out, the many different groups went to war and caused a civil war. The cities were destroyed and many people died. Instead of fighting over ethnic heritage, the United States of America and Switzerland have peacefully merged the groups in their countries and accepts them all. Religion can be unifying or can cause a lot of issues. The five major religions are: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.