The Anthropology Tutorials website will be taken offline on January 9, 2026.
Due to federal accessibility requirements taking effect in 2026, we will be removing this site. If you use materials from this site in your courses or research, please seek alternative resources.
The continent where nearly 2/3 of the world’s 6+ billion people live. | Asia |
The most common "native" language in the world. | Mandarin Chinese |
The second most common "native" language in the world. | Hindi |
The third most common "native" language in the world. | English |
The official language of more countries than any other. It is also understood and spoken to some degree by 1/4 to 1/3 of humanity. | English |
The number of the world’s 5,000-6,000 languages that are no longer spoken by children. | about 1/2 |
The term for the progressive emergence of a single worldwide economic system and the simultaneous reduction in global cultural and political differences. | globalism |
The term for a strong sense of identity with one's ethnic group, tribe, or nation. This has been a counter force to globalization in recent years. | tribalism |
The kinds of societies whose languages are in most danger of being abandoned by their children today. | languages of small indigenous societies |
The source of most numerical data on ethnicity and "race" in the U.S. | national census taken every 10 years |
The one major group in the U.S. that is counted as an “ethnic group” rather than a “race” in the national census. | Hispanics |
The criterion for assigning individuals to specific "races" based on only a distant hereditary relationship. It has been used in North America to label people as African even if they were mostly European in biological ancestry. (Hint: this is also known as the "drop of blood" criterion.) | hypodescent |
The most numerous “racial” group in the U.S. according to the year 2000 Census. (Hint: 75.1% of the people counted in the census claimed to be of this “race”.) | “whites” (or European Americans) |
The second most numerous “racial” group in the U.S. according to the year 2000 Census. (Hint: 12.3% of the people counted in the census claimed to be of this “race”. Keep in mind that “Hispanics” were not counted as a “race”.) | “Blacks” (or African Americans) |
The two fastest growing “racial” groups in the U.S. (in terms of percentage growth) according to the 1990 and 2000 Censuses. (Hint: there was a 46.3% increase in the number of people in these groups between 1990 and 2000.) | Asian and Pacific Islander |
In comparing Hispanics and non-Hispanics, the fastest growing group in the U.S. according to the 1990 and 2000 Censuses. (Hint: one of these groups increased by 57.9% and the other increased only by 8.7% during this 10 year time period.) | Hispanic (or Latino) |
The largest minority group in the U.S. (Hint: this group makes up over 12.5% of the entire U.S. population.) | Hispanic (or Latino) |
The largest number of Hispanics in the U.S. claim this as their nation of ancestry. (Hint: this sub-group consists of 58.5% of all U.S. Hispanics.) | Mexico |
The term for the model of the U.S. society in which immigrants and native ethnic/racial minorities are assimilated into the dominant national culture. Those who prefer this model for America generally advocate encouraging assimilation in order to reinforce national unity. | melting pot |
The term for the model of the U.S. society in which the permanent existence of unassimilated and partially assimilated ethnic/racial minorities is accepted and encouraged. | multiculturalism (or pluralism) |