Cultural Meanings

Culture has its many meanings perhaps because people have not made the effort to express verbally what was distinguishable years ago or out of convenience. To some it means the language they speak and how they communicate verbally or not and for others it refers to the process by which their people has passed down traditions that they have inherited. Still yet to others there is a work culture full of corporate ladders to climb and people to please along the way while one gets pushed up or knocked down and further it refers to the educational process by which people learn social cues and talents in order to progress through a labyrinth of tasks that leads to another door.

When introduced at early levels of education, teaching the history of the early peoples of Canada, informs modern children of about the importance of the oral history as opposed to a written one. The process of the information transfer is in itself a cultural element as opposed to the advent of the written word, which was another cultural manifestation. Children in Alberta schools are made aware of certain dialects which were rooted in a single language that varied somewhat from region to region as it was dissipated. The process of the language modification that unites and yet distinguishes the currents dialects spoken today is an inherent quality when referring to the impact of language on culture.

The cultural process of innovation and the means by which a people subsisted in their environment and used the means they were able to find in order to survive is a distinguishing element. The Blackfoot used bone for example as an archaic needle before European traders introduced steel needles. One can surmise that the advent of introducing new objects, which gradually replaced homemade items, caused upheavals along the way in a material sense; the native person gradually losing his attachment to the way he originally produced those items and his craft changed as a result.