acculturation

Noun

acculturation (countable and uncountable, plural acculturations)

1. A process by which the culture of a society changes on contact with a different one.
   • It would be difficult to designate the Ghost Dance of the Indians of North America, for instance, as anything but a phenomenon of acculturation; […].1958, Melville J. Herskovits, Acculturation, Peter Smith, page 12
   • The cultural complex shows such power of survival mainly because its practitioners know how to adapt to modernization, including Western medicine, just as their ancestors knew how to adapt their careers and art to acculturation processes during the Conquest and subsequent eras.1979, Johannes Wilbert, editor, Enculturation in Latin America, University of California, page 18
2. A process by which a person acquires the culture of the society that they inhabit, starting at birth.