kulturell

Kulturell is a common adjective in several Germanic languages, meaning related to culture or pertaining to culture. It is used to describe things connected with traditions, values, arts, institutions, and other aspects of a society’s shared life. The term shares its roots with the word culture, and its development traces back to Latin cultura through European language families.

In Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish, the adjective takes language-specific inflection patterns. In Swedish the form is kulturell (singular), kulturellt (neuter), kulturella (plural or definite plural). In Danish and Norwegian, forms include kulturel (singular), kulturelt (neuter), kulturelle (plural or feminine). Common phrases include kulturell identitet (cultural identity), kulturell mångfald or kulturell mangfoldighet (cultural diversity), and kulturell arv (cultural heritage), depending on the language.

Usage and scope: kulturell is widely employed in academia, media, public policy, and everyday discourse to discuss aspects of culture in society. It often appears in discussions about globalization, education, the arts, media representation, and social norms. While it overlaps with terms for ethnicity or nationality in some contexts, it is not synonymous with ethnicity; it emphasizes cultural practices, symbols, and meanings rather than ancestry alone. The concept may be paired with related terms such as kultur, kulturarv, or kulturelt kapital to describe different facets of a society’s cultural framework.

See also: kultur, kulturarv, kulturelt kapital.