Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

glossolalia

(Encyclopedia)glossolalia glŏsˌəlāˈlēə [key] [Gr.,=speaking in tongues], ecstatic utterances usually of unintelligible sounds made by individuals in a state of religious excitement. Religious revivals are of...

Romanian language

(Encyclopedia)CEE Romanian language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). It is spoken by about 22 million people in Romania, wher...

English language

(Encyclopedia)English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world...

J

(Encyclopedia)J, 10th letter of the alphabet, a Western European medieval development of I, with which it was formerly quite interchangeable in writing. It is pronounced as a consonant in English and often as a y i...

Norris, Edwin

(Encyclopedia)Norris, Edwin, 1795–1872, English philologist. Norris wrote a number of articles on little-known languages of Asia and Africa. His most important work was his uncompleted Assyrian Dictionary (3 vol....

Marathi

(Encyclopedia)Marathi məräˈtē [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian. ...

Sindhi

(Encyclopedia)Sindhi sĭnˈdē [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian. ...

Serbo-Croatian

(Encyclopedia)Serbo-Croatian sûrˈbō-krōāˈshən [key], language belonging to the South Slavic group of the Slavic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Slavic languages). Serbo-Croatian compr...

Deneb

(Encyclopedia)Deneb dĕnˈĕb [key], brightest star in the constellation Cygnus; Bayer designation Alpha Cygni; 1992 position R.A. 20h41.2m, Dec. +45°15′. It is a white supergiant of spectral class A2 Ia; its in...

Harar

(Encyclopedia)Harar or Harrar both: häˈrər [key], city, capital of Harar region, E central Ethiopia, at an altitude ...