Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Mendele mocher sforim

(Encyclopedia)Mendele mocher sforim [Yid.,= Mendele the book peddler] shōˈləm yäˈkôv əbräməˈvĭch [key], 1836–1917, Yiddish novelist. Born in Minsk, and orphaned at 14, he traveled with beggars through ...

Carducci, Giosuè

(Encyclopedia)Carducci, Giosuè kärdo͞otˈchē [key], 1835–1907, Italian poet and teacher. He was professor of literature at the Univ. of Bologna from 1860 to 1904. He was a scholar, an editor, an orator, a cr...

Greek language

(Encyclopedia)Greek language, member of the Indo-European family of languages (see Indo-European). It is the language of one of the major civilizations of the world and of one of the greatest literatures of all tim...

Cornish

(Encyclopedia)Cornish, language belonging to the Brythonic group of the Celtic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Celtic languages. See P. B. Ellis, The Cornish Language and Its Literature (19...

Jackson, Abraham Valentine Williams

(Encyclopedia)Jackson, Abraham Valentine Williams, 1862–1937, American Orientalist, b. New York City. Teaching at Columbia (1895–1935), he was a great authority on ancient Persian religion, language, and litera...

Bartlett, Samuel Colcord

(Encyclopedia)Bartlett, Samuel Colcord, 1817–98, American Congregational clergyman and educator, b. Salisbury, N.H., grad. Dartmouth College, 1836. He studied at Andover Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1...

Nebo

(Encyclopedia)Nebo nēˈbō [key], in the Bible. 1 Town of Moab, near Mt. Pisgah and S of Heshbon. 2 City of Judah of postexilic times. 3 Hebrew name for Babylonian god of knowledge, literature, and agriculture. ...

Virginia, in Roman legend

(Encyclopedia)Virginia, in Roman legend, daughter of the centurion Virginius. Her father stabbed her to save her from the lust of Appius Claudius Crassus, decemvir. This precipitated the fall of the decemvirs. The ...

Carpenter, George Rice

(Encyclopedia)Carpenter, George Rice, 1863–1909, American educator, b. Labrador, grad. Harvard, 1886. After study abroad, he returned to teach at Harvard (1888–90) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (189...

Norse

(Encyclopedia)Norse, another name for the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). The modern Norse languages—Danish, Fae...