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Ibycus

(Encyclopedia)Ibycus ĭbˈĭkəs [key], fl. before 500 b.c., Greek lyric poet, b. Rhegium, S Italy. The extant fragments of his work contain the earliest-known example of the triadic choral lyric. He spent some tim...

Hiero I

(Encyclopedia)Hiero I hīˈərō [key], 5th cent. b.c., Greek Sicilian ruler, tyrant of Syracuse (478–467 b.c.). He succeeded his brother Gelon. A noted patron of literature, Hiero had Simonides, Pindar, and Aesc...

Swinburne, Algernon Charles

(Encyclopedia)Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 1837–1909, English poet and critic. His poetry is noted for its vitality and for the music of its language. After attending Eton (1849–53) and Oxford (1856–60) he se...

Veneti, people of ancient Italy

(Encyclopedia)Veneti, people of ancient Italy. They occupied the shore of the Adriatic from Trieste to the mouth of the Po River and spoke an Illyrian language. Friendly toward Rome, they came under Roman rule in t...

Elamite

(Encyclopedia)Elamite ēˈləmītˌ [key], extinct language of uncertain relationship that was once spoken in the ancient kingdom of Elam, located in SW Asia. It appears to be unrelated to any other languages, alth...

ogham

(Encyclopedia)ogham, ogam, or ogum all: ŏgˈəm, ōˈəm [key], ancient Celtic alphabet of one of the Irish runic languages. It was used by the druids and abandoned after the first few centuries of the Christian ...

Blanchot, Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Blanchot, Maurice mōrēsˈ bläNshōˈ [key], 1907–2003, French novelist and literary critic. One of the first intellectuals in France to be interested in questions of language and meaning, he was ...

Sarsi

(Encyclopedia)Sarsi särˈsē [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Athabascan branch of the Nadene linguistic stock (see also Native American languages). They are also known as the Sarcee. At...

Arabic languages

(Encyclopedia)Arabic languages, members of the West Semitic group of the Semitic subdivision of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). The Arabic languages comprise North Arabic (or simply...

semantics

(Encyclopedia)semantics [Gr.,=significant] in general, the study of the relationship between words and meanings. The empirical study of word meanings and sentence meanings in existing languages is a branch of lingu...