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Chickasaw

(Encyclopedia)Chickasaw chĭkˈəsô [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Muskogean branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They occupied N Mississippi an...

Davidson, Donald Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Davidson, Donald Herbert, 1917–2003, American philosopher, b. Springfield, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1939; Ph.D., 1949). A student of W. V. Quine, Davidson emerged as one of the major figures in p...

etymology

(Encyclopedia)etymology ĕtĭmŏlˈəjē [key], branch of linguistics that investigates the history, development, and origin of words. It was this study that chiefly revealed the regular relations of sounds in the ...

Urdu

(Encyclopedia)Urdu o͞orˈdo͞o [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official tongue of Pakistan, Urdu is also one of the 15 langu...

mythology

(Encyclopedia)mythology [Greek,=the telling of stories], the entire body of myths in a given tradition, and the study of myths. Students of anthropology, folklore, and religion study myths in different ways, distin...

Kyprianou, Spyros

(Encyclopedia)Kyprianou, Spyros kēprēäno͞o [key], 1932–2002, Greek Cypriot political leader and president of Cyprus (1977–1988). He served (1960–72) as foreign minister, and opposed efforts by Athens to u...

Dio Chrysostom

(Encyclopedia)Dio Chrysostom krĭsˈəstəm, krĭsŏsˈ– [key], d. after a.d. 112, Greek Sophist and orator [Chrysostom=golden-mouthed], b. Prusa (modern Bursa) in Bithynia. He lived at Rome under Emperor Domitia...

Diodorus Siculus

(Encyclopedia)Diodorus Siculus dīədôrˈəs sĭkˈyo͞oləs [key], d. after 21 b.c., Sicilian historian. He wrote, in Greek, a world history in 40 books, ending with Caesar's Gallic Wars. Fully preserved are Book...

Elytis, Odysseus

(Encyclopedia)Elytis, Odysseus älˌāpo͞oˈdĕlēs [key], 1911–96, Greek poet, b. Iraklion, Crete. Strongly influenced by surrealism, especially the works of Paul Éluard, in the 1930s he began publishing indiv...

mikado

(Encyclopedia)mikado mĭkäˈdō [key], a former title of the emperor of Japan used chiefly in the English language. ...