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Akan

(Encyclopedia)Akan əkänˈ, äkˈən [key], people of W Africa, primarily in Ghana, where they number over 7.5 million, Côte d'Ivoire, and Togo. They speak languages of the Twi branch of the Kwa subfamily. Althou...

Ugrian

(Encyclopedia)Ugrian yo͞oˈgrĭk, o͞oˈ– [key], subgroup of the Finno-Ugric group of languages, which is, in turn, a subdivision of the Uralic subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages. See Finno-Ugric l...

Pahlavi language

(Encyclopedia)Pahlavi language pāˈ– [key], member of the Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Pahlavi is the form of the Persian language that followed Old Persi...

Chaldaea

(Encyclopedia)Chaldaea or Chaldea both: kăldēˈə [key], properly the southernmost portion of the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Sometimes it is extended to include Babylonia and thus comprises al...

Linear Scripts

(Encyclopedia)Linear Scripts, forms of Minoan writing. The earliest Minoan writing consisted of pictographs, called Cretan hieroglyphs, which date from about 2000 b.c. The first linear script, Linear A, dates from ...

Flemish language

(Encyclopedia)Flemish language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Generally regarded as the Belgian variant of Dutch (see...

Catalan language

(Encyclopedia)Catalan language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. It is spoken by about 8 million people in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and...

Italic languages

(Encyclopedia)Italic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages that may be divided into two groups. The first group consists of the ancient Italic languages and dialects that were once spoken in...

Lithuanian

(Encyclopedia)Lithuanian lĭthˌo͞oāˈnēən [key], a language belonging to the Baltic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Baltic languages). The official language of Lithuania since 1918, Lit...

Latvian

(Encyclopedia)Latvian or Lettish lĕtˈĭsh [key], a language belonging to the Baltic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Baltic languages). The mother tongue of close to 3 million persons livin...