Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Danish language

(Encyclopedia)Danish language, member of the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official language of Denmark, it is spoken by over 5 milli...

language acquisition

(Encyclopedia)language acquisition, the process of learning a native or a second language. The acquisition of native languages is studied primarily by developmental psychologists and psycholinguists. Although how c...

body language

(Encyclopedia)body language, nonverbal communication by means of facial expessions, eye behavior, gestures, posture, and the like. Body language expresses emotions, feelings, and attitudes, sometimes even contradic...

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...

universal language

(Encyclopedia)universal language, a language intended to further communication and goodwill among peoples speaking different languages without necessarily replacing their native tongues. See international language....

Norwegian language

(Encyclopedia)Norwegian language, member of the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. It is spoken by about 4 million people in Norway and anothe...

Basque language

(Encyclopedia)Basque language, tongue of uncertain relationship spoken by close to a million people, most of whom live in NE Spain and some of whom reside in SW France. The language has eight dialects. Speakers of ...

sign language

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Manual alphabet sign language, gestural communication used as an alternative or replacement for speech. Sign languages resemble oral languages in every way other than their modality. As with o...

Egyptian language

(Encyclopedia)Egyptian language, extinct language of ancient Egypt, a member of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). The development of ancient Egyptian is usually divided into four peri...

Yiddish language

(Encyclopedia)Yiddish language yĭdˈĭsh [key], a member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages; German language). Although it is not ...