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Hamilton, Sir William Rowan

(Encyclopedia)Hamilton, Sir William Rowan, 1805–65, Irish mathematician and astronomer, b. Dublin. A child prodigy, he had mastered 13 languages by the age of 13 and was still an undergraduate when he became prof...

Stockbridge, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Stockbridge, Native North Americans of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the early 17th cent. they were known as the Housatonic and were part of the Mahican ...

Spokan

(Encyclopedia)Spokan or Spokane both: spōkănˈ [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Salishan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the early...

Baterson, Mary Catherine

(Encyclopedia)Bateson, Mary Catherine, 1939-2021, American linguist and anthropologist, b. New York City, grad. Radcliffe (BA,1960), Harvard (Ph.D., 1963). The daugh...

Weinreich, Uriel

(Encyclopedia)Weinreich, Uriel, 1926–67, Polish-American linguist, b. Vilnius, Poland (now in Lithuania), Ph.D. Columbia Univ., 1951. Weinreich taught linguistics at Columbia (1951–67) and is noted for his cont...

Carle, Eric

(Encyclopedia)Carle, Eric, 1929–2021, American children's book author and illustrator, b. Syracuse, N.Y. Although born in the U.S., Carle was raised in Stuttgart, G...

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...

Japanese

(Encyclopedia)Japanese jăpˌənēzˈ [key], language of uncertain origin that is spoken by more than 125 million people, most of whom live in Japan. There are also many speakers of Japanese in the Ryukyu Islands, ...

Nootka

(Encyclopedia)Nootka no͝otˈkə [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Wakashan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). The Nootka proper are a smal...

Montagnais and Naskapi

(Encyclopedia)Montagnais năsˈkəpē [key], aboriginal peoples originally from Labrador, Canada. Because they both spoke almost identical Algonquian languages and had similar customs, the two groups are often link...