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Black English

(Encyclopedia)Black English, distinctive dialect spoken at times by as many as 80% to 90% of African Americans; also called ebonics [from ebony and phonics]. Long considered merely substandard English, it is in fac...

Bowring, Sir John

(Encyclopedia)Bowring, Sir John bouˈrĭng [key], 1792–1872, British diplomat, linguist, and writer. An extraordinarily versatile linguist, he is remembered for his anthologies and translations of poetry from man...

cuneiform

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Examples of the development of cuneiform cuneiform kyo͞onēˈĭfôrm [key] [Lat.,=wedge-shaped], system of writing developed before the last centuries of the 4th millennium b.c. in the lower ...

alphabet

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Examples of letters in various alphabets (arrows indicate the direction of reading) alphabet [Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing, theoretically having a one-for-one relation bet...

Hebrew language

(Encyclopedia)Hebrew language, member of the Canaanite group of the West Semitic subdivision of the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). Hebrew was the language of t...

Mi'kmaq

(Encyclopedia)Mi'kmaq or Micmac, Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They inhabit Nova Scotia, Cape Br...

Mahan, Alfred Thayer

(Encyclopedia)Mahan, Alfred Thayer məhănˈ [key], 1840–1914, U.S. naval officer and historian, b. West Point, N.Y. A Union naval officer in the Civil War, he later lectured on naval history and strategy at the ...

Klamath, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Klamath klămˈəth [key], Native North Americans who in the 19th cent. lived in SW Oregon. They speak a language of the Sahaptin-Chinook branch of the Penutian linguistic stock (see Native American l...

Bannock

(Encyclopedia)Bannock bănˈək [key], Native North Americans who formerly ranged over wide territory of the N Great Plains and into the foothills of the Rocky Mts. They were concentrated in S Idaho. Their language...

Bantu

(Encyclopedia)Bantu bănˈto͞oˌ [key], ethnic and linguistic group of Africa, numbering about 120 million. The Bantu inhabit most of the continent S of the Congo River except the extreme southwest. The classifica...