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English language

(Encyclopedia)English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world...

Norris, Edwin

(Encyclopedia)Norris, Edwin, 1795–1872, English philologist. Norris wrote a number of articles on little-known languages of Asia and Africa. His most important work was his uncompleted Assyrian Dictionary (3 vol....

Marathi

(Encyclopedia)Marathi məräˈtē [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian. ...

J

(Encyclopedia)J, 10th letter of the alphabet, a Western European medieval development of I, with which it was formerly quite interchangeable in writing. It is pronounced as a consonant in English and often as a y i...

Sindhi

(Encyclopedia)Sindhi sĭnˈdē [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian. ...

Serbo-Croatian

(Encyclopedia)Serbo-Croatian sûrˈbō-krōāˈshən [key], language belonging to the South Slavic group of the Slavic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Slavic languages). Serbo-Croatian compr...

Navajo, language

(Encyclopedia)Navajo or Navaho, language belonging to the Athabascan branch of the Nadene linguistic family, or stock, of North America (including Mexico). See Native American languages. ...

instrumental

(Encyclopedia)instrumental, in the grammar of certain languages (e.g., Russian), the case referring to means or instrument. The Latin ablative may in some instances be termed instrumental. ...

Chinook, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Chinook shĭno͝okˈ, chĭ– [key], Native American tribe of the Penutian linguistic stock. Altogether twelve main tribes spoke Chinook languages; all were in the Columbia River valley. The Chinook t...

Yurok

(Encyclopedia)Yurok yo͝orˈŏk [key], Native North Americans who in the mid-19th cent. occupied parts of NW California, particularly the area around the Klamath River. They were of the California cultural area but...