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Shuswap

(Encyclopedia)Shuswap sho͞oˈswäp [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Salishan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the mid-19th cent. the...

Char, René

(Encyclopedia)Char, René rənāˈ chärˈ [key], 1907–88, French poet. His writing reflects both his Provençal origins and his years of active participation in the French resistance. At first attracted to surre...

Pryor, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Pryor, Richard, 1940–2005, American comedian, b. Peoria, Ill. His iconoclastic, wildly inventive, and racially explosive comic style was expressed in language that was often crude and frequently bri...

Babel

(Encyclopedia)Babel bāˈbəl [key] [Heb.,=confused], in the Bible, place where Noah's descendants (who spoke one language) tried to build a tower reaching up to heaven to make a name for themselves. For this presu...

Walpi

(Encyclopedia)Walpi wälˈpē [key] [Hopi,=place of the gap], pueblo, NE Ariz., on a mesa NE of Flagstaff; founded c.1700. Its inhabitants are Pueblo who speak the Hopi language (Uto-Aztecan linguistic family). One...

Canarsee

(Encyclopedia)Canarsee kənärˈsē [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They occupied the western part of Long Island, N...

Bessenyei, György

(Encyclopedia)Bessenyei, György dyörˈdyə bĕˈshĕnyā [key], 1747–1811, Hungarian dramatist and writer. In Vienna he came in contact with French rationalism and was an ardent follower of Voltaire and the Enc...

Shaw, George Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Shaw, George Bernard, 1856–1950, Irish playwright and critic. He revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas. The lengthy pref...

Celt

(Encyclopedia)Celt kĕlt [key]. 1 One who speaks a Celtic language or who derives ancestry from an area where a Celtic language was spoken; i.e., one from Ireland, the Scottish Hebrides and Highlands, the Isle of M...

Niebuhr, Reinhold

(Encyclopedia)Niebuhr, Reinhold rīnˈhōld nēˈbo͝or [key], 1892–1971, American religious and social thinker, b. Wright City, Mo. A graduate of Yale Divinity School, he served (1915–28) as pastor of Bethel E...