Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

189 results found

Italic languages

(Encyclopedia)Italic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages that may be divided into two groups. The first group consists of the ancient Italic languages and dialects that were once spoken in...

Heidelberg

(Encyclopedia)Heidelberg hīˈdəlbĕrkh [key], city, Baden-Württemberg, SW Germany, picturesquely situated ...

James I, king of Scotland

(Encyclopedia)James I, 1394–1437, king of Scotland (1406–37), son and successor of Robert III. King Robert feared for the safety of James because the king's brother, Robert Stuart, 1st duke of Albany, who was v...

Mountain, the

(Encyclopedia)Mountain, the, in French history, the label applied to deputies sitting on the raised left benches in the National Convention during the French Revolution. Members of the faction, known as Montagnards...

Ba Jin

(Encyclopedia)Ba Jin or Pa Chin both: bäˈ jĭnˈ [key], pseud. of Li Yaotang (also Li Feigan), 1904–2005, one of China's most acclaimed modern novelists, b. Chengdu. Born into a wealthy family, he received a br...

Camões, Luís de

(Encyclopedia)Camões or Camoens, Luís de both: lo͞oēshˈ dĭ kəmoiNshˈ [key], 1524?–1580, Portuguese poet, the greatest figure in Portuguese literature. Born of a poor family, Camões gained wide familiarit...

Gaelic literature

(Encyclopedia)Gaelic literature, literature in the native tongue of Ireland and Scotland. Since Scots Gaelic became separate from Irish Gaelic only in the 17th cent., the literature is conventionally divided into O...

Indo-European Family of Languages, The (table)

(Encyclopedia)The Indo-European Family of Languages * Asterisk indicates a dead language. ...

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

(Encyclopedia)Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807–82, American poet, b. Portland, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1825. He wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a new body o...

Armenian literature

(Encyclopedia)Armenian literature. The Armenian Church fostered literature, and the principal early works are religious or hagiographical, most of them translations. The first major Armenian literary work is a 5th ...