Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Gothic language

(Encyclopedia)Gothic language, dead language belonging to the now extinct East Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Gothic has special value fo...

German language

(Encyclopedia)German language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). It is the official language of Germany and Austria and i...

Frisian language

(Encyclopedia)Frisian language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). It has a number of dialects and is spoken by more than ...

Flemish language

(Encyclopedia)Flemish language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Generally regarded as the Belgian variant of Dutch (see...

Hungarian language

(Encyclopedia)Hungarian language, also called Magyar, member of the Ugric group of the Finno-Ugric languages. These languages form a subdivision of the Uralic subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages (see U...

Icelandic language

(Encyclopedia)Icelandic language, member of the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Spoken chiefly in Iceland, where it is the official languag...

international language

(Encyclopedia)international language, sometimes called universal language, a language intended to be used by people of different linguistic backgrounds to facilitate communication among them and to reduce the misun...

Italian language

(Encyclopedia)CEE Italian language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). The official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of...

Browse by Subject