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Cambridge, University of

(Encyclopedia)Cambridge, University of, at Cambridge, England, one of the oldest English-language universities in the world. Originating in the early 12th cent. (legend places its origin even earlier than that of t...

Veneti, people of ancient Italy

(Encyclopedia)Veneti, people of ancient Italy. They occupied the shore of the Adriatic from Trieste to the mouth of the Po River and spoke an Illyrian language. Friendly toward Rome, they came under Roman rule in t...

Elamite

(Encyclopedia)Elamite ēˈləmītˌ [key], extinct language of uncertain relationship that was once spoken in the ancient kingdom of Elam, located in SW Asia. It appears to be unrelated to any other languages, alth...

Sarsi

(Encyclopedia)Sarsi särˈsē [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Athabascan branch of the Nadene linguistic stock (see also Native American languages). They are also known as the Sarcee. At...

ogham

(Encyclopedia)ogham, ogam, or ogum all: ŏgˈəm, ōˈəm [key], ancient Celtic alphabet of one of the Irish runic languages. It was used by the druids and abandoned after the first few centuries of the Christian ...

Syriac

(Encyclopedia)Syriac sērˈēăkˌ [key], late dialect of Aramaic, which is a West Semitic language (see Afroasiatic languages). The early Christians of Mesopotamia and Syria gave the Greek name Syriac to the Arama...

Arabic languages

(Encyclopedia)Arabic languages, members of the West Semitic group of the Semitic subdivision of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). The Arabic languages comprise North Arabic (or simply...

semantics

(Encyclopedia)semantics [Gr.,=significant] in general, the study of the relationship between words and meanings. The empirical study of word meanings and sentence meanings in existing languages is a branch of lingu...

Kurdish

(Encyclopedia)Kurdish, language belonging to the Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian languages. ...

programming

(Encyclopedia)programming: see computer; programming language. ...