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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...

Edinburgh, University of

(Encyclopedia)Edinburgh, University of, at Edinburgh, Scotland; founded 1583. It has faculties of divinity, law, medicine, arts, science, music, social sciences, and veterinary medicine. The Institute for Advanced ...

paradox

(Encyclopedia)paradox, statement that appears self-contradictory but actually has a basis in truth, e.g., Oscar Wilde's “Ignorance is like a delicate fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.” Many New Critics mai...

Brahui

(Encyclopedia)Brahui bräho͞oˈē [key], Dravidian language of Baluchistan. See Dravidian languages. ...

Telugu

(Encyclopedia)Telugu tĕlˈəgo͞oˌ [key], Dravidian language of India: see Dravidian languages. ...

Davidson, Donald Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Davidson, Donald Herbert, 1917–2003, American philosopher, b. Springfield, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1939; Ph.D., 1949). A student of W. V. Quine, Davidson emerged as one of the major figures in p...

Chickasaw

(Encyclopedia)Chickasaw chĭkˈəsô [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Muskogean branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They occupied N Mississippi an...

etymology

(Encyclopedia)etymology ĕtĭmŏlˈəjē [key], branch of linguistics that investigates the history, development, and origin of words. It was this study that chiefly revealed the regular relations of sounds in the ...

Urdu

(Encyclopedia)Urdu o͞orˈdo͞o [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official tongue of Pakistan, Urdu is also one of the 15 langu...

romance

(Encyclopedia)romance [O.Fr.,=something written in the popular language, i.e., a Romance language]. The roman of the Middle Ages was a form of chivalric and romantic literature widely diffused throughout Europe fro...