Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Portuguese language

(Encyclopedia)CEE Portuguese language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). It is the mother tongue of about 170 million people, c...

Catalan language

(Encyclopedia)Catalan language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. It is spoken by about 8 million people in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and...

Sundanese language

(Encyclopedia)Sundanese language: see Malayo-Polynesian languages. ...

Swahili language

(Encyclopedia)Swahili language, member of the Bantu group of African languages (see African languages and Bantu languages). Swahili is spoken by 30 million people, chiefly in Tanzania, Kenya, Congo (Kinshasa), Buru...

Tagalog language

(Encyclopedia)Tagalog language: see Malayo-Polynesian languages. ...

universal language

(Encyclopedia)universal language, a language intended to further communication and goodwill among peoples speaking different languages without necessarily replacing their native tongues. See international language....

Welsh language

(Encyclopedia)Welsh language, member of the Brythonic group of the Celtic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Celtic languages. ...

Russian language

(Encyclopedia)Russian language, also called Great Russian, member of the East Slavic group of the Slavic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Slavic languages). The principal language of administ...

Turkish language

(Encyclopedia)Turkish language, member of the Turkic subdivision of the Altaic subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages (see Uralic and Altaic languages). Turkish is the official language of Turkey and one ...

Belarusian language

(Encyclopedia)Belarusian language or White Russian: see Russian language; Slavic languages. ...