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Varro, Marcus Terentius

(Encyclopedia)Varro, Marcus Terentius, 116 b.c.–27? b.c., Roman man of letters. Known as the most erudite man and the most prolific writer of his times, Varro is estimated to have written about 620 volumes. He se...

Celtic languages

(Encyclopedia)Celtic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. At one time, during the Hellenistic period, Celtic speech extended all the way from Britain and the Iberian Peninsula in the west ...

Rolle of Hampole, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Rolle of Hampole, Richard rōl [key], c.1300–c.1349, English religious writer, a Yorkshire hermit. He wrote mainly in Latin, but his English works are important for the history of the language. Some...

Du Bellay, Joachim

(Encyclopedia)Du Bellay, Joachim bĕlāˈ [key], 1522?–1560, French poet of the Pléiade (see under Pleiad). He wrote their manifesto, La Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse (1549), which urges the s...

linguistics

(Encyclopedia)linguistics, scientific study of language, covering the structure (morphology and syntax; see grammar), sounds (phonology), and meaning (semantics), as well as the history of the relations of language...

Germanic languages

(Encyclopedia)Germanic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by about 470 million people in many parts of the world, but chiefly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. All the modern ...

Wolff, Christian von

(Encyclopedia)Wolff or Wolf, Christian von krĭsˈtyän fən vôlf [key], 1679–1754, German philosopher. One of the first to use the German language instead of Latin, he systematized and popularized the doctrines...

grammar

(Encyclopedia)grammar, description of the structure of a language, consisting of the sounds (see phonology); the meaningful combinations of these sounds into words or parts of words, called morphemes; and the arran...

Serbo-Croatian

(Encyclopedia)Serbo-Croatian sûrˈbō-krōāˈshən [key], language belonging to the South Slavic group of the Slavic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Slavic languages). Serbo-Croatian compr...

Provençal literature

(Encyclopedia)Provençal literature, vernacular literature of S France. Provençal, or Occitan, as the language is now often called, appears to have been the first vernacular tongue used in French commerce and lite...