Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

pastoral

(Encyclopedia)pastoral, literary work in which the shepherd's life is presented in a conventionalized manner. In this convention the purity and simplicity of shepherd life is contrasted with the corruption and arti...

Grotefend, Georg Friedrich

(Encyclopedia)Grotefend, Georg Friedrich gāˈôrkh frēˈdrĭkh grōˈtəfĕnt [key], 1775–1853, German archaeologist and philologist. He specialized in Latin and Italian and wrote works on the Umbrian and Oscan...

Schleicher, August

(Encyclopedia)Schleicher, August ouˈgo͝ost shlīˈkhər [key], 1821–68, German philologist. A professor at the universities of Prague and Jena, Schleicher wrote studies of the Lithuanian language (1856–57), t...

Shuswap

(Encyclopedia)Shuswap sho͞oˈswäp [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Salishan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the mid-19th cent. the...

Baedeker, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Baedeker, Karl bāˈdĕkər [key], 1801–59, German publisher, founder of the Baedeker guidebooks. His printing establishment was at Koblenz, but his son Fritz, who continued the business, moved it t...

Babel

(Encyclopedia)Babel bāˈbəl [key] [Heb.,=confused], in the Bible, place where Noah's descendants (who spoke one language) tried to build a tower reaching up to heaven to make a name for themselves. For this presu...

Samoyedes

(Encyclopedia)Samoyedes or Samoyeds both: sămˈəyĕdzˌ [key], partly nomadic, partly settled agricultural tribes found in N Siberia and the Taimyr Peninsula, especially in the basin of the Ob and Yenisei rivers....

Tillamook

(Encyclopedia)Tillamook, Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Salishan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the early 19th cent. they lived on Tilla...

Baldwin, James Mark

(Encyclopedia)Baldwin, James Mark, 1861–1934, American psychologist, b. Columbia, S.C., grad. Princeton (B.A., 1884; Ph.D., 1889). He taught philosophy at the Univ. of Toronto (1889–93), psychology at Princeton...

Nilotes

(Encyclopedia)Nilotes nīlōˈtēz [key], people of E Africa who speak Nilotic languages. Among these are the Nuer and the Masai. The most prominent Nilotic ethnic groups live in South Sudan, N Uganda, and N Kenya....

Browse by Subject