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Merle d'Aubigné, Jean Henri

(Encyclopedia)Merle d'Aubigné, Jean Henri zhäN äNrēˈ mĕrl dōbēnyāˈ [key], 1794–1872, Swiss ecclesiastical historian and Protestant preacher. After studying theology at Geneva and in Berlin, he was pasto...

Manasseh ben Israel

(Encyclopedia)Manasseh ben Israel, 1604–57, Jewish scholar and communal leader, b. Portugal. Early in his life he settled in Amsterdam, where he became a rabbi and started (1627) the first Hebrew press there. He ...

Abulcasis

(Encyclopedia)Abulcasis äˈbo͞o käˈsĭm [key], Arab physician, d. c.1013, b. near Córdoba, Spain. His chief work, a detailed account of surgery and medicine, was for many years the leading surgical textbook. K...

Klallam

(Encyclopedia)Klallam klălˈəm [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Salishan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They formerly occupied the s...

Burritt, Elihu

(Encyclopedia)Burritt, Elihu, 1810–79, American reformer, b. New Britain, Conn. A blacksmith, he studied mathematics, languages, and geography and became known as “the learned blacksmith.” Profoundly idealist...

accent

(Encyclopedia)accent, in speech, emphasis given a particular sound, called prosodic systems in linguistics. There are three basic accentual methods: stress, tone, and length. In English each word has at least one p...

Polish language

(Encyclopedia)Polish language, member of the West Slavic group of the Slavic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Slavic languages). Polish is spoken as a first language by about 38 million peopl...

tense

(Encyclopedia)tense [O.Fr., from Lat.,=time], in the grammar of many languages, a category of time distinctions expressed by any conjugated form of a verb. In Latin inflection the tense of a verb is indicated by a ...

Persian language

(Encyclopedia)Persian language, member of the Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Indo-Iranian languages). The official language of Iran, it has about 38 millio...

Craigie, Sir William A.

(Encyclopedia)Craigie, Sir William A., 1867–1957, British lexicographer, b. Dundee, Scotland. Educated at the Univ. of St. Andrews, Craigie studied Scandinavian languages at Copenhagen before beginning in 1893 hi...