Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Westernizers

(Encyclopedia)Westernizers, in Russian history: see Slavophiles and Westernizers. ...

Latvian

(Encyclopedia)Latvian or Lettish lĕtˈĭsh [key], a language belonging to the Baltic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Baltic languages). The mother tongue of close to 3 million persons livin...

Komi

(Encyclopedia)Komi kōˈmē, kôˈ– [key], Finnic people of the northeastern part of European Russia. There are two traditional branches of the Komi—Zyrians and Permyaks. The Zyrians are now officially called K...

transformational-generative grammar

(Encyclopedia)transformational-generative grammar, linguistic theory associated with Noam Chomsky, particularly with his Syntactic Structures (1957), and with Chomsky's teacher Zellig Harris. Generative grammar att...

synonym

(Encyclopedia)synonym sĭnˈənĭm [key] [Gr.,=having the same name], word having a meaning that is the same as or very similar to the meaning of another word of the same language. Some are alike in some meanings o...

Russo-Finnish War

(Encyclopedia)Russo-Finnish War, 1939–40: see Finnish-Russian War. ...

Northeast Passage

(Encyclopedia)Northeast Passage, water route along the northern coast of Europe and Asia, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Beginning in the 15th cent., efforts were made to find a new all-water route to Ind...

Suvorov, Aleksandr Vasilyevich

(Encyclopedia)Suvorov, Aleksandr Vasilyevich əlyĭksänˈ dər vəsēˈlyəvĭch so͞ovôˈrəf [key], 1729–1800, Russian field marshal. Suvorov entered the army as a youth and rose rapidly through the ranks. He...

Sevastopol

(Encyclopedia)Sevastopol sĭvăsˈtəpōlˌ [key], formerly spelled Sebastopol, city (1989 pop. 355,000), on the Crimean peninsula and the Bay of Sevastopol, an inlet of the Black Sea. From 1954 part of Ukraine (th...

phonology

(Encyclopedia)phonology, study of the sound systems of languages. It is distinguished from phonetics, which is the study of the production, perception, and physical properties of speech sounds; phonology attempts t...

Browse by Subject