Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Yalta

(Encyclopedia)Yalta yŏlˈtə [key], city (1989 pop. 89,000), in S Crimea, on the Black Sea. Picturesquely situated near the seashore, Yalta is on the site of an ancient Greek colony. It is the largest resort in Cr...

Borodin, Aleksandr Porfirevich

(Encyclopedia)Borodin, Aleksandr Porfirevich əlyĭksänˈdər pərfēˈrĭvĭch bôrôdyēnˈ [key], 1833–87, Russian composer, chemist, and physician. He studied at the academy of medicine in St. Petersburg, wh...

Bezborodko, Aleksandr Andreevich, Prince

(Encyclopedia)Bezborodko, Aleksandr Andreevich, Prince əlyĭksänˈdər əndrāˈəvĭch bĕzbôrôdˈkô [key], 1747–99, Russian statesman. He became secretary of petitions under Catherine II in 1775 and from 1...

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...

Sino-Tibetan languages

(Encyclopedia)Sino-Tibetan languages, family of languages spoken by over a billion people in central and SE Asia. This linguistic family is second only to the Indo-European stock in the number of its speakers. It i...

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 ...

Sherbrooke, University of

(Encyclopedia)Sherbrooke, University of, at Sherbrooke, Que., Canada; French language; founded 1954. It has faculties of letters and human sciences, science, administration, law, applied science, medicine, educatio...

Mistral, Frédéric

(Encyclopedia)Mistral, Frédéric frādārēkˈ mēsträlˈ [key], 1830–1914, French Provençal poet. With Théodore Aubanel he was one of the seven founders (1854) of the Félibrige, an organization to promote P...

Amharic

(Encyclopedia)Amharic ămhârˈĭk [key], language of Ethiopia belonging to the South Ethiopic group of South Semitic languages, which, in turn, belong to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of language...

Huastec

(Encyclopedia)Huastec wäsˈtĕk [key], indigenous people of the Pánuco River basin, E Mexico. They speak a Mayan language but are isolated from the rest of the Mayan stock, from whom they may have been separated ...

Browse by Subject