Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Pierpont Morgan Library

(Encyclopedia)Pierpont Morgan Library, originally the private library of J. Pierpont Morgan, in 1924 made a public institution by his son J. P. Morgan as a memorial to his father (see Morgan, family). The library i...

Russian State Library

(Encyclopedia)Russian State Library (RSL), Russia's national library, located in Moscow; one of the world's largest libraries. Moscow's first public library, the RSL was founded in 1862 as the library portion of th...

Tobacco Nation

(Encyclopedia)Tobacco Nation or Tionontati, Native North Americans of the Iroquoian branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In 1616, when visited by the French, they were living...

Nootka

(Encyclopedia)Nootka no͝otˈkə [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Wakashan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). The Nootka proper are a smal...

Yakima, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Yakima yăkˈəmô, –mə [key], indigenous people of North America whose language belongs to the Sahaptin-Chinook branch of the Penutian linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the earl...

Bowring, Sir John

(Encyclopedia)Bowring, Sir John bouˈrĭng [key], 1792–1872, British diplomat, linguist, and writer. An extraordinarily versatile linguist, he is remembered for his anthologies and translations of poetry from man...

Stiles, Ezra

(Encyclopedia)Stiles, Ezra, 1727–95, American theologian and educator, b. North Haven, Conn., grad. Yale, 1746. He studied theology, was ordained in 1749, and tutored (1749–55) at Yale. Resigning from the minis...

Black English

(Encyclopedia)Black English, distinctive dialect spoken at times by as many as 80% to 90% of African Americans; also called ebonics [from ebony and phonics]. Long considered merely substandard English, it is in fac...

Hebrew language

(Encyclopedia)Hebrew language, member of the Canaanite group of the West Semitic subdivision of the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). Hebrew was the language of t...

alphabet

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Examples of letters in various alphabets (arrows indicate the direction of reading) alphabet [Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing, theoretically having a one-for-one relation bet...