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sociolinguistics

(Encyclopedia)sociolinguistics, the study of language as it affects and is affected by social relations. Sociolinguistics encompasses a broad range of concerns, including bilingualism, pidgin and creole languages, ...

Jespersen, Otto

(Encyclopedia)Jespersen, Otto ŏˈtō yĕsˈpərsən [key], 1860–1943, Danish philologist. Professor of English language and literature at the Univ. of Copenhagen and later rector there, Jespersen first earned a ...

Black, Max

(Encyclopedia)Black, Max, 1909–88, American analytical philosopher, b. Baku, Russia (now Bakı, Azerbaijan), grad. Cambridge, Ph.D. Univ. of London, 1939. He taught at the Univ. of Illinois (1940–46) before goi...

Castile

(Encyclopedia)Castile kästēˈlyä [key], historic region and former kingdom, central and N Spain, traditionally divided into Old Castile and New Castile, and now divided among the autonomous communities of Castil...

computer program

(Encyclopedia)computer program, a series of instructions that a computer can interpret and execute; programs are also called software to distinguish them from hardware, the physical equipment used in data processin...

Eskimo-Aleut

(Encyclopedia)Eskimo-Aleut, family of Native American languages consisting of Aleut (spoken on the Aleutian Islands and the Kodiak Peninsula) and Eskimo or Inuktitut (spoken in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberi...

Quiché

(Encyclopedia)Quiché kēchāˈ [key], indigenous peoples of Mayan linguistic stock, in the western highlands of Guatemala; most important group of the ancient southern Maya. The largest of the contemporary native ...

Hawaiian

(Encyclopedia)Hawaiian, member of the Polynesian group of the Austronesian family of languages. Of the fewer than 10,000 people who speak Hawaiian, only a few hundred are native speakers, but the language is taught...

Bloomfield, Leonard

(Encyclopedia)Bloomfield, Leonard, 1887–1949, American linguist, b. Chicago. Bloomfield was professor at Ohio State Univ. (1921–27), at the Univ. of Chicago (1927–40), and at Yale (from 1940). His specialty f...

Esperanto

(Encyclopedia)Esperanto ĕspəränˈtō [key], an artificial language introduced in 1887 and intended by its inventor, Dr. Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (1859–1917), a Polish oculist and linguist, to ease communication ...