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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 ...

Sogdiana

(Encyclopedia)Sogdiana sŏgdēāˈnə [key], part of the ancient Persian Empire in central Asia between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) rivers. Corresponding to the later emirate of Bukhara and region...

Veneti, people of ancient Italy

(Encyclopedia)Veneti, people of ancient Italy. They occupied the shore of the Adriatic from Trieste to the mouth of the Po River and spoke an Illyrian language. Friendly toward Rome, they came under Roman rule in t...

Elamite

(Encyclopedia)Elamite ēˈləmītˌ [key], extinct language of uncertain relationship that was once spoken in the ancient kingdom of Elam, located in SW Asia. It appears to be unrelated to any other languages, alth...

Sarsi

(Encyclopedia)Sarsi särˈsē [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Athabascan branch of the Nadene linguistic stock (see also Native American languages). They are also known as the Sarcee. At...

ogham

(Encyclopedia)ogham, ogam, or ogum all: ŏgˈəm, ōˈəm [key], ancient Celtic alphabet of one of the Irish runic languages. It was used by the druids and abandoned after the first few centuries of the Christian ...

Syriac

(Encyclopedia)Syriac sērˈēăkˌ [key], late dialect of Aramaic, which is a West Semitic language (see Afroasiatic languages). The early Christians of Mesopotamia and Syria gave the Greek name Syriac to the Arama...

Blanchot, Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Blanchot, Maurice mōrēsˈ bläNshōˈ [key], 1907–2003, French novelist and literary critic. One of the first intellectuals in France to be interested in questions of language and meaning, he was ...

semantics

(Encyclopedia)semantics [Gr.,=significant] in general, the study of the relationship between words and meanings. The empirical study of word meanings and sentence meanings in existing languages is a branch of lingu...