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Germanic languages

(Encyclopedia)Germanic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by about 470 million people in many parts of the world, but chiefly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. All the modern ...

psycholinguistics

(Encyclopedia)psycholinguistics, the study of psychological states and mental activity associated with the use of language. An important focus of psycholinguistics is the largely unconscious application of grammati...

bilingualism

(Encyclopedia)bilingualism, ability to use two languages. Fluency in a second language requires skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing, although in practice some of those skills are often...

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...

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...

Casaubon, Isaac

(Encyclopedia)Casaubon, Isaac flōräNsˈ ātyĕnˈ mārēkˈ [key], 1599–1671, who also was a classical scholar. See study by A. Grafton and J. Weinberg (2011). ...

Brooks, Mel

(Encyclopedia)Brooks, Mel, 1927–, American film director, writer, actor, and producer, b. Brooklyn, NY as Melvin Kaminsky. His earliest work was in television, notably as a gag writer for Sid Caesar's “Your Sho...

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...