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Goa

(Encyclopedia)Goa gōˈə [key], state (2001 provisional pop. 1,343,998), c.1,430 sq mi (3,700 sq km), W India, on the Malabar coast. A former Portuguese colony and Indian union territory, Goa became a state in 198...

Auvergne

(Encyclopedia)Auvergne ōvĕrˈnyə [key], former province and former administrative region, S central France. The area is now occupied chiefly by the departments of Puy-de-Dôme, Allier, Haute-Loire, and Cantal. T...

Korean

(Encyclopedia)Korean, language of uncertain ancestry. It is thought by some scholars to be akin to Japanese, by others to be a member of the Altaic subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages (see Uralic and A...

Krasnodar Territory

(Encyclopedia)Krasnodar Territory, administrative division (1995 pop. 5,004,200), 32,317 sq mi (83,701 sq km), SE European Russia, extending E from the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea into the Kuban steppe and stradd...

Majorca

(Encyclopedia)Majorca mälyôrˈkä [key], island (1991 pop. 602,074), 1,405 sq mi (3,639 sq km), Spain, largest of the Balearic Islands, in the W Mediterranean. Palma is the chief city. Majorca is mountainous in t...

Pitcairn Island

(Encyclopedia)Pitcairn Island, volcanic island (2005 est. pop. 45), 2.5 sq mi (6.5 sq km), South Pacific, SE of Tuamotu Archipelago. Adamstown is the capital and only settlement. The first British Pacific Islands p...

Solon, Athenian statesman

(Encyclopedia)Solon sōˈlən [key], c.639–c.559 b.c., Athenian statesman, lawgiver, and reformer. He was also a poet, and some of his patriotic verse in the Ionic dialect is extant. At some time (perhaps c.600 b...

Chinese

(Encyclopedia)Chinese, subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages (see Sino-Tibetan languages), which is also sometimes grouped with the Tai, or Thai, languages in a Sinitic subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan lan...

Dutch language

(Encyclopedia)Dutch language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Also called Netherlandish, it is spoken by about 15 milli...

Babel, Isaac Emmanuelovich

(Encyclopedia)Babel, Isaac Emmanuelovich ēˈsäk əmäno͞oāˈləvĭch bäˈbəl [key], 1894–1940, Russian writer, b. Odessa. Babel was quick to embrace the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, but in the end it was t...