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Y

(Encyclopedia)Y, 25th letter of the alphabet. It was a Latin importation of the eastern Greek upsilon (see U), which was pronounced like ü; the Romans used it for Greek words. In English y mainly represents the se...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann

(Encyclopedia)Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann loŏtˈvĭkh yōˈzĕf yōˈhän vĭtˈgənshtīn [key], 1889–1951, Austrian philosopher, b. Vienna. The second phase of Wittgenstein's philosophy commenced with ...

Mayröcker, Friederike

(Encyclopedia) Mayröcker, Friederike, 1924-2021, German-language poet, b. Vienna, Austria. Mayröcker served in World War II as a secretary in the German airforce a...

Pali

(Encyclopedia)Pali päˈlē [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Some scholars classify it as a Prakrit, or vernacular dialect of clas...

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 ...

Chomsky, Noam

(Encyclopedia)Chomsky, Noam nōm chŏmˈskē [key], 1928–, educator and linguist, b. Philadelphia. Chomsky, who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955, developed a theory of transforma...

dialect

(Encyclopedia)dialect, variety of a language used by a group of speakers within a particular speech community. Every individual speaks a variety of his language, termed an idiolect. Dialects are groups of idiolects...

Afroasiatic languages

(Encyclopedia)Afroasiatic languages hămˈĭtō-səmĭtˈĭk [key], family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people in N Africa; much of the Sahara; parts of E, central, and W Africa; and W Asia (especia...

Johnson, Alexander Bryan

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Alexander Bryan, 1786–1867, American philosopher and semanticist, b. Gosport, England. He immigrated (1801) to the United States and eventually became a wealthy banker in Utica, N.Y. Johnso...

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...