Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Liu Xiaobo shyä [key], 1961–, a Chinese poet and artist, often acted as his spokesperson when he was in custody and was subjected to heavy state surveillance. Under house arrest from 2010, she was ...

(Encyclopedia) Sino-Tibetan languages, family of languages spoken by over a billion people in central and SE Asia. This linguistic family is second only to the Indo-European stock in the number of its speakers. It i...

(Encyclopedia) Hu Shih ho͞o shŭr [key], 1891–1962, Chinese philosopher and essayist, leading liberal intellectual in the May Fourth Movement (1917–23). He studied under John Dewey at Columbia Univ., becoming a...

(Encyclopedia) Ch'in Chiu-shao chĭn chyo͞o-shou [key], c.1202–1261, Chinese mathematician. He pioneered in the study of indeterminate analysis in his Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections of 1247. The text exis...

(Encyclopedia) May Fourth Movement (1919), first mass movement in modern Chinese history. On May 4, about 5,000 university students in Beijing protested the Versailles Conference (Apr. 28, 1919) awarding Japan the f...

(Encyclopedia) Dzungaria jo͝ongˈgärˈ [key], physical region (c.300,000 sq mi/777,000 sq km) of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, NW China. It is a largely steppe and semidesert basin surrounded by high mountains...

(Encyclopedia) Confucius kənfyo͞oˈshəs [key], Chinese K'ung Ch'iu or K'ung Fu-tzu, Pinyin Kong Fuzi, c.551–479? b.c., Chinese sage. Positive evidence concerning the life of Confucius is scanty; modern scholars...

(Encyclopedia) Aviz ävēzhˈ [key], village, Portalegre dist., central Portugal, in Alto Alentejo. The Castilian order of the Knights of Calatrava assisted in driving the Moors from Portugal and in 1166 settled at ...

(Encyclopedia) Macau or Macao məkouˈ [key], Port. Macau, Mandarin Aomen, special administrative region of China, formerly administered by Portugal (2015 est. pop. 601,000), 10.8 sq mi (28.2 sq km), adjoining Guang...

(Encyclopedia) Yen, James Y. C. yĕn [key], Mandarin Yen Yang-chu, 1893–1990, Chinese educator, b. Sichuan prov., China, educated at Yale (B.A., 1918) and Princeton (M.A., 1920) universities. Yen devised a simplif...