Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Duran, Durand düräNtˈ [key], Jewish family of scholars. Profiat Isaac ben Moshe ha-Levi Duran, 1350–1414, called Efodi, was born probably in Perpignan, France, but he moved to Catalonia. In 1391...

(Encyclopedia) Akiba ben Joseph əkēˈbə [key], c.a.d. 50–c.a.d. 135, Jewish Palestinian religious leader, one of the founders of rabbinic Judaism. Although the facts of his life are obscured by legend, he is sa...

(Encyclopedia) Udall, Udal yo͞oˈdəl, yo͞ovˈdāl [key], 1560?–1592, English clergyman, educated at Cambridge. He adopted Puritan sympathies and aided John Penry in issuing the anticlerical pamphlets published ...

(Encyclopedia) Rosenzweig, Franz fränts rōˈzəntsvīkhˌ [key], 1886–1929, German-Jewish philosopher, b. Kassel. As a youth he was thoroughly trained in German philosophy and, after a near conversion to Christi...

(Encyclopedia) Testament of Moses, an early Jewish apocalypse discovered in 1861 and extant only in an incomplete 6th cent. a.d. Latin manuscript. The original work was probably written in Hebrew in the early 1st ce...

(Encyclopedia) Geddes, Sir Patrick gĕdˈĭs [key], 1854–1932, Scottish biologist and sociologist, distinguished especially in town planning. He received his biological training in T. H. Huxley's laboratory; from ...

(Encyclopedia) Gesner, Konrad von kônˈrät fən gĕsˈnər [key], 1516–65, Swiss scientist and bibliographer. Gesner was noted for his scholarship and erudition in almost every field of knowledge. He lived in Z�...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Indo-European, family of languages having more speakers than any other language family. It is estimated that approximately half the world's population speaks an Indo-European tongue as a first ...

(Encyclopedia) Nahuatlan näˈwŏtˌlən [key], group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock of North and Central America. A Nahuatlan language of great historical importance is ...

(Encyclopedia) langue d'oc dôēlˈ [key], names of the two principal groups of medieval French dialects. Langue d'oc (literally, “language of yes”) was spoken south of a line running, roughly, from Bordeaux to ...