Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Tabernacles, Feast of, one of the oldest and most joyous of Jewish holidays, called in the Bible the Feast of Ingathering and today often called by its Hebrew name, Sukkoth [Heb.,=booth]. The holiday ...

(Encyclopedia) African languages, geographic rather than linguistic classification of languages spoken on the African continent. Historically the term refers to the languages of sub-Saharan Africa, which do not belo...

(Encyclopedia) Bible [Gr.,=the books], term used since the 4th cent. to denote the Christian Scriptures and later, by extension, those of various religious traditions. This article discusses the nature of religious ...

(Encyclopedia) Native American languages, languages of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere and their descendants. A number of the Native American languages that were spoken at the time of the European arriv...

(Encyclopedia) Oscan ŏsˈkən [key], extinct language belonging to the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Italic languages. ...

(Encyclopedia) Umbrian ŭmˈbrēən [key], extinct language belonging to the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Italic languages. ...

(Encyclopedia) Faliscan fəlĭsˈkən [key], extinct language belonging to the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Italic languages. ...

(Encyclopedia) Norse, another name for the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). The modern Norse languages—Danish, Fae...

(Encyclopedia) Picts, ancient inhabitants of central and N Scotland, of uncertain origin. First mentioned (a.d. 297) by the Roman writer Eumenius as northern invaders of Roman Britain, they were probably descendants...

(Encyclopedia) Frisch, Karl von frĭsh [key], 1887–1982, Austrian zoologist, b. Vienna, Austria. He studied zoology with Richard von Hertwig, whom he later succeeded as professor of zoology at Munich Univ. For his...