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bilingualism

(Encyclopedia)bilingualism, ability to use two languages. Fluency in a second language requires skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing, although in practice some of those skills are often...

Jespersen, Otto

(Encyclopedia)Jespersen, Otto ŏˈtō yĕsˈpərsən [key], 1860–1943, Danish philologist. Professor of English language and literature at the Univ. of Copenhagen and later rector there, Jespersen first earned a ...

Black, Max

(Encyclopedia)Black, Max, 1909–88, American analytical philosopher, b. Baku, Russia (now Bakı, Azerbaijan), grad. Cambridge, Ph.D. Univ. of London, 1939. He taught at the Univ. of Illinois (1940–46) before goi...

computer program

(Encyclopedia)computer program, a series of instructions that a computer can interpret and execute; programs are also called software to distinguish them from hardware, the physical equipment used in data processin...

Eskimo-Aleut

(Encyclopedia)Eskimo-Aleut, family of Native American languages consisting of Aleut (spoken on the Aleutian Islands and the Kodiak Peninsula) and Eskimo or Inuktitut (spoken in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberi...

Müller, Max

(Encyclopedia)Müller, Max (Friedrich Maximilian Müller, Friedrich Max Müller, or Friedrich Max-Müller) ;frēˈdrĭkh mäkˌsēmēlˈyän [key], 1823–1900, German philologist and Orientalist, b. Dessau; son of...

Porter, Katherine Anne

(Encyclopedia)Porter, Katherine Anne, 1890–1980, American author, b. Indian Creek, Tex., as Callie Russell Porter. Although she published infrequently, she is regarded as a master of the short story. Her first bo...

Cassirer, Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Cassirer, Ernst ĕrnst käsērˈər [key], 1874–1945, German philosopher. He was a professor at the Univ. of Hamburg from 1919 until 1933, when he went to Oxford; he later taught at Yale and Columbi...

Cyril and Methodius, Saints

(Encyclopedia)Cyril and Methodius, Saints məthōˈdēəs [key], d. 869 and 884, respectively, Greek missionaries, brothers, called Apostles to the Slavs and fathers of Slavonic literature. Their history and influe...

Hawaiian

(Encyclopedia)Hawaiian, member of the Polynesian group of the Austronesian family of languages. Of the fewer than 10,000 people who speak Hawaiian, only a few hundred are native speakers, but the language is taught...