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Septuagint

(Encyclopedia)Septuagint sĕpˈtyo͞oəjĭnt [key] [Lat.,=70], oldest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made by Hellenistic Jews, possibly from Alexandria, c.250 b.c. Legend, according to the fictional l...

purification

(Encyclopedia)purification, in religion, the ceremonial removal of what the religion deems unclean. The usual agents of purification are water (as in baptism), bodily alteration (as in circumcision), and fire. The ...

Indo-Iranian

(Encyclopedia)Indo-Iranian, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by more than a billion people, chiefly in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka (see The Indo-Eu...

Whorf, Benjamin Lee

(Encyclopedia)Whorf, Benjamin Lee hwôrf [key], 1897–1941, American linguist and anthropologist, b. Winthrop, Mass. Although he was trained in chemical engineering and worked for an insurance company, Whorf made ...

Shakhmatov, Aleksey Aleksandrovich

(Encyclopedia)Shakhmatov, Aleksey Aleksandrovich əlĭksyāˈ əlĭksänˈdrəvĭch shôkmətôfˈ [key], 1864–1920, Russian philologist and historian. Shakhmatov's many books on the history of the Russian langua...

Carnap, Rudolf

(Encyclopedia)Carnap, Rudolf kärˈnäp, –năp [key], 1891–1970, German-American philosopher. He taught philosophy at the Univ. of Vienna (1926–31) and at the German Univ. in Prague (1931–35). After going t...

Maccabees, books of the Bible

(Encyclopedia)Maccabees, two books included in the Septuagint and placed as the last two books in the Old Testament of the Vulgate; they are not included in the Hebrew Bible and are placed in the Apocrypha in Prote...

Moses

(Encyclopedia)Moses mōˈzĭs [key], Hebrew lawgiver, probably b. Egypt. The prototype of the prophets, he led his people in the 13th cent. b.c. out of bondage in Egypt to the edge of Canaan. The narrative in the B...

Manx

(Encyclopedia)Manx măngks [key], virtually extinct language belonging to the Goidelic or Gaelic group of the Celtic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The last native speaker, Ned Madrell, died in...

Krapp, George Philip

(Encyclopedia)Krapp, George Philip, 1872–1934, American scholar, b. Cincinnati. Krapp joined the faculty of Columbia Univ. in 1897, was professor of English at the Univ. of Cincinnati (1908–10) and at Columbia ...
 

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