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pidgin
pidgin , a lingua franca that is not the mother tongue of anyone using it and that has a simplified grammar and a restricted, often polyglot vocabulary. The earliest documented pidgin is the Lingua Franca (or Sabir) that developed among merchants and traders in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages...
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Nha Trang
Nha Trang , city (1989 est. pop. 263,100), E central S Vietnam, a commercial port on the South China Sea. It has an important fishing industry. It was the site of a major U.S. military base in the Vietnam War; the base extended 15 mi (24 km) south to the harbor of Cam Ranh Bay. The city has a commer...
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Petropavlovsk
Petropavlovsk pyĕtrepäv´lefsk or Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski , city (1989 pop. 269,000), capital of Kamchatka Territory, Russian Far East. It is a major port and naval base on the Northern Sea Route, and there are shipyards and lumber mills. Free of ice seven months of the year, it...
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Mers-el-Kebir
Mers-el-Kebir , town, NW Algeria, on the Gulf of Oran. Originally a Roman port, it has a long history of maritime importance. During the 15th cent. it was a center of activity for corsairs and was twice occupied by the Portuguese. The Spanish held the town from 1505 to 1792; the French arrived in th...
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Robert Garnier
Robert Garnier , 1534?-1590, French dramatic poet. He wrote mainly closet dramas in the classical manner of Seneca. Les Juives [the Jewish women] (1583), based on the Bible, is perhaps the best of his tragedies. He is also credited with the first tragicomedy in French, Bradamante (1582).
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Normandy
Normandy , Fr. Normandie , region and former province, NW France, bordering on the English Channel. It now includes five departments—Manche, Calvados, Eure, Seine-Maritime, and Orne. Normandy is a region of flat farmland, forests, and gentle hills. The economy is based on cattle raising, fish...
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Saint Benedict of Aniane
Saint Benedict of Aniane c.750-821, French abbot who became a monastic adviser to Louis I . He first founded (c.780) an austere monastic community at Aniane in Languedoc, based on Eastern asceticism. In 799, he founded a large monastery based on the more moderate Benedictine Rule (see Benedict, S...
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aristocracy
aristocracy [Gr.,=rule by the best], in political science, government by a social elite. In the West the political concept of aristocracy derives from Plato's formulation in the Republic. The criteria on which aristocracy is based may vary greatly from society to society. Historically, aristocrac...
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denture
denture artificial replacement for natural teeth and surrounding tissue. Dentures are classified as partial or complete. The former are removable and maintained by clasps, or are fixed bridges with crowns cemented over adjacent teeth or over spikes embedded in the jaw. Complete dentures are replace...
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King Horn
King Horn probably the earliest English-language romance, written c.1250 and containing about 1,500 lines. It is by an anonymous author and is based on an earlier work in French. Emphasizing action and adventure, the poem relates the story of a heroic Scottish prince's successful fight to regain hi...
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