Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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tagmemics ... Tairona

tagmemics: a system of linguistic analysis developed by the American linguist Kenneth L. Pike in the 1950s and applied to the description of a very large number of hitherto unrecorded languages. Tagmemics differs from alternative systems of grammatical analysis in that ...
Tagore, Debendranath: Hindu philosopher and religious reformer, active in the Brahmo Samaj ("Society of Brahma," also translated as "Society of God"), which purged the Hindu religion and way of life of many abuses.
Tagore, Rabindranath: Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from ...
Tagus River: longest waterway of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises in the Sierra de Albarracin of eastern Spain, at a point about 90 miles (150 km) from the Mediterranean coast, and flows westward across Spain and Portugal for 626 miles (1,007 km) ...
Taha Hussein: outstanding figure of the modernist movement in Egyptian literature. His writings, in Arabic, include novels, stories, criticism, and social and political essays. Outside his own country he is best known through his autobiography, al-Ayyam (2 parts, 1929-32). The first modern ...
tahajjud: (Arabic: "keeping vigil"), in Islamic practice, the recitation of the Qur'an (Islamic scriptures) and prayers during the night. Tahajjud is generally regarded as sunnah (tradition) and not fard (obligation). There are many verses in the Qur'an that encourage these nightly ...
Tahan, Mount: highest peak of the Malay Peninsula (7,175 feet [2,187 m]), in the Tahan Range, West Malaysia. Mount Tahan is the central feature of Taman Negara National Park and a destination for mountaineers who begin their ascent from nearby Kuala Tahan, ...
Taharqa: fourth king (reigned 690-664 BC) of the 25th dynasty of Egypt.
tahini: paste of crushed sesame seeds that is widely used in Middle Eastern cooking. Tahini mixed with garlic, lemon juice, and salt and thinned with water constitutes taratoor, a sauce that is eaten as a dip with Arab bread as part ...
Tahirid Dynasty: (AD 821-873), Islamic dynasty of the land of Khorasan (centred in northeastern Persia), which owed nominal allegiance to the 'Abbasid caliph at Baghdad but enjoyed virtual independence. The dynasty was founded by Tahir ibn al-Husayn, a successful military general awarded ...
Tahiti: largest island of the Windward Group (Iles du Vent) of the Society Islands, French Polynesia, in the central South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Moorea, 12 miles (20 km) to the northwest. The island of Tahiti consists of two ancient ...
Tahlequah: city, seat (1907) of Cherokee county, eastern Oklahoma, U.S., in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, near the Illinois River and Lake Tenkiller. Settled by Cherokee Indians and made capital of the Cherokee Nation (1839-1907), the town site was laid ...
Tahltan: an Athabascan-speaking Indian tribe living on the upper Stikine River and other nearby streams in what is now northwestern British Columbia, Can. The country, though grassy and rocky with only sparse woodlands, has been rich in salmon and such game ...
Tahmasp I: shah of Iran from 1524 whose rule was marked by continuing warfare with the Ottoman Empire and the loss of large amounts of territory.
Tahoe, Lake: freshwater lake occupying a fault basin on the California-Nevada border in the northern Sierra Nevada, U.S. Fed by numerous small streams, it is drained by the Truckee River to Pyramid Lake, Nevada, about 60 miles (100 km) northeast. It measures ...
Tahoua: town, southern Niger. Situated on the boundary between a cultivated zone (peanuts [groundnuts]) and a drier pastoral zone (cattle, goats, and sheep), it is an important trading town. During the Sahel drought of the 1970s and 1980s it served as ...
tahr: (genus Hemitragus), any of several wary and surefooted wild goats of the family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla). Tahrs live in herds and usually frequent steep, wooded mountainsides. They range in shoulder height from 60-106 cm (24-42 inches), depending on the species. ...
Tahtawi, Rifa'ah Rafi' at-: teacher and scholar who was one of the first Egyptians to grapple with the question of adjusting to the West and to provide answers in Islamic terms.
Tai: peoples of mainland Southeast Asia, including the Thai, or Siamese (in central and southern Thailand), the Lao (in Laos and northern Thailand), the Shan (in northeast Myanmar [Burma]), the Lu (primarily in Yunnan province, China, but also in Myanmar, Laos, ...
Tai Chen: Chinese empirical philosopher, considered by many to have been the greatest thinker of the Ch'ing period (1644-1911/12).
Tai languages: closely related family of languages, of which the Thai (Siamese) language of Thailand is the most important member. Because the word Thai has been designated as the official name of the language of Thailand, it would be confusing to use ...
Tai, Parc National de: national park, southwestern Ivory Coast, situated between the Liberian border (along the Cavally River) to the west and the Sassandra River to the east. Formerly a fauna reserve (decreed 1956) and prior to that a forest refuge (from 1926), it ...
Taidu: the city of Peking (q.v.) under the Mongols.
Taieri River: river in southeastern South Island, New Zealand. It rises in the Lammerlaw Range and flows 179 miles (288 km) north and southeast in a great arc-across the Maniototo Plains, around the Rock and Pillar Range, and across the Taieri Plains-to ...
taifa: a faction or party, as applied to the followers of any of the petty kings who appeared in Muslim Spain in a period of great political fragmentation early in the 11th century after the dissolution of the central authority of ...
taiga: open coniferous forest growing on swampy ground that is commonly covered with lichen. It is the characteristic vegetation of the subpolar region spanning northern Eurasia, between the colder tundra zone to the north and the warmer temperate zone to the ...
Taihape: town, Manawatu-Wanganui local government region, south-central North Island, New Zealand. It lies along the Hautapu River, 7 miles (11 km) above the latter's confluence with the Rangitikei. It was founded in 1894 as a coaching station on a track leading ...
Taiho code: (AD 701), in Japan, administrative and penal code of the Taiho era early in the Nara period, modeled on the codes of the Chinese T'ang dynasty (618-907) and in force until the late 8th century. Although the first work on ...
Taika era reforms: ("Great Reformation of the Taika Era"), series of political innovations that followed the coup d'etat of AD 645, led by Prince Nakano Oe (later the emperor Tenji; q.v.) and Nakatomi Kamatari (later Fujiwara Kamatari; q.v.) against the powerful Soga clan. ...
taiko: any of various Japanese forms of barrel-shaped drums with lashed or tacked heads, usually played with sticks (bachi). When the word combines with another for the name of a specific type of drum, the t euphonically changes to d, thus ...
Taiko Josetsu: priest and painter, regarded as the first of the long line of Japanese Zen Buddhist priests who painted in the Chinese-inspired suiboku (monochromatic ink painting) style.
tail: in zoology, prolongation of the backbone beyond the trunk of the body, or any slender projection resembling such a structure. The tail of a vertebrate is composed of flesh and bone but contains no viscera. In fishes and many larval ...
tail rhyme: a verse form in which rhymed lines such as couplets or triplets are followed by a tail-a line of different (usually shorter) length that does not rhyme with the couplet or triplet. In a tail-rhyme stanza (also called a tail-rhymed ...
tailed frog: (Ascaphus truei ), the single species of the frog family Ascaphidae (order Anura). It is restricted to cold, clear forest streams of the American Pacific northwest.
taille: the most important direct tax of the pre-Revolutionary monarchy in France. Its unequal distribution, with clergy and nobles exempt, made it one of the hated institutions of the ancien regime.
tailless whip scorpion: any of the 60 species of the order Amblypygi (sometimes Phrynichida) of the arthropod class Arachnida. Body length is 8 to 45 millimetres (0.3 inch to 1.8 inches). The thorny-edged pedipalps (second pair of appendages) seize prey; the third appendages ...
tailorbird: any of the nine species of the genus Orthotomus, of the Old World warbler family Sylviidae, that sew together the edges of one or more leaves to contain the nest. A tailorbird makes a series of holes with its long ...
Taine, Hippolyte: French thinker, critic, and historian, one of the most esteemed exponents of 19th-century French Positivism. He attempted to apply the scientific method to the study of the humanities.
Taino: Arawakan Indians who at the time of Christopher Columbus' exploration inhabited the Greater Antilles (comprising Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola [Haiti and the Dominican Republic], and Puerto Rico) in the Caribbean Sea. As the most numerous Indian people of the Caribbean, the ...
Tainter, Charles Sumner: American inventor who, with Chichester A. Bell (a cousin of Alexander Graham Bell), greatly improved the phonograph by devising a wax-coated cardboard cylinder and a flexible recording stylus, both superior to the tinfoil surface and rigid stylus then used by ...
taipan: (species Oxyuranus scutellatus), largest Australian snake of the cobra family, Elapidae, reaching 3.3 m (nearly 11 feet) in length. It is brown above and yellow below, with a small head and ridged back. This uncommon resident of Cape York in ...
Taipei: province-level municipality and capital of Taiwan (Republic of China). It is situated on the Tan-shui River, almost at the northern tip of the island of Taiwan, about 15 miles (25 km) southwest of Chi-lung (Keelung), which is its port on ...
Taiping: town, northwestern Peninsular (West) Malaysia. The town is situated on a coastal plain just west of the Bintang Range. It originated as a Chinese mining settlement in the Larut district, where large-scale tin mining developed in the 1840s. Its importance ...
Taiping Rebellion: (1850-64), radical political and religious upheaval that was probably the most important event in China in the 19th century. It ravaged 17 provinces, took an estimated 20,000,000 lives, and irrevocably altered the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911/12).
Taira Family: Japanese samurai (warrior) clan of great power and influence in the 12th century. The genealogy and history of the family have been traced in detail from 825, when the name Taira was given to Prince Takamune, grandson of Kammu (the ...
Taira Kiyomori: first of the Japanese soldier-dictators, whose victories in the Hogen and Heiji disturbances marked the ascendancy of the provincial warrior class to positions of supreme power.
Taira Masakado: Japanese rebel leader descended from the emperor Kammu (reigned 781-806).
Taira Masamori: warrior responsible for the rise to power of the Taira clan in Japan.
Taira Tadamori: warrior whose military and diplomatic skills made the Taira clan the most powerful family in Japan and laid the groundwork for his son Kiyomori's assumption of virtual control over the country.
tairo: in Japanese history, office of senior minister or chief councillor, the highest administrative post in the shogunate during the Tokugawa period (1603-1867). The office of tairo stood above the other senior councillors (roju), and so resembled the position of prime ...
Tairona: Indians of the northern Colombian Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, known only from occasional references in Spanish colonial writings and from archaeological study. The Tairona used stone to build houses, tombs, bridges, and terraced platforms. Their crafts are represented by ...