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  • Yaḥyā Ṣobḥ-e Azal, Mīrzā (Iranian religious leader)
    half brother of Bahāʾ Ullāh (the founder of the Bahāʾī faith) and leader of his own Bābist movement in the mid-19th century Ottoman Empire....
  • Yaḥyā the Barmakid (ʿAbbāsid vizier)
    ...to the ʿAbbāsid caliph Hārūn ar-Rashīd during the latter’s pilgrimage. Al-Wāqidī became a grain dealer but eventually fled to Baghdad to escape his creditors. Yaḥyā ibn Khalid, the vizier there, gave him money and, some reports say, made him qāḍī (religious judge) of the western district of the cit...
  • Yaik River (river, Central Asia)
    river in Russia and Kazakhstan. The Ural is 1,509 miles (2,428 km) long and drains an area of 91,500 square miles (237,000 square km). It rises in the Ural Mountains near Mount Kruglaya and flows south along their eastern flank past Magnitogorsk. At Orsk it cuts westward across the southern end of the Urals, past Orenburg, and turns south again across a lowland of semidesert to enter the ...
  • Yaitsky Gorodok (Kazakstan)
    city, western Kazakhstan, along the Ural (Zhayyq) River. Founded in 1613 or 1622 by Cossacks fleeing a tsarist punitive campaign, it was known as Yaitsky Gorodok until 1775, when its name was changed following the Pugachov Rebellion. The town was a centre of both the Stenka Razin (1667) and Yemelyan Pugachov (1773) uprisings and was the headquarters of the Ural Cossacks. It had a lively trade with...
  • Yaizu (Japan)
    city, Shizuoka ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, on the west coast of Suruga Bay. Since the Tokugawa era (1603–1867), Yaizu has been one of the important coastal fishing ports for tuna, bonito, skipjack, and mackerel. Canning and freezing plants operate there. Deep-sea fishing developed in the early 20th century. Pop. (2005) 120,109....
  • Yāj (Islamic mythology)
    in Islamic eschatology, two hostile forces who will ravage the earth before the end of the world. The Qurʾān relates that a certain people terrorized by Yājūj and Mājūj induced Dhū al-Qarnayn (commonly believed to be Alexander the Great) to construct a great wall between them. Yājūj and Mājūj, thus trapped between two mou...
  • Yāj and Mājūj (Islamic mythology)
    in Islamic eschatology, two hostile forces who will ravage the earth before the end of the world. The Qurʾān relates that a certain people terrorized by Yājūj and Mājūj induced Dhū al-Qarnayn (commonly believed to be Alexander the Great) to construct a great wall between them. Yājūj and Mājūj, thus trapped between two mou...
  • yajé (narcotic)
    Another substance used in South America, especially in the Amazon basin, is a drink called ayahuasca, caapi, or yajé, which is produced from the stem bark of the vines Banisteriopsis caapi and B. inebrians. Indians who use it claim that its virtues include healing powers and the power to induce clairvoyance, among others. This drink......
  • yajña (Hinduism)
    (Sanskrit: “sacrifice, offering”), in Hinduism, worship based on rites prescribed in the earliest scriptures of ancient India, the Vedas, in contrast to puja, which may include image worship and devotional practices non-Vedic in origin....
  • Yajñaśrī Śātakarṇi (Sātavāhana ruler)
    ...the name Gautamiputra Shatakarni. That the Andhras did not control Malava and Ujjain is clear from the claim of the Shaka king Rudradaman to these regions. The last of the important Andhra kings was Yajnashri Shatakarni, who ruled at the end of the 2nd century ce and asserted his authority over the Shakas. The 3rd century saw the decline of Satavahana power, as the kingdom broke i...
  • Yajnavalkya (Indian sage)
    ...Chandogas, priests who intone hymns at sacrifices), both of which are compilations that record the traditions of sages (rishis) of the period—notably Yajnavalkya, who was a pioneer of new religious ideas....
  • yajñopavīta (Hinduism)
    ...dressed as an ascetic and brought before his guru (personal spiritual guide), who invests him with a deerskin to use as an upper garment, a staff, and the sacred thread (upavita, or yajnopavita). The thread, consisting of a loop made of three symbolically knotted and twisted strands of cotton cord, is replaced......
  • Yājūj and Mājūj (Islamic mythology)
    in Islamic eschatology, two hostile forces who will ravage the earth before the end of the world. The Qurʾān relates that a certain people terrorized by Yājūj and Mājūj induced Dhū al-Qarnayn (commonly believed to be Alexander the Great) to construct a great wall between them. Yājūj and Mājūj, thus trapped between two mou...
  • Yajurveda (Hindu literature)
    collection of mantras (sacred formulas) and verses that forms part of the ancient sacred literature of India known as the Vedas. See Veda....
  • yak (mammal)
    long-haired, short-legged oxlike mammal that was probably domesticated in Tibet but has been introduced wherever there are people at elevations of 4,000–6,000 metres (14,000–20,000 feet), mainly in China but also in Central Asia, Mongolia, and Nepal....
  • Yak (airplane)
    aircraft designer noted for his series of Yak aircraft, most of them fighters used by the Soviet Union in World War II....
  • Yaka (people)
    a people inhabiting the wooded plateau and savanna areas between the Kwango and Wamba rivers in southwestern Congo (Kinshasa) directly bordering Angola on the west. Their origins are not certain, and Yaka is now an ethnic name given to the people of several heritages, including those related to the nearby Suku....
  • Yakan (people)
    The inhabitants are Yakans, descendants of early Papuan settlers who were converted to Islām during the 14th century. Their culture includes many non-Muslim beliefs and customs. Unlike the Muslims of Jolo and Zamboanga, they are not beach dwellers and fishermen but live on higher lands and cultivate coconuts, rice, corn (maize), abaca, and coffee. In the 20th century, as more land was......
  • Yakarmo-saw (work by Madhin)
    ...it was staged for the first time in Addis Ababa in 1964. A play depicting a family in transition from old rural ways to the bleak uncertainty of city life is the Pinteresque Yakarmo-saw (1958; “The Origin of Man-made Taboo”), by Saggāye Gabra Madhin....
  • yakazu haikai (Japanese competition)
    ...haikai—humorous renga (linked-verse) poetry from which the more serious haiku was derived—and for more than 30 years he was active as a haikai composer. He was especially skilled at yakazu haikai, a competition to compose as many haikai as possible within a fixed period of time that derived its name from a popular arrow-shooting competition (yakazu). Saikaku set a ne...
  • Yakety Yak (song by Leiber and Stoller)
    ...subsidiary label Atco—with witty Leiber-Stoller songs directed at teenage listeners: Searchin’ and Young Blood (both 1957), Yakety Yak (1958), and Charlie Brown and Poison Ivy (both 1959). The Coasters alternated lead singers and featured clever arrangement...
  • Yaki (people)
    ...substantially affected the development of Mayan civilization, while central Mexican Nahuatl influence challenged the Maya and stretched along the Pacific coast, notable especially among the Pipil of El Salvador and the Chorotega and Nicarao of Nicaragua. In Panama and Costa Rica, South American Chibcha influence was prevalent, while Caribbean cultural patterns penetrated the coastal......
  • “Yakī būd yakī nabūd” (work by Jamalzadah)
    ...which published his early stories and historical pieces. His first successful story, “Farsi shakar ast” (“Persian Is Sugar”), was reprinted in 1921/22 in Yakī būd yakī nabūd (Once Upon a Time), a collection of his short stories that laid the foundation for modern Persian prose. Yakī būd yakī......
  • Yakima (people)
    Sahaptin-speaking North American Indian tribe that lived along the Columbia, Yakima, and Wenatchee rivers in what is now the south-central region of the state of Washington. As with many other Sahaptin Plateau Indians, they were primarily salmon fishers before colonization....
  • Yakima (Washington, United States)
    city, seat (1886) of Yakima county, south-central Washington, U.S., on the Yakima River. In 1884 the Northern Pacific Railway selected the site of Yakima City (now Union Gap) as a construction headquarters. This plan was abandoned and a new settlement, known as North Yakima, was established 4 miles (6 km) north. With its desirable location on a railroad, North...
  • Yakima Indian Wars (North American history)
    The Yakima acquired historical distinction in the Yakima Indian Wars (1855–58), an attempt by the tribe to resist U.S. forces intent upon clearing the Washington Territory for prospectors and settlers. The conflict stemmed from a treaty that had been negotiated in 1855, according to which the Yakima and 13 other tribes were to be placed on a reservation and confederated as the Yakima......
  • Yakima River (river, Washington, United States)
    river, south-central Washington, U.S., rising in the Cascade Range, near Snoqualmie Pass. It flows southeastward about 200 miles (320 km) past Ellensburg and Yakima to join the Columbia River near Kennewick in Benton county. The Yakima and its tributaries irrigate about 460,000 acres (190,000 hectares) i...
  • Yakini, Abraham ben Elijah ha- (Jewish Kabbalist)
    ...to Salonika (now Thessaloníki), an old Kabbalistic centre, and then to Constantinople (now Istanbul). There he encountered an esteemed and forceful Jewish preacher and Kabbalist, Abraham ha-Yakini, who possessed a false prophetic document affirming that Shabbetai was the messiah. Shabbetai then traveled to Palestine and after that to Cairo, where he won over to his cause Raphael Halebi,....
  • Yakö (people)
    people of the Cross River region of eastern Nigeria; they speak Luko, a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo family....
  • Yako (people)
    people of the Cross River region of eastern Nigeria; they speak Luko, a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo family....
  • Yakoba (Nigeria)
    town, capital of Bauchi state and traditional emirate, northeastern Nigeria. Bauchi town lies on the railroad from Maiduguri to Kafanchan (where it joins the line to Port Harcourt) and has road connections to Jos, Kano, and Maiduguri and to such state population centres as Gombe and Deba Habe. The emirate was founded (1800–10) by Yakubu, one of Sheikh Usman dan Fodio...
  • Yakonan languages
    ...families with about 20 languages; the families are Wintun (two languages), Miwok-Costanoan (perhaps five Miwokan languages, plus three extinct Costanoan languages), Sahaptin (two languages), Yakonan (two extinct languages), Yokutsan (three languages), and Maiduan (four languages)—plus Klamath-Modoc, Cayuse (extinct), Molale (extinct),......
  • Yakov Pasynkov (work by Turgenev)
    Although Turgenev wrote “Mumu,” a remarkable exposure of the cruelties of serfdom, while detained in St. Petersburg, his work was evolving toward such extended character studies as Yakov Pasynkov (1855) and the subtle if pessimistic examinations of the contrariness of love found in “Faust” and “A Correspondence” (1856). Time and national events,......
  • Yakovlev, Aleksandr N. (Soviet economist and official)
    Soviet Russian historian and government adviser (b. Dec. 2, 1923, Korolyovo, Yaroslavl oblast, Russia, U.S.S.R. [now in Russia]—d. Oct. 18, 2005, Moscow, Russia), was an important ally of Soviet Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev and a principal architect of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“rebuilding”), the sweeping reforms associated with Gorbachev’s name. Y...
  • Yakovlev, Aleksandr Nikolayevich (Soviet economist and official)
    Soviet Russian historian and government adviser (b. Dec. 2, 1923, Korolyovo, Yaroslavl oblast, Russia, U.S.S.R. [now in Russia]—d. Oct. 18, 2005, Moscow, Russia), was an important ally of Soviet Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev and a principal architect of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“rebuilding”), the sweeping reforms associated with Gorbachev’s name. Y...
  • Yakovlev, Aleksandr Sergeyevich (Soviet aircraft designer)
    aircraft designer noted for his series of Yak aircraft, most of them fighters used by the Soviet Union in World War II....
  • Yakovlev, Anatoly A. (Soviet official)
    ...the atomic bomb, provided the Rosenbergs with data on nuclear weapons. The Rosenbergs turned over this information to Harry Gold, a Swiss-born courier for the espionage ring, who then passed it to Anatoly A. Yakovlev, the Soviet Union’s vice-consul in New York City....
  • yaksa (Hindu mythology)
    in the mythology of India, a class of generally benevolent nature spirits who are the custodians of treasures that are hidden in the earth and in the roots of trees. Principal among the yakshas is Kubera, who rules in the mythical Himalayan kingdom called Alakā....
  • Yakṣa Malla (Nepali ruler)
    Jaya Sthiti’s successor, Yakṣa Malla (reigned c. 1429–c. 1482), divided his kingdom among his three sons, thus creating the independent principalities of Kāthmāndu, Pātan, and Bhaktpūr (Bhādgāon) in the valley. Each of these states controlled territory in the surrounding hill areas, with particular importance attached to the trade rout...
  • yakṣagāna (literature)
    ...in Tamil country, and Pudukkoṭṭa and Mysore, in Kannada country. Their most important contribution was to native Kannada and Telugu dance drama on mythological themes, called yakṣagāna. The form is comparable to kathākali in the Malayalam area and to terukkūttu (“street drama”) and kuṟavañci......
  • yaksha (Hindu mythology)
    in the mythology of India, a class of generally benevolent nature spirits who are the custodians of treasures that are hidden in the earth and in the roots of trees. Principal among the yakshas is Kubera, who rules in the mythical Himalayan kingdom called Alakā....
  • yakshi (Hindu mythology)
    in the mythology of India, a class of generally benevolent nature spirits who are the custodians of treasures that are hidden in the earth and in the roots of trees. Principal among the yakshas is Kubera, who rules in the mythical Himalayan kingdom called Alakā....
  • yakṣī (Hindu mythology)
    in the mythology of India, a class of generally benevolent nature spirits who are the custodians of treasures that are hidden in the earth and in the roots of trees. Principal among the yakshas is Kubera, who rules in the mythical Himalayan kingdom called Alakā....
  • yakṣinī (Hindu mythology)
    in the mythology of India, a class of generally benevolent nature spirits who are the custodians of treasures that are hidden in the earth and in the roots of trees. Principal among the yakshas is Kubera, who rules in the mythical Himalayan kingdom called Alakā....
  • Yaku Island (island, Japan)
    ...ficus and fan palm. The coastal dunes are dominated by pine trees. Natural stands of Japanese cedar, some containing trees that are more than 2,000 years old, occur above 2,300 feet (700 metres) on Yaku Island, south of Kyushu....
  • Yakub Beg (Tajik adventurer)
    Tajik adventurer who entered northwestern China in 1864 and through a series of military and political maneuvers took advantage of the anti-Chinese uprisings of its Muslim inhabitants to establish himself as head of the kingdom of Kashgaria (centred at Kashgar). Expanding northward in the area of present-day Xinjiang, he attracted the attention of the Ottoman ...
  • Yakuba (people)
    an ethnolinguistic grouping of people inhabiting the mountainous west-central Côte d’Ivoire and adjacent areas of Liberia. The Dan belong to the Southern branch of the Mande linguistic subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family. They originated somewhere to the west or northwest of their present lands, perhaps among the Malinke (Mandingo). The Dan are closely related to the Gere (al...
  • Yakubu (emir of Bauchi)
    ...it joins the line to Port Harcourt) and has road connections to Jos, Kano, and Maiduguri and to such state population centres as Gombe and Deba Habe. The emirate was founded (1800–10) by Yakubu, one of Sheikh Usman dan Fodio’s commanders. Yakubu conquered a sparsely wooded savanna region (the Bauchi High Plains) mainly inhabited by non-Muslim peoples. After successful campaigns he...
  • Yakup (Armenian actor)
    ...a salary, and local writers presented their own plays. Originally built for foreign companies, the theatre was reconstructed in 1867 and reopened in 1868 for a Turkish company headed by an Armenian, Agop, who was later converted to Islām and changed his name to Yakup. For almost 20 years the Gedik Paşa Theatre was the dramatic centre of the city; and plays in translation were soon...
  • Yakurr (people)
    people of the Cross River region of eastern Nigeria; they speak Luko, a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo family....
  • Yakusha butai-no-sugatae (prints by Utagawa Toyokuni)
    Toyokuni specialized in prints of actors but was also known for his portraits of women. His “Yakusha butai-no-sugatae” (“Portraits of Actors in Their Various Roles”), a series of large nishiki-e, or polychrome prints, created between 1794 and 1796, marked the peak of his creative work. His drawing for wood-block prints was characterized by the use of powerful and...
  • Yakushi Buddha (Buddhism)
    the healing Buddha, widely worshiped in Tibet, China, and Japan. According to popular belief in those countries, some illnesses are effectively cured by merely touching his image or calling out his name. More serious illnesses, however, require the performance of complex ritual acts, as described in the principal scripture of the Bhaiṣajya-guru cult. Bhaiṣajya-guru is associated with...
  • Yakushi nyorai (Buddhism)
    the healing Buddha, widely worshiped in Tibet, China, and Japan. According to popular belief in those countries, some illnesses are effectively cured by merely touching his image or calling out his name. More serious illnesses, however, require the performance of complex ritual acts, as described in the principal scripture of the Bhaiṣajya-guru cult. Bhaiṣajya-guru is associated with...
  • Yakushi Temple (temple complex, Nara, Japan)
    temple complex dedicated to Yakushi, the Healing Buddha, in Nara, Japan. It was established about 690 outside Nara, and in 718 it was refounded within the city. The only one of the original buildings to have survived is the three-storied eastern pagoda, which is one of the finest examples of religious architecture of the Nara period (ad 710–784). Yakushi-ji has many treasures...
  • Yakushi Triad (Japanese sculpture)
    The cast-bronze statues in the Yakushi Temple are among the finest examples of Japanese sculpture extant. Known as the Yakushi Triad, the work consists of the seated Yakushi Buddha flanked by the standing attendants Nikkō (Suryaprabha, bodhisattva of the Sun) and Gakkō (Candraprabha, bodhisattva of the Moon). It is unclear whether these sculptures were produced after the temple...
  • Yakushi-ji (temple complex, Nara, Japan)
    temple complex dedicated to Yakushi, the Healing Buddha, in Nara, Japan. It was established about 690 outside Nara, and in 718 it was refounded within the city. The only one of the original buildings to have survived is the three-storied eastern pagoda, which is one of the finest examples of religious architecture of the Nara period (ad 710–784). Yakushi-ji has many treasures...
  • Yakut (people)
    one of the major peoples of eastern Siberia, numbering some 380,000 in the late 20th century. In the 17th century they inhabited a limited area on the middle Lena River, but in modern times they have expanded throughout Sakha republic (Yakutia) in far northeastern Russia. They speak a Turkic language. The Sakha are thought to be an admixture of migrants from the Lake Baikal regi...
  • Yakut A. S. S. R. (republic, Russia)
    republic in far northeastern Russia, in northeastern Siberia. The republic occupies the basins of the great rivers flowing to the Arctic Ocean—the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma—and includes the New Siberian Islands between the Laptev and East Siberian seas. Sakha was created an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1922; it is now the second largest republic in Russia....
  • Yakut language
    member of the Turkic subfamily of the Altaic language family, spoken in northeastern Siberia (Sakha republic), in northeastern Russia. Because its speakers have been geographically isolated from other Turkic languages for centuries, Sakha has developed deviant features; it demonstrates closest affinity to the northeastern branch of Turkic la...
  • Yakut-Sakha (republic, Russia)
    republic in far northeastern Russia, in northeastern Siberia. The republic occupies the basins of the great rivers flowing to the Arctic Ocean—the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma—and includes the New Siberian Islands between the Laptev and East Siberian seas. Sakha was created an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1922; it is now the second largest republic in Russia....
  • Yakutia (republic, Russia)
    republic in far northeastern Russia, in northeastern Siberia. The republic occupies the basins of the great rivers flowing to the Arctic Ocean—the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma—and includes the New Siberian Islands between the Laptev and East Siberian seas. Sakha was created an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1922; it is now the second largest republic in Russia....
  • Yakutiya (republic, Russia)
    republic in far northeastern Russia, in northeastern Siberia. The republic occupies the basins of the great rivers flowing to the Arctic Ocean—the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma—and includes the New Siberian Islands between the Laptev and East Siberian seas. Sakha was created an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1922; it is now the second largest republic in Russia....
  • Yakutiya-Sakha (republic, Russia)
    republic in far northeastern Russia, in northeastern Siberia. The republic occupies the basins of the great rivers flowing to the Arctic Ocean—the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma—and includes the New Siberian Islands between the Laptev and East Siberian seas. Sakha was created an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1922; it is now the second largest republic in Russia....
  • Yakutsk (Russia)
    city and capital of Sakha republic (Yakutia), in far northeastern Russia, on the Lena River. A fort was founded on the Lena’s low right bank in 1632 and transferred 43 miles (70 km) upstream to the present site of Yakutsk in 1642. Long a small provincial centre of wooden houses where, beginning in the 19th century, dissidents were exiled, Yakutsk has grown in size and acquired light indust...
  • yakuza (Japanese organized crime)
    in Japan, gangster, a member of a bōryokudan, or gang of racketeers. The word yakuza, which has come to mean “good for nothing,” is derived from a worthless hand in a Japanese card game similar to blackjack: the cards ya-ku-za (“eight-nine-three”), when added up, exceed the winning number of 19....
  • Yala (Thailand)
    town, extreme southern Thailand. Yala is a modern commercial centre on the Pattani River, which flows north into the Gulf of Thailand. The town is also located on the Bangkok-Singapore railway and the Pattani–George Town (Penang [Malaysia]) highway. The population includes Thai Muslims, Malay Muslims, and Chinese. The region is heavily planted in rubber. Nearby caves contain murals and a re...
  • Yalaccha Gabbiccha (play by Lammā)
    ...whose historical play Hannibal was performed at the Festival of Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966. The best-known work of Mangistu Lammā is Yalaccha Gabbiccha (“Marriage of Unequals”), which deals with social inequality; it was staged for the first time in Addis Ababa in 1964. A play depicting a family in transition......
  • Yalag (Russian writer)
    Jewish poet, essayist, and novelist, the leading poet of the Hebrew Enlightenment (Haskala), whose use of biblical and postbiblical Hebrew resulted in a new and influential style of Hebrew-language poetry....
  • Yale Bowl (stadium, New Haven, Connecticut, United States)
    American football inspired a new type of stadium design, the elliptical bowl, first employed in the Yale Bowl at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1914, and repeated in several other stadiums, including the Rose Bowl and University of Michigan’s stadium. Because the bowl is entirely unsuited to the other principal American sport, baseball, another type of American stadium has evolved for baseball,...
  • Yale, Caroline (American educator)
    American educator of the deaf and longtime principal of the Clarke School for the Deaf....
  • Yale, Caroline Ardelia (American educator)
    American educator of the deaf and longtime principal of the Clarke School for the Deaf....
  • Yale College (university, New Haven, Connecticut, United States)
    private university in New Haven, Conn., one of the Ivy League schools. It was founded in 1701 and is the third oldest university in the United States. Yale was originally chartered by the colonial legislature of Connecticut as the Collegiate School and was held at Killingworth and other locations. In 1716 the school was moved to New Haven, and in 1718 it was r...
  • Yale, Elihu (English merchant and philanthropist)
    English merchant, official of the East India Company, and benefactor of Yale University. Although born in Massachusetts, Yale was taken to England by his family at the age of three, and he never returned to America. He was educated at a private school in London....
  • Yale, Frankie (American gangster)
    American gangster and national president, during its heyday (1918–28), of the Unione Siciliane, a Sicilian fraternal organization that by World War I had become a crime cartel operating in several U.S. cities and active in robbery, prostitution, labour-union extortion, and other rackets....
  • Yale Laboratories of Primate Biology (research centre, Florida, United States)
    ...a longtime ambition by establishing the Yale Laboratories of Primate Biology, Orange Park, Fla. A unique centre for the study of the neural and physiological bases of behaviour, it was renamed Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology after his resignation as director in 1941. Chimpanzees (1943), his other major work, was also his last. He retired from his teaching post at Yale in......
  • Yale, Linus (American inventor)
    American inventor and designer of the compact cylinder pin-tumbler lock that bears his name....
  • Yale lock
    In 1848 a far-reaching contribution was made by an American, Linus Yale, who patented a pin tumbler lock working on an adaptation of the ancient Egyptian principle. In the 1860s his son Linus Yale, Jr., evolved the Yale cylinder lock, with its small, flat key with serrated edge, now probably the most familiar lock and key in the world. Pins in the cylinder are raised to the proper heights by......
  • Yale romanization system (language)
    ...system used in this description, and following that system the common surname is written Yi; it sounds like the English name of the letter e. In citing sentences, many linguists prefer the Yale romanization, which more accurately reflects the Korean orthography and avoids the need for diacritics to mark vowel distinctions. For a comparison of the two systems, see the Table....
  • Yale School (American literary critics)
    group of literary critics at Yale University, who became known in the 1970s and ’80s for their deconstructionist theories....
  • Yale School of Drama (school, New Haven, Connecticut, United States)
    From 1925 until he retired in 1933, Baker was professor of the history and technique of drama at Yale University, founding a drama school there and directing the university theatre. Many innovative techniques in theatre, motion-picture, and television production had their origins in his work at Yale. Of his writings, the best known are The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (1907)......
  • Yale Scientific Expedition (American paleontological organization)
    Marsh spent his entire career at Yale University (1866–99) as the first professor of vertebrate paleontology in the United States. In 1870 he organized the first Yale Scientific Expedition, which explored the Pliocene (5.3 to 1.8 million years ago) deposits of Nebraska and the Miocene (23.8 to 5.3 million years ago) deposits of northern Colorado.......
  • Yale University (university, New Haven, Connecticut, United States)
    private university in New Haven, Conn., one of the Ivy League schools. It was founded in 1701 and is the third oldest university in the United States. Yale was originally chartered by the colonial legislature of Connecticut as the Collegiate School and was held at Killingworth and other locations. In 1716 the school was moved to New Haven, and in 1718 it was r...
  • Yale University Art Gallery (building, New Haven, Conncecticut, United States)
    ...at Yale University in 1947. After a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (1950), which deepened his appreciation of Mediterranean architecture, Kahn carried out his first important work: the Yale University Art Gallery (1952–54) at New Haven, Conn., which marked a notable departure from his International Style buildings of the previous decade....
  • Yalom, Irvin D. (American psychiatrist)
    There are many varieties of dynamic group therapy, and they differ in their theoretical background and technique. The influential model of the American psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom provides a good example of such therapies. In this approach the therapist continually encourages the patients to direct their attention to the personal interactions occurring within the group rather than to what......
  • Yalong Jiang (river, China)
    long secondary tributary of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) in central and southern China. The Yalong rises in the Bayan Har Mountains in southern Qinghai province at an elevation of nearly 16,500 feet (5,000 metres). The upper stream flows southeastward from the Bayan Har Mountains into northwestern Sichuan province. Belo...
  • Yalong River (river, China)
    long secondary tributary of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) in central and southern China. The Yalong rises in the Bayan Har Mountains in southern Qinghai province at an elevation of nearly 16,500 feet (5,000 metres). The upper stream flows southeastward from the Bayan Har Mountains into northwestern Sichuan province. Belo...
  • Yalou, Le (essay by Valéry)
    ...reexamined with refreshing vigour. He retained an abiding interest in education, politics, and cultural values, and two remarkably prescient youthful essays on the Sino-Japanese conflict (“Le Yalou,” written 1895) and the threat of German aggression (“La Conquête allemande,” 1897) reveal the same anxious awareness of the forces menacing Western civilization as...
  • Yalow, Rosalyn S. (American medical physicist)
    American medical physicist and joint recipient (with Andrew V. Schally and Roger Guillemin) of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, awarded for her development of the radioimmunoassay (RIA), an extremely sensitive technique for measuring minute quantities of biologically active substances....
  • Yalow, Rosalyn Sussman (American medical physicist)
    American medical physicist and joint recipient (with Andrew V. Schally and Roger Guillemin) of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, awarded for her development of the radioimmunoassay (RIA), an extremely sensitive technique for measuring minute quantities of biologically active substances....
  • Yalta (Ukraine)
    city, Crimea, southern Ukraine. It faces the Black Sea on the southern shore of the Crimean Peninsula. Settlement on the site dates from prehistoric times, but modern Yalta developed only in the early 19th century, becoming a town in 1838. Its favourable climate with mild winters and its scenic location between sea and mountains make Yalta one of the most popular holiday and hea...
  • Yalta Conference (World War II)
    (Feb. 4–11, 1945), major World War II conference of the three chief Allied leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union (see ), which met at Yalta in the Crimea to plan the final defeat and ...
  • Yalu, Battle of the (Sino-Japanese War)
    ...turning point came from the observation of a few battles in East Asia around the turn of the century and from an often overlooked bit of military technology. The battles were those of the Yalu (Sept. 17, 1894), the Yellow Sea (Aug. 10 and 14, 1904), and Tsushima (May 27–29, 1905), in which the gun regained primacy to such an extent that the Russian vice admiral Stepan Osipovich......
  • Yalu Ho (river, Asia)
    river that forms the northwestern boundary between North Korea and the Northeast Region (Manchuria) of China. The Chinese provinces of Kirin and Liaoning are bordered by the river. Its length is estimated to be 491 miles (790 km), and it drains an area of some 12,259 square miles (31,751 square km). From a mountainous source in the Ch’ang-pai Mountains,...
  • Yalu Jiang (river, Asia)
    river that forms the northwestern boundary between North Korea and the Northeast Region (Manchuria) of China. The Chinese provinces of Kirin and Liaoning are bordered by the river. Its length is estimated to be 491 miles (790 km), and it drains an area of some 12,259 square miles (31,751 square km). From a mountainous source in the Ch’ang-pai Mountains,...
  • Yalu River (river, Asia)
    river that forms the northwestern boundary between North Korea and the Northeast Region (Manchuria) of China. The Chinese provinces of Kirin and Liaoning are bordered by the river. Its length is estimated to be 491 miles (790 km), and it drains an area of some 12,259 square miles (31,751 square km). From a mountainous source in the Ch’ang-pai Mountains,...
  • Yalunka (people)
    ...and farming methods. The Mende, found in the east and south, and the Temne, found in the centre and northwest, form the two largest groups. Other major groups include the Limba, Kuranko, Susu, Yalunka, and Loko in the north; the Kono and Kisi in the east; and the Sherbro in the southwest. Minor groups include the coastal Bullom, Vai, and Krim and the Fulani and Malinke, who are immigrants......
  • Yam (Semitic deity)
    ancient West Semitic deity who ruled the oceans, rivers, lakes, and underground springs. He also played an important role in the Baal myths recorded on tablets uncovered at Ugarit, which say that at the beginning of time Yamm was awarded the divine kingship by El, the chief god of the pantheon. One day, Yamm’s messengers requested tha...
  • yam (plant)
    any of several plant species of the genus Dioscorea (family Dioscoreaceae), native to warmer regions of both hemispheres. A number of species are cultivated for food in the tropics; in certain tropical cultures, notably of West Africa and New Guinea, the yam is the primary agricultural commodity and the focal point of elaborate ritual....
  • yam bean (plant)
    (species Pachyrhizus erosus, or P. tuberosus), leguminous vine native to Mexico and Central and South America, grown for its edible tuberous root. The plant’s irregularly globular, brown-skinned tubers are white-fleshed, crisp, and juicy; some varieties (jícama de aqua) have clear juices, and some (jícama de leche) have milky juice. Both types of t...
  • yam family (plant family)
    the yam family of the flowering plant order Dioscoreales, consisting of 4 genera and 870 species of herbaceous or woody vines and shrubs, distributed throughout tropical and warm temperate regions. Members of the family have thick, sometimes woody roots or tuber-like underground stems and net-veined, often heart-shaped leaves that sometimes are lobed. The small green or white flowers of most speci...
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