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Y (chemical element)
(Y), chemical element, rare-earth metal of transition Group IIIb of the periodic table, used for red phosphors in colour television. Yttrium metal is silvery in colour, ductile, and relatively reactive; turnings of the metal ignite readily in air....
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Y Bala (Wales, United Kingdom)
market town, Gwynedd county, historic county of Merioneth (Meirionnydd), Wales, in Snowdonia National Park at the northern end of mountain-girt Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid), the largest natural lake in Wales. The town was founded under a charter of 1324. In the 18th century it became famous both for its knitted stockings and for its huge Methodist revival meetings; ...
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Y Barri (Wales, United Kingdom)
Bristol Channel port town, Vale of Glamorgan county, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), Wales. Barry has associations with Baruch, a 7th-century Celtic monk, and with the Normans, who built a castle there in the 11th century. But its growth from a tiny village dates from 1889, when a new dock was opened there so that Barry could compete with nearby Card...
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Y Bont Faen (Wales, United Kingdom)
market town, Vale of Glamorgan county, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), Wales. Centrally located in the Vale of Glamorgan, Cowbridge dates from the 14th century and prospered as the chief market and population centre of the area. The town may have been the site of the Roman military station Bovium, as evidenced by its rectangular layout and the discov...
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Y chromosome (genetics)
...an autosomal or X-linked manner. Autosomal genes are those not located on the sex chromosomes, X and Y; X-linked genes are those located on the X chromosomes that have no complementary genes on the Y chromosome. Females have two copies of the X chromosome, but males have an X and a Y chromosome. Because males have only one copy of the X chromosome, any mutation occurring in a gene on this......
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Y connection (electronics)
...together to form a neutral point that may either be connected to ground or in some cases left open. The power of all three phases can be transmitted on three conductors. This connection is called a star, or wye, connection. Alternatively, since the three winding voltages also sum to zero at every instant, the three windings can be connected in series—a′ to b,......
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Y Fenni (Wales, United Kingdom)
town (“community”), historic and present county of Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy), Wales, at the confluence of the Rivers Gavenny and Usk. The strategic nature of this site, guarding a main valley corridor between the Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons into South Wales, was recognized by the Romans, who built the fortress of Gobannium, and by the Normans, who built ...
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Y Gododdin (work by Aneirin)
...Historia Brittonum (written c. 830). (The other poets are Taliesin, Talhaearn Tad Awen, Blwchbardd, and Cian, whose works are unknown.) Aneirin’s reputation rests on a single work, Y Gododdin, preserved in a manuscript known as The Book of Aneirin, which dates from about 1265. The language of the poem is direct for the most part, although simile and metaphor a...
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Y, Project (United States nuclear experiment)
...Los Alamos Ranch School, some 100 km (60 miles) north of Albuquerque, N.M., and on November 25 Groves approved it as the site for the main scientific laboratory, often referred to by its code name Project Y. The previous month, Groves had decided to choose Oppenheimer to be the scientific director of the laboratory where the design, development, and final manufacture of the weapon would take......
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“Y Storm” (work by Thomas)
...Jones), Mynyddog (Richard Davies), and Ceiriog (John Hughes), the latter the greatest lyrical writer of the century. Only one poet, Islwyn (William Thomas), made a success of the long poem: his Y Storm is a series of meditations on life and art....
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Y Trallwng (Wales, United Kingdom)
town, Powys county, historic county of Montgomeryshire, Wales, in the valley of the River Severn. Its charter, granting market rights, dates from 1263. Lying near the English border, the town showed pro-English sympathies in the Middle Ages and has traditionally been predominantly English-speaking. Welshpool has a large livestock market and is the service cent...
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Y-Force (Chinese military unit)
...divisions in China. Both air development and army modernizing were being pushed in early 1943, with a training centre created near Kunming to reenergize and reequip select Chinese divisions (called Y-Force), and a network of airfields was being built in southern China. This dual approach caused repeated conflict over the allocation of scarce airlift space....
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Y-maze (scientific apparatus)
...and complex mazes used in earlier studies (the very first published experiment used a scaled-down replica of the maze at Hampton Court, London) soon gave way to something very much simpler, a T-maze or Y-maze. A rat placed at the end of one arm must run to the central choice-point, from where it has to enter one of the two remaining arms. Although extremely simple, even this apparatus......
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Y-organ (anatomy)
...neurohemal organ, the sinus gland. Both an X-organ and a sinus gland are located in each eyestalk, and together they are termed the eyestalk complex. Two endocrine glands are well known: the Y-organ and the androgenic gland. As in insects, hormones and neurohormones of the crustacean regulate molting, reproduction, osmoregulation, metabolism, and heart rate. In addition, the regulation......
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Y2K Bug (computer science)
When the year 2000 arrived the future could be coloured by the mistakes of the past. Computer programming shortcuts taken as much as 30 years earlier had the potential to produce computer failures that could affect the critical underpinnings of society, such as government services, public utilities, banks, insurance companies, airlines, brokerage firms, telephone companies, and ...
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Ya Gyaw (Myanmar leader)
leader of the anti-British rebellion of 1930–32 in Burma (Myanmar)....
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“Yā ṭāliʿ al-shajarah” (play by al-Ḥakīm)
...language. Ironically, one of his most successful plays (and productions) was an Absurdist drama, Yā ṭāliʿ al-shajarah (1962; The Tree Climber), where the usage of the standard literary language in dialogue helped contribute to the “unreal” nature of the play’s dramatic logic. Al-Ḥakī...
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Ya-an (China)
city, west-central Sichuan sheng (province), southwestern China. It is situated in the mountainous western fringe of the Sichuan Basin on the Qingyi River, about 80 miles (130 km) southwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital. The city is a communications centre near the crossing of two main routes...
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Ya-lü Chiang (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,...
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Ya-lu-tsang-pu (river, Asia)
major river of Central and South Asia. It flows some 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometres) from its source in the Himalayas to its confluence with the Ganges River, after which the mingled waters of the two rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal. Along its course it passes through the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, the Indian sta...
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Ya-lu-tsang-pu Chiang (river, Asia)
major river of Central and South Asia. It flows some 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometres) from its source in the Himalayas to its confluence with the Ganges River, after which the mingled waters of the two rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal. Along its course it passes through the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, the Indian sta...
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Ya-lung Chiang (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...
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ya-na (genealogy)
...group known as the dang, composed of all descendants of a single grandfather or great-grandfather. In the centralized Dagomba state, only the sons of a previous paramount chief, the ya-na, may rise to that office, which is filled in rotation by one of three divisional chiefs....
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Yaabetz (Danish rabbi)
rabbi and Talmudic scholar primarily known for his lengthy quarrel with Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz, an antagonism that sundered European Jewry....
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Ya’an (China)
city, west-central Sichuan sheng (province), southwestern China. It is situated in the mountainous western fringe of the Sichuan Basin on the Qingyi River, about 80 miles (130 km) southwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital. The city is a communications centre near the crossing of two main routes...
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Yaʿaqov (Hebrew patriarch)
Hebrew patriarch who was the grandson of Abraham, the son of Isaac and Rebekah, and the traditional ancestor of the people of Israel. Stories about Jacob in the Bible begin at Genesis 25:19....
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Yaʿariba dynasty (Arabian dynasty)
In Oman events took an independent course. The Yaʿrubid dynasty—founded about 1624 when a member of the Yaʿrub tribe was elected imam—expelled the Portuguese from Muscat and set to harrying Portuguese possessions on the Indian coast. Embarking on expansion overseas—to Mombasa in 1698, then to Pemba, Zanzibar, and Kilwa—the Omanis became the supreme power o...
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yab-yum (Buddhist concept)
(Tibetan: “father-mother”), in Buddhist art of India, Nepal, and Tibet, the representation of the male deity in sexual embrace with his female consort. The pose is generally understood to represent the mystical union of the active force, or method (upāya, conceived of as masculine), with wisdom (prajna, conceived of as feminine)—a fusio...
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YABA (American sports organization)
...and the joint issuance of credentials to the mixed leagues that made up more than 70 percent of their late 1980s combined membership of approximately 7,000,000. A third membership organization, the Young American Bowling Alliance (YABA; established in 1982), administers to the league and tournament needs of young bowlers through college age....
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Yaban (work by Karaosmanoğlu)
...interparty struggles after the adoption of the constitution of 1908. Sodom ve Gomore (1928; “Sodom and Gomorrah”) is about life in occupied Constantinople after World War I. Yaban, perhaps his best-known novel (1932; “The Stranger”), deals with the psychological distance between the Turkish peasant and the urban intellectual. He also wrote poetry and......
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Yabao Lu (market, Beijing, China)
...just east of Longtan Park—once popular with China’s national minorities but now largely patronized by Han Chinese—sells numerous items, including a wide variety of metallic ornaments. Yabao Lu, near the Chaoyang Gate site, is popular with Russians and eastern Europeans. Most of the Chinese shop owners there speak at least some Russian, signs are written in Cyrillic, Russian...
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Yabem language (language)
...a literary language used by the Methodists on Choiseul Island; Bugotu, a lingua franca on Santa Isabel (Ysabel Island); Tolai, a widely used missionary language in New Britain and New Ireland; Yabêm and Graged, lingua francas of the Lutheran Mission in the Madang region of Papua New Guinea; and Mota, a widely used lingua franca and literary language of the Melanesian Mission in......
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Yābis (river, Middle East)
...receives its main tributary, the Yarmūk River, which marks part of the frontier between Syria and Jordan. It is then joined by two more tributaries, the Ḥarod on the right bank and the Yābis on the left. The Jordan River’s plain then spreads out to a width of about 15 miles (24 km) and becomes very regular. The flat, arid terraces of this area, known as the Ghawr (Gh...
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Yablochkov candle
...of 2,000 cells to create a 100-millimetre (4-inch) arc between two charcoal sticks. When suitable electric generators became available in the late 1870s, the practical use of arc lamps began. The Yablochkov candle, an arc lamp invented by the Russian engineer Paul Yablochkov, was used for street lighting in Paris and other European cities from 1878....
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Yablochkov, Pavel Nikolayevich (Russian engineer and inventor)
Russian electrical engineer and inventor who developed the Yablochkov candle, the first arc lamp that was put to wide practical use and that greatly accelerated the development of electric lighting....
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yablon (card game)
name for two different simple gambling card games....
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Yablonitsa (mountain pass, Ukraine)
pass in the outer eastern Carpathians of western Ukraine, an important route connecting the country’s isolated western reaches with the rest of the republic and with northeastern Romania. The southern portion of the pass is formed by the valley of the Tisza River (also spelled Tisa, or Tysa), and the northern section contains the headwaters of the Prut....
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Yablonitskiy (mountain pass, Ukraine)
pass in the outer eastern Carpathians of western Ukraine, an important route connecting the country’s isolated western reaches with the rest of the republic and with northeastern Romania. The southern portion of the pass is formed by the valley of the Tisza River (also spelled Tisa, or Tysa), and the northern section contains the headwaters of the Prut....
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Yablonitsky Pass (mountain pass, Ukraine)
pass in the outer eastern Carpathians of western Ukraine, an important route connecting the country’s isolated western reaches with the rest of the republic and with northeastern Romania. The southern portion of the pass is formed by the valley of the Tisza River (also spelled Tisa, or Tysa), and the northern section contains the headwaters of the Prut....
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Yablonovskiy (mountain pass, Ukraine)
pass in the outer eastern Carpathians of western Ukraine, an important route connecting the country’s isolated western reaches with the rest of the republic and with northeastern Romania. The southern portion of the pass is formed by the valley of the Tisza River (also spelled Tisa, or Tysa), and the northern section contains the headwaters of the Prut....
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Yablonovy Khrebet (mountains, Russia)
mountain range in the Transbaikalia region of Chita oblast (province) and Buryatiya, in far eastern Russia. The range is some 500 miles (800 km) long northeast–southwest and reaches a maximum height of 5,512 feet (1,680 m) in Mount Kusotuy. Formed principally of granites and gneisses, it has been uplifted and much-fractured. The highest peaks are bare, but most of the range is densel...
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Yablonovy Range (mountains, Russia)
mountain range in the Transbaikalia region of Chita oblast (province) and Buryatiya, in far eastern Russia. The range is some 500 miles (800 km) long northeast–southwest and reaches a maximum height of 5,512 feet (1,680 m) in Mount Kusotuy. Formed principally of granites and gneisses, it has been uplifted and much-fractured. The highest peaks are bare, but most of the range is densel...
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Yablunytsky (mountain pass, Ukraine)
pass in the outer eastern Carpathians of western Ukraine, an important route connecting the country’s isolated western reaches with the rest of the republic and with northeastern Romania. The southern portion of the pass is formed by the valley of the Tisza River (also spelled Tisa, or Tysa), and the northern section contains the headwaters of the Prut....
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yabme-aimo (Finnish religion)
...or the “saivo-reindeer,” “saivo-fish,” and “saivo-bird.” The saivo should be differentiated from the other Sami otherworld, yabme-aimo, which, for example, was associated with the sacrifice of black animals and was generally conceived as much less pleasant....
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yabot (Yako council)
...within the village wards is vested in a group of ward leaders, led by a ward head. Secular and ritual authority for the entire village is concentrated in a council of village priests (the yabot); the village head is the priest of the paramount fertility spirit....
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YAC (biology)
...inserts) or lambda phage alone. Bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) are vectors based on F-factor (fertility factor) plasmids of E. coli and can carry much larger amounts of DNA. Yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs) are vectors based on autonomously replicating plasmids of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast). In yeast (a eukaryotic organism) a YAC be...
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yacca (Podocarpus)
...falcatus) of southern Africa; plum-fir, or plum-fruited, yew (P. andinus) and willowleaf podocarpus, or mañío (P. salignus), of the Chilean Andes; and the yacca (P. coriaceus) of the West Indies....
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yacca (plant)
any plant of the genus Xanthorrhoea of the family Xanthorrhoeaceae, with about 17 species native to eastern Australia. They have thick, woody, often palmlike stems about 5 m (16 feet) tall that end in a tuft of rigid, grasslike leaves from which flower spikes resembling those of the bulrush extend 3 m or more....
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Yachi (China)
city and capital of Yunnan sheng (province), southwestern China. It is situated in the east-central part of the province in a fertile lake basin on the northern shore of Lake Dian, surrounded by mountains to the north, west, and east. Kunming has always been a focus of communications in southwestern China. Pop. (2002 est...
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yacht (boat)
a sail- or power-driven vessel, usually light and comparatively small, used for racing or for recreation. In recreation the term applies to very large craft, originally powered by sail and later by steam or internal-combustion engines. It is in this sense that the generality of nonyachting (nonsailing) people usually think of the term. Technically, the word yacht excludes boats propelled by paddl...
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yacht club
As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a pleasure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his......
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Yacht Racing Association (British organization)
In England by 1881 most of the important yacht clubs had become members of the Yacht Racing Association (founded 1875; from 1952 called the Royal Yachting Association). The organization made rules governing regatta sailing and later took on duties as a representative body for all British yachting, including dealing with port, harbour, and other governmental authorities. In the United States,......
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yachting (sport)
As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a pleasure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his......
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Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (Bolivian government agency)
...and exploit the Andean foothill zone in southeastern Bolivia. A series of small oil fields were discovered there, but Standard Oil’s operation was expropriated in 1937 to form the nationalized Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). In the mid-1950s North American companies were again encouraged to resume operations, and in 1956 the Bolivian Gulf Oil Company (a branch...
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Yacyretá Dam (dam, South America)
The Yacyretá hydroelectric project, a joint Paraguayan-Argentine effort in the Yacyretá-Apipé islands zone of the Paraná, was established by a 1973 treaty. Its construction was hindered by delays, however, and the plant operated below capacity for many years because of lack of financing to complete the ancillary works. In 2004 Paraguay and Argentina reached an......
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yad (Judaism)
in Judaism, a ritual object, usually made of silver but sometimes of wood or other materials, that consists of a shaft affixed to a miniature representation of a hand with its index finger pointing. The yad is used optionally in liturgical services to indicate the place that is being read on a Torah (biblical) scroll, thus eliminating the necessity of touching the sacred manuscript with the hand. ...
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Yad va-Shem (shrine, Israel)
...felt for a dead animal. It is significant that Communists make pilgrimages to the graves of Lenin and Marx; and, in the modern State of Israel, great effort is being made to record in the shrine of Yad va-Shem the names of those who died in the persecution of the Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and ’40s and, if possible, to bring their ashes there. In....
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Yad Vashem (shrine, Israel)
...felt for a dead animal. It is significant that Communists make pilgrimages to the graves of Lenin and Marx; and, in the modern State of Israel, great effort is being made to record in the shrine of Yad va-Shem the names of those who died in the persecution of the Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and ’40s and, if possible, to bring their ashes there. In....
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Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum (museum, Jerusalem)
...felt for a dead animal. It is significant that Communists make pilgrimages to the graves of Lenin and Marx; and, in the modern State of Israel, great effort is being made to record in the shrine of Yad va-Shem the names of those who died in the persecution of the Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and ’40s and, if possible, to bring their ashes there. In....
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Yādava (people)
The Bhāgavata sect originated among the Yādava people of the Mathura area in the centuries preceding the beginning of the Christian era. From there it spread as the tribes migrated to western India and the northern Deccan. It was introduced into South India at an early date. The sect continued to be prominent within Vaiṣṇavism until at least the 11th century, when......
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Yadava dynasty (Indian dynasty)
rulers of a 12th–14th-century Hindu kingdom of central India in what is the modern Indian state of Mahārāshtra. Originally a feudatory of the Eastern Cālukyas of Kalyāni, the dynasty became paramount in the Deccan under Bhillama (c. 1187–91), who founded Devagiri (later Daulatābād) as his capital. Under Bhillama’s grandson Si...
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yadayim (Judaism)
in Judaism, a ritual object, usually made of silver but sometimes of wood or other materials, that consists of a shaft affixed to a miniature representation of a hand with its index finger pointing. The yad is used optionally in liturgical services to indicate the place that is being read on a Torah (biblical) scroll, thus eliminating the necessity of touching the sacred manuscript with the hand. ...
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Yaddo (American organization)
a working community of writers, composers, and visual artists, located on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs, New York, U.S. Yaddo is a nonprofit organization founded in 1900 by New York financier Spencer Trask (1844–1909), his wife, the writer Kate, or Katrina, Nichols Trask (1853–1922), and philanthropist George Foste...
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Yadin, Yigael (Israeli general and archaeologist)
Israeli archaeologist and military leader noted for his work on the Dead Sea Scrolls....
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Yadivigha’s Dream (painting by Rousseau)
Shortly before his death, Rousseau painted the most ambitious of these jungle paintings, Yadivigha’s Dream (1910), which was also one of his greatest works. In this impressive fantasy, an enchanting nude rests on a red plush Victorian sofa in the middle of a dense jungle. Huge flowers wave about her head, two lions and an elephant peer out of the undergrowth, an...
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Yadkin River (river, United States)
river rising as the Yadkin River in the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwestern North Carolina, U.S. Flowing northeast past Wilkesboro and Elkin, then southeast past Badin, it becomes the Pee Dee (named for the Pedee Indians) after a course of about 200 miles (320 km). As the Pee Dee, it continues for another 230 miles (370 km), generally southeastward into South Carolina (where it is called the......
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yadṛchhāvāda (Indian philosophical school)
...(the name by which Cārvāka doctrines—denying the authority of the Vedas and the soul—are generally known). Furthermore, there existed the two unorthodox schools of yadṛchhāvāda (accidentalists) and svabhāvavāẖa (naturalists), who rejected the supernatural. Kapila, the legendary founder of the......
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yadu (literature)
In the 16th century, the Burmese conquered Siam, and their subsequent knowledge of Thai romantic poems gave rise to a new verse form called the yadu (the seasons). They borrowed only the theme, however, and not the form, and they developed it as an emotional poem, passionate, yet with something of the cool intellectual strength of the poems of the English metaphysical......
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Yāfa (Israel)
major city and economic centre in Israel, situated on the Mediterranean coast some 40 miles (60 km) northwest of Jerusalem. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 as a Jewish garden suburb of the ancient Mediterranean port of Jaffa (now Yafo), with which it was joined in 1950. By the beginning of the 21st century, the modern city of...
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Yafo (ancient city, Middle East)
...centre in Israel, situated on the Mediterranean coast some 40 miles (60 km) northwest of Jerusalem. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 as a Jewish garden suburb of the ancient Mediterranean port of Jaffa (now Yafo), with which it was joined in 1950. By the beginning of the 21st century, the modern city of Tel Aviv had developed into a major economic and cultural centre. Tel Aviv is headquarters......
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Yaʿfur, Banū (Arabian nobility)
...slaves or local Afro-Asians—supplanted the Ziyādids in Zabīd; however, though independent, neither dynasty renounced vague ʿAbbāsid suzerainty. The Banū Yaʿfur, lords north of Sanaa, expelled the Ziyādid governor and ruled independently from 861 to 997. Najāḥid rule ended when ʿAlī ibn Mahdī captured......
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Yage Letters, The (work by Burroughs)
...and killed her in a drunken prank. Fleeing Mexico, he wandered through the Amazon region of South America, continuing his experiments with drugs, a period of his life detailed in The Yage Letters, his correspondence with Ginsberg written in 1953 but not published until 1963. Between travels he lived in London, Paris, Tangier, and New York City but in 1981 settled in......
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Yaghibasan (Turkmen ruler)
When Mehmed died (1142), the Dānishmend territory was divided among his two brothers—Yağibasan (Yaghibasan) in Sivas and ʿAyn ad-Dawlah in Malatya-Elbistan—and his son Dhū an-Nūn in Kayseri. After Yağibasan’s death (1164), the Seljuq sultan Qïlïj Arslan II intervened repeatedly in the affairs of the Sivas......
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Yaghmā (Persian author)
...that in Turkey. While the last “classical” poet, Qāʾānī (died 1854), had been displaying the traditional glamorous artistry, his contemporary, the satirist Yaghmā (died 1859), had been using popular and comprehensible language to make coarse criticisms of contemporary society. As in the other Islāmic countries, a move toward simplicity is....
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Yaghmurāsan (Zanātah amīr)
...loyal vassals to the Almohads, gained the support of other Berber tribes and nomadic Arabs and set up a kingdom at Tilimsān (Tlemcen), headed by the Zanātah amīr Yaghmurāsan (ruled 1236–83). Yaghmurāsan was able to maintain internal peace through the successful control of the rival Berber factions, and, in the face of the Marīnid......
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Yaghnābī language
...elements from other languages and dialects. Although Sogdian is known in several forms, possibly representing different dialects, none of these can be considered the direct ancestor of modern Yaghnābī, spoken at present in the valley of the Yaghnob River, a tributary of the Zeravshan. Yaghnābī, nevertheless, certainly belongs linguistically to the Sogdian family.......
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Yaghnābīs (people)
...Wakhī, Shughnī, Rōshānī, Khufī, Yāzgulāmī, Ishkashimī, and Bartang, all Iranian languages. Another distinct group is formed by the Yaghnābīs, direct descendants of the ancient Sogdians, who live in the Zeravshan River basin....
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Yağibasan (Turkmen ruler)
When Mehmed died (1142), the Dānishmend territory was divided among his two brothers—Yağibasan (Yaghibasan) in Sivas and ʿAyn ad-Dawlah in Malatya-Elbistan—and his son Dhū an-Nūn in Kayseri. After Yağibasan’s death (1164), the Seljuq sultan Qïlïj Arslan II intervened repeatedly in the affairs of the Sivas......
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Yagoda, Genrikh Grigoryevich (Soviet official)
head of the Soviet secret police under Stalin from 1934 to 1936 and a central figure in the purge trials....
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yagona (beverage)
nonalcoholic, euphoria-producing beverage made from the root of the pepper plant, principally Piper methysticum, in most of the South Pacific islands. It is yellow-green in colour and somewhat bitter, and the active ingredient is apparently alkaloidal in nature....
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Yahata (Japan)
Kita-Kyūshū is one of Japan’s leading manufacturing centres and is the one in which heavy industry is most prominent. The industrial nucleus, Yawata, specializes in iron and steel, heavy chemicals, cement, and glass. Wakamatsu produces metals, machinery, ships, and chemicals and is a major coal port for northern Kyushu. Tobata is one of the main deep-sea fishing bases of weste...
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Yahgan (people)
South American Indian people, very few in number, who were the traditional occupants of the south coast of Tierra del Fuego and the neighbouring islands south to Cape Horn. In the 19th century they numbered between 2,500 and 3,000. The Yámana language forms a distinct linguistic group made up of five mutually intelligible dialects that correspond to five regionally define...
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Yahia, pas de chance (work by Farès)
In his first novel, Yahia, pas de chance (1970; “Yahia, No Chance”), Farès introduced a quest that was to haunt his later works; the search for the self takes him back to his childhood, and further still, to the pre-Islāmic voices of inspiration tied to the earth. Farès’ successive novels—Un Passager de l’Occident (1971; ...
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Yahoo! Inc. (American company)
global Internet services company based in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company was founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, graduate students at Stanford University in California. Yahoo! boasts more than 100 million users per month, and it provides users with online utilities, information, and access to other Web sites....
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yahrzeit (Judaism)
in Judaism, the anniversary of the death of a parent or close relative, most commonly observed by burning a candle for an entire day. On the anniversary, a male (or female, in Reform and Conservative congregations) usually recites the Qaddish (doxology) in the synagogue at all three services, and males may be called up (aliyah) for the public reading of the Torah. If the anniversary falls o...
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Yahuar Huacac (Inca emperor)
...his father and subjugated some groups that lived about 12 miles southeast of Cuzco. He is mostly remembered in the chronicles for the fact that he fathered a large number of sons, one of whom, Yahuar Huacac (Yawar Waqaq), was kidnapped by a neighbouring group when he was about eight years old. The boy’s mother, Mama Mikay, was a Huayllaca (Wayllaqa) woman who had been promised to the......
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Yahweh (Bible)
the God of the Israelites, his name being revealed to Moses as four Hebrew consonants (YHWH) called the tetragrammaton. After the Exile (6th century bc), and especially from the 3rd century bc on, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons. As Judaism became a universal religion through its proselytizing in the Greco-Roman world, the more common noun ...
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Yahweh, the God of Israel, Garden of
in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, biblical earthly paradise inhabited by the first created man and woman, Adam and Eve, prior to their expulsion for disobeying the commandments of God. It is also called in Genesis the Garden of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and, in Ezekiel, the Garden of God. The term Eden probably is derived from the Akkadian word edinu,...
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Yahwist source (biblical criticism)
...Most High”—i.e., by both Yahweh and El ʿElyon. It is known that, on the matter of the revelation of Yahweh to man, the biblical traditions differ. According to what scholars call the Yahwistic source (J) in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), Yahweh had been known and worshiped since Adam’s time. According to the so-called Priestly source (P), the nam...
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Yaḥyā (imām of Yemen)
Zaydī imām of Yemen from 1904 to 1948....
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Yaḥyā (Jewish prophet and Christian saint)
Jewish prophet of priestly origin who preached the imminence of God’s Final Judgment and baptized those who repented in self-preparation for it; he is revered in the Christian church as the forerunner of Jesus Christ....
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Yaḥyā al-Maʾmūn (Dhū an-Nūnid ruler)
...Umayyad caliph of Córdoba. Aẓ-Ẓāfīr established himself as an independent king in Toledo and, despite constant wars with the Christians, ruled until 1043. His son Yaḥyā al-Maʾmūn (reigned 1043–75) allied with Christians several times against his Muslim enemies and even entertained King Alfonso VI of Castile and Leon at his......
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Yaḥyā al-Muʿtalī (Ḥammūdid ruler)
...and, after the murder of the Umayyad al-Murtaḍā (reigned 1018), established himself in Córdoba (1018–21). The resident Berbers, however, induced ʿAlī’s son Yaḥyā al-Muʿtalī to take Córdoba and proclaimed him caliph in 1021, only to drive him out in 1022. Al-Qāsim returned that year, but he too was forced ...
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Yaḥyā al-Qādir (Dhū an-Nūnid ruler)
...Leon at his court (1072). In 1065 al-Maʾmūn seized the ʿĀmirid capital of Valencia and in 1074–75 was able to take Córdoba, the former seat of the Umayyads. But Yaḥyā al-Qādir (reigned 1075–92), al-Maʾmūn’s grandson, soon lost both Valencia and Córdoba. An alliance with Alfonso VI hastened the end ...
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Yaḥyā ibn Ibrāhīm (Berber leader)
...enterprise built an empire in northwestern Africa and Muslim Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries. These Saharan Berbers were inspired to improve their knowledge of Islamic doctrine by their leader Yaḥyā ibn Ibrāhīm and the Moroccan theologian ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yasīn. Under Abū Bakr al-Lamtūnī and later Yūsuf ibn......
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Yaḥyā ibn Khalid (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...
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Yaḥyā ibn Maḥmūd al-Wāsiṭī (Iraqi painter)
Muslim painter and illustrator who produced work of originality and excellence. He was the outstanding painter of the Baghdad school of illustration, which blended Turkish art and native Christian (probably Jacobite or Syriac Monophysite) painting in a lively Islāmic syncretism....
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Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad (imām of Yemen)
Zaydī imām of Yemen from 1904 to 1948....
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Yahya Khan, Agha Mohammad (president of Pakistan)
president of Pakistan (1969–71), a professional soldier who became commander in chief of the Pakistani armed forces in 1966....
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Yaḥyā Maḥmūd al-Mutawakkil (imām of Yemen)
Zaydī imām of Yemen from 1904 to 1948....
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