Semey \,se-ma'\ formerly (until 1991) Semipalatinsk V.se-me-po-'la-tinskV Port city (pop., 1999: 269,600) on the Irtysh (Ertis) River, eastern Kazakhstan. It was founded as a Russian fort in 1718 and was moved to its present site in 1778, at the junction of caravan trails; before 1917 more than 11,000 camels passed through the city annually. In the early 20th century it was connected by rail to Siberia and other parts of Central Asia. It has one of the largest meat-packing plants in Kazakhstan. Its name was changed after Kazakhstan attained indepen¬ dence in 1991.
semi-Pelagianism X.se-me-po-'la-je-o-.ni-zomX Religious movement that flourished ad 429-529 in southern France, considered a heresy by the Roman Catholic church. Unlike their near-contemporaries, the Pelagians (see Pelagianism), the semi-Pelagians believed in the universality of origi¬ nal sin as a corruptive force in mankind and held that it could not be over¬ come without the grace of God. They endorsed baptism, but contrary to Augustine, they taught that the innate corruption of mankind was not so great that it was beyond the will of mankind to subdue through asceti¬ cism. Its principal exponents were Sts. John Cassian (360-435), Vincent of Lerins (died c. 450), and Faustus of Riez (c. 400-c. 490).
semiconductor Class of crystalline solids with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Such materials can be treated chemically to allow transmission and control of an electric current. Semiconductors are used in the manufacture of electronic devices such as diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits. Intrinsic semiconductors have a high degree of chemical purity, but their conductivity is poor. Extrinsic semiconductors contain impurities that produce much greater conductiv¬ ity. Some common intrinsic semiconductors are single crystals of silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide; such materials can be converted into the technologically more important extrinsic semiconductors by addition of
Mount Sir Donald in the Selkirk Moun¬ tains, British Columbia, Can.
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seminary ► Senate I 1719
small amounts of impurities, a process called doping (see dopant). Advances in semiconductor technology in recent years have gone hand in hand with increased operational speed in computers.
seminary Educational institution, usually for training in theology. In the U.S. the term was formerly also used to refer to institutions of higher learning for women, often teachers’ colleges. Since at least the 4th cen¬ tury there have been seminaries for the training of clergy. The first known group of seminarians was gathered by St. Basil of Ancyra. The term dropped out of general use in the Middle Ages, when most theological training was in monasteries, and later, in the universities. After the Ref¬ ormation and the emergence of new denominations, seminaries again came into use, especially in the U.S. The 16th-century Council of Trent ordered seminaries to be opened in every diocese.
Seminole Vse-mo-.nolX North American Indian people living mainly in Florida and Oklahoma, U.S. Their language belongs to the Muskogean language stock. The name Seminole is a Creek derivation of the Spanish word cimarron , meaning “wild.” The Seminoles split off from the Creek in the later 18th century and settled in northern Florida, where they were joined by runaway slaves, Indian and black, from Georgia. They lived more by hunting and fishing than by agriculture, constructed shelters of thatched roofs supported by poles, and wore tailored hide clothing deco¬ rated in bright-coloured strips. In an effort to stem white encroachment, they fought a succession of wars (see Seminole Wars). Together the Semi¬ nole number about 15,000.
Seminole Wars (1817-18, 1835-42, 1855-58) Three conflicts between the U.S. and the Seminole Indians of Florida. The first began when U.S. authorities tried to recapture runaway slaves living among Seminole bands. After U.S. forces seized Spanish-held Pensacola and St. Marks, Spain ceded its Florida territory under the Transcontinental Treaty (1819). The second conflict followed the refusal of most Seminoles to relocate under the Indian Removal Act. Led by Osceola, the Seminole warriors hid in the Everglades and used guerrilla tactics to defend their land; about 2,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in the prolonged fighting. After Osceola was captured, resistance declined and most Seminoles agreed to emigrate west. The third conflict arose from efforts to oust the remaining Semi¬ noles from Florida.
semiotics \,se-me-'a-tiks, ,se-me-'a-tiks\ or semiology Study of signs and sign-using behaviour, especially in language. In the late 19th and early 20th century the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce led to the emergence of semiotics as a method for examining phenomena in different fields, including aesthetics, anthropology, communications, psychology, and semantics. Interest in the structure behind the use of par¬ ticular signs links semiotics with the methods of structuralism. Saussure’ s theories are also fundamental to poststructurausm.
Semipalatinsk See Semey
Semite Person speaking one of a group of related languages, presum¬ ably derived from a common language, Semitic (see Semitic languages). The term came to include Arabs, Akkadians, Canaanites, some Ethiopi¬ ans, and Aramaean tribes including Hebrews. Semitic tribes migrated from the Arabian Peninsula, beginning c. 2500 bc, to the Mediterranean coast, Mesopotamia, and the Nile River delta. In Phoenicia, they became seafar¬ ers. In Mesopotamia, they blended with the civilization of Sumer. The Hebrews settled at last with other Semites in Palestine.
Semitic Xso-'mi-tikX languages Family of Afro-Asiatic languages spo¬ ken in northern Africa and South Asia. No other language family has been attested in writing over a greater time span—from the late 3rd millennium bc to the present. Both traditional and some recent classifications divide the family into an eastern and western group. Until recently the sole known East Semitic language was Akkadian; now some scholars add Eblaite, the language of a cuneiform archive found at the ancient city of Ebla, with docu¬ ments dating from c. 2300-2250 bc. West Semitic contains as one major subgroup Northwest Semitic, which includes Ugaritic, known from alpha¬ betic cuneiform texts of c. 1400-1190 bc; the closely related Canaanite lan¬ guages (including Moabite, Phoenician, and Ancient Hebrew); and Aramaic. Further subgrouping is controversial; traditionally, Arabic was placed in a distinct South Semitic subgroup of West Semitic, though a more recent classification puts it together with Northwest Semitic. The South Semitic languages include Epigraphic South Arabian; Modern South Arabian (or Modern South Arabic), a group of six languages spoken in eastern Yemen, southwestern Oman, and the island of Socotra; and Ethiopic.
Semliki \'sem-le-ke\ River River, east-central Africa. It connects Lake Edward and Lake Albert and is 143 mi (230 km) long. The latter part of its course forms part of the border between Congo (Kinshasa) and Uganda. Wildlife, including elephants, hippopotamuses, crocodiles, and antelope, is abundant. The river’s delta, choked with ambatch (a fast¬ growing thorny tree) and papyrus, is steadily encroaching on Lake Albert.
Semmelweis Vze-mol-.vIsV Ignaz (Philipp) Hungarian Ignac Fulop Semmelweis (b. July 1, 1818, Buda, Hung., Austrian Empire—d. August 13, 1865, Vienna, Austria) Hungarian-born Austrian physician. As an assistant at Vienna’s obstetric clinic at a time when death rates from puerperal fever were as high as 30% in European maternity hospitals, Semmelweis noticed that far fewer women died in the mid¬ wives’ division of the clinic than in the division where students (often coming from the dissecting room) were taught. Concluding that students carried the infection, he had them wash their hands in chlorinated lime before each exam, and mortality dropped from 18% to 1%. Though his ideas were accepted in Hungary, his Etiology, Understanding, and Pre¬ venting of Childbed Fever (1861) was widely rejected abroad, including by Rudolf Virchow.