SLAVS.

Geographical Distribution

According to to the tables published by Boudilovieh in connexion with the admirable ethnological map of Mirkovich (St Petersburg, 1875), the Slavs may be grouped geographically as follows :—

I. SOUTH-EASTERN DIVISION.—

1. Russians.—(a) The Great Russians (Velikorcmsskie), who occupy the governments round Moscow and extend as far north as Novgorod and Vologda, south to Kielf and. Voronezh, east to Penza, Simbirsk, and Vyatka, and west to the Baltic provinces and Poland ; they number about 40,000,000. (b) The Little Russians (Malorossiane), who include the Rousines or Rousniaks in Galicia and the Boiki and Gouzouli in Bukovina ; they number 16,370,000. Drawing a straight line from Sandec near Cracow to the Asiatic frontier of Russia, we shall find their language the dominant tongue of Galicia and all the southern parts of Russia till we come to the Caucasus. It is also spoken in a strip of territory in the north of Hungary, (c) The White Russians, inhabiting the western governments ; they number 4,000,000.

2. Bulgarians, including those in Russia, Austria, Roumania, Bulgaria, eastern Roumelia, and those under Turkish government in Macedonia ; their total number is 5,123,592.

3. Servo - Croats, including those of Servia, Montenegro, the southern part of Hungary, and a few in the south of Russia ; they are returned as numbering 5,940,539. Here also maybe placed the Slovenes, including those in Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, amounting to 1,287,000.

II. WESTERN DIVISION.—

1. Poles, divided between Russia, Austria, and Prussia; they number 9,492,162 ; under this head may be included the Kashoubes near Dantzic, numbering 111,416.

2. Chekhs and Moravians, 4,815,154 in number ; here also may be included the Slovaks, numbering 2,223,820.

3. Lusatian Wends or Sorbs, Upper and Lower, partly in Saxony and partly in Prussia. The Upper Wends number 96,000, the Lower 40,000.

Total number of Slavs in both divisions 89,499,683.

Originally the Slavs were spread over a great part of northern Germany, extending as far as Utrecht, which was anciently called Wiltaburg and was a city of the Wilzen. Thus Slavonic was certainly spoken in Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Saxony, west Bohemia, Lower Austria, the greater part of Upper Austria, north Styria and north Carinthia, a large part of what is now Hungary, and in the localities now occupied by Kiel, Lübeck, Magdeburg, Halle, Leipsic ( = Lipsk, the city of lime-trees), Baireuth, Linz, Salzburg, Gratz ( = Gradetz, Gorodetz), and Vienna. The names of the old Slavonic tribes originally settled in these parts of Germany are given in Schafarik's Slawische Alterthiirner, to which work the reader desiring further information must be referred. They are mentioned frequently in such writers as Helmold, Dietmar, Arnold, Wittekind, and others. We hear of a commercial city of importance, which some writers have rather fantasti-cally termed the Slavonic Amsterdam, called Wolin, on an island of the same name, which was known as Winetha to the Germans and as Julin to the Danes. Schafarik even wished to see the Slavonic tribe of the Wilzen in English Wiltshire. This, however, cannot be accepted; the original name is Wilsaetas and that of the town Wil-tun, the town on the river Wily. It has long been a generally received opinion that the modern Greeks have a large Slavonic admixture. This opinion, was boldly asserted some years ago by Fallmerayer and has not been upset even by the labours of M. Sathas. He dwells much upon the form ~29kaß-t]voi. as distinct from ~2K\aß-qvoi o but this corruption seems to be owing to some such false analogy as ecrÖAo's. Miklosich, in his Etymologisches Wörterbuch der statischen Sprachen (1886), considers the two forms to be identical. In like fashion Procopius connects Serbi with Scopol and Constantine Porphyro-genitus turns Svatopluk into 2C/>¤I>SÖVAOKOS. Mediaeval Greece, especially the Peloponnesus, abounded with Slavonic names, which are now being replaced by others drawn from classical sources. Kollar and Wolanski wished to find a Slavonic population in "Italy; but their opinions are con-sidered the wild dreams of unscientific patriots, though these views found their way into such works as the Var-ronianus of Dr Donaldson. Equally unfounded appears to be the belief that a Slavonic element may be traced in Spain and Asia Minor. If the Slavs have lost in the west of Europe, they have gained in the east considerably, as Russia has encroached upon the Ugro-Finnish tribes of the northern and eastern portions of its empire, and many of these races are now in various stages of Russification.

Original Home of Slavs

As to the original home of the Slavonic race there are Original three leading opinions:—(1) the Slavs settled in Europe g°me of at a period contemporaneous with or shortly after the avs" arrival of the Teutonic and other Indo-European families; (2) they first made their appearance in Europe with the Huns, Avars, and other Asiatic barbarians in the 3d cen-tury after Christ; (3) they originated in Europe, as did the so-called Indo-European race altogether. This last view has been maintained by Penka and Schrader (see below).

Schafarik's View

The first of these views has been supported by Scha- Scha-farik. He considers that the Slavs left Asia in very early farik's times for the following reasons:—(a) the fact that the vlew-Slavonic languages are more closely connected with Euro-pean tongues than with those of Asia, even granting the many affinities of Slavonic with Zend or (as has been recently shown by Hubschmann) with Armenian; (b) the similarity of the manners and customs of the Slavs to those of the Celts, Germans, and other European popu-lations ; (c) the occurrence of many mountains, rivers, and towns having Slavonic names which are mentioned long before the Slavs themselves are found in history; (d) the fact that the Slavs are always spoken of by the earlier writers in terms which show that these writers considered them to be an ancient European nation, and were struck with the large area over which their populations extended. Moreover, the arrival at a comparatively late period of such large hordes would have made a great impression upon the surrounding nations at the time, and this would certainly have found an echo in their historians and chroniclers.

Schafarik believes that the Slavs or Wends (as they were called by their Teutonic neighbours) were settled at a very early period on the southern coast of the Baltic. The word " Wend " he connects with a Slavonic (voda) and Lithuanian (ivandu) root meaning "water"; thus it would signify the people dwelling about the water. He appears to include under the Slavs all people bearing the name Wends, notably the Veneti on the Adriatic. Other writers, however, consider that the word was applied generally to any maritime people; and this view appears probable. The name also occurs in Switzerland. The Wends then, according to Schafarik, were the earliest inhabitants of the Baltic coast; but they were expelled by the Goths in the 4th century B.C. Nestor makes other tribes of Slavs to have been established at an early period on the Danube and to have been driven thence by the Vlachs, a people whom scholars are inclined to identify with the Latin colonists from whom in a great measure the modern Roumans are descended. We find other tribes settled in the neighbour-hood of the Carpathians. The first historian who relates Classical anything about the Slavs is probably Herodotus, whose accounts, account of the north of Europe is very vague. Among the Scythian tribes mentioned by him two have been identified with, the Slavs by Schafarik with consider-able probability,—the Budini and the Neuri. Of the /ormer we are told that they were a large nation and had blue eyes and red hair. The description of the country they inhabited corresponds pretty closely to Volhynia tnd portions of White Eussia. The Neuri are placed by Schafarik on the river Bug, which flows through Podolia. There at the present day we find a river named Nureff, and the surrounding country is called Nurska. This opinion is supported by Schrader, who places the original home of the Slavs in Scythia. Posche goes so far as to consider the eastern part of Europe—especially that portion of Bussia which constitutes the basin of the Pripet, the Beresina, and the Dnieper—as the primary abode of the Indo-European race. Dr Kurd von Schlozer interprets Herod, iv. § 6— the story of Targitaus and his three children—as an allusion to the Slavs. The falling of a plough with its yoke from heaven would hardly be a characteristic tale of a nomad people. We seem to have an echo of the stories of the peasants Mikoula, Selianinovich, Piast, and Premysl, all dear to Slavonic legend. The view that the ancestors of the Slavs are to be found among the Scythian tribes has been supported in recent times by the Russian author Zabielin. He also thinks that their original settlement was in Volhynia and White Russia. The specimens of the Scythian language which have come down in Herodotus and elsewhere can certainly best be explained by Indo-European roots. The name Slav does not occur in any writer before the time of Jordanes, unless it be in the ~ZTO.VO.VOI of Ptolemy. Jordanes says of them—" quorum nomina licet nunc per varias familias et loca mutentur, principaliter tamen Sclavini et Antes." It is probably connected with the root slovo, " the word," which is related to the Greek KXVW (Slav, slit, "to be called"); and in a Polabish vocabulary we get the form slivo. The Slav thus comes to mean " the intelligibly speaking man" in contrast to "the dumb man," Niemetz, which in the modern Slavonic languages has come to mean simply " German." Miklosich (Etym. Worterb.) thinks that the termination -ene in Slovene shows the word to be derived from the name of a place and rejects the explanation from slovo. Some Slavonic scholars have sought an explanation of the name in the word slava, "glory."

Penka, however, attempts to upset the ordinary etymology. According to him the Slavs are non-Aryan and belong rather to the Ugro-Finnish race. Their name, he tells us, shows that they were subjected by the Aryans and became their dependants. He considers it to be derived from the present participle of the root klu (" to hear," Slav. sit), and thus identifies it with " client." The name Wend is used by Tacitus, who speaks of the Peucini, the Venedi, and the Fenni. Ptolemy also alludes to the Wendic mountains. He tells us that Sarmatia, i.e., all the terri-tory east of the Vistula and north of Dacia, was inhabited by widely scattered races and that the Wenedae were established along the whole of the Wendish gulf. Jordanes calls them Winidse. The other name, Antes, applied by this historian to the Slavs, which, like the word Wend, they never used themselves, Schafarik connects with a Gothic root. Duchinski, Henri Martin, and others have denied to the Russians the right of being called Aryan. Penka,4 as stated before, carries this opinion much further and refuses the appellation to the whole Slavonic family. Finding that many of the Slavs have chestnut-coloured curly hair and dark eyes, that the White Russians are blond, that the southern Slavs are darker and have a shorter head than those in the north, he is inclined to see in the Slavs a very mixed race, and quotes Procopius in support of his opinion.

The second of the opinions alluded to above has been Wocel's adopted by Wocel, according to whom the Slavs in the view-north of Germany on the Elbe, Moldau, Sale, Spree, as also those living south of the Danube, were not living in juxtaposition in the Bronze Age, but wandered into those regions some centuries after the birth of Christ. In proof of this assertion he cites many names of objects which are common to the Slavonic languages and yet could not have been known to any people in the Bronze Period,—as, for example, iron (O.S. zeleso), objects made of iron, as scythe (O.S. kosa), chisel (O.S. dlato), tongs (O.S. klesta), knife (nuz), saw (pila), hoe (motyka), sword (mec), stirrup (stremen), spur (ostruha), needle (jehla), anchor (kotva). Common to all the Slavonic languages are the names for gold (zlato), silver (stfibro), copper (med), tin (olovo). All these words must have been formed while the Slavonic people dwelt together in a comparatively narrow space,— according to Wocel between the Baltic, the Vistula, and the Dnieper; otherwise, according to this author, if we suppose that the Lutitzes, Obotrites, Sorbs, and Chekhs were autochthonous, it is difficult to see how they could have had the same names for many objects which did not exist in the Bronze Age, e.g., iron, as the Slavs on the Dnieper, the Balkans, and the Adriatic had. Wocel considers the Slavs to have been a pastoral people who entered Europe through the passes of the Caucasus. He compares the agricultural words which all branches of the family have in common, as ploug, " plough" (and also ralo); lemesh, "ploughshare"; zhito, "corn"; pshenitze, "wheat"; yechmen, "barley"; oves, "oats"; proso, "millet"; snop, "sheaf." On the other hand, as Wocel maintains, objects connected with civilization the knowledge of which only dates from the introduction of Christianity have not a common name in the Slavonic languages, such as " paper," "pavement," "steel," "velvet," &c. So also there is no common term for "property" or "inheritance," for the simple reason that the Slavs knew nothing of private property,—the land being held in common under the care of the vladika or stareshina, as in the Servian zadrugas at the present day.

The condition of the original Slavs has also been investigated from the linguistic point of view by Gregor Kreck. According to this writer, besides the cereals previously mentioned the Slavs cultivated the rape (repa), the pea (sochivo, grakh), the lentil (lenshta), the bean (bob), the poppy (male), hemp (konop), the leek (louk), &c.; corn ground by a hand-mill or water-mill (zhrinouv, malin) into meal (manka) and baked into bread (khleb), honey (med)— the collection of which was an important occupation among the Slavs, as we find by the Polish laws—meat (menso), milk (mleko), and fruit (ovoshtiye) formed their food. The drinks were ol and vino , beer and wine. Kreck considers that the minute details of house-building point to a habit of living in fixed residences,—thus the house (dom), the stable (khlev), the threshing-floor (goumno), the court (dvor), the village (ves). In opposition, however, to this view of Kreck we have the opinion of Hehn, who contends that all the words used among the Slavs for stone buildings are borrowed, and seeks to prove that till comparatively recent times they had only huts made of osiers and led a half nomadic life. Certainly municipal institutions are no feature of Slavonic life, and the paucity of large towns in Bussia is striking even at the present day. According to Kreck, words are to be found very early which show the development of the nation from the family. Thus the commune (obstchina, rod) becomes the family (plemya) and the family the people (narod, yenzik). There are common terms for law (pravo prravda, "right"; zalcon, "law"). Besides agricultural pursuits we have mention of the arts of braiding (plesti), weaving (tlcati), tailoring in a series of common expressions for portions of apparel, carpentering (tesati), working in iron, &c. Of the primitive Slavonic flora we have the oak (doub), the lime tree (lipa), the acorn (yavor), the beech (bouky), the willow (vr'ba), the birch (breza), the pine (bor), as also special kinds of fruit, the apple (yabl'/co), the pear (grousha), the cherry (vishnya), the nut (orekh), and the plum (diva).

Other Views

Pictet placed the original home of the German and Litu-Slavic races on the northern bank of the Oxus. Thence he thought they came over the extensive plains of Scythia to the Pontus Euxinus.

The doctrine of the European origin of the Aryans appears to be steadily gaining ground. It is supported by Professors Ehys and Sayce of Oxford. The last-named is inclined to see the home of the Indo-European race in " the district in the neighbourhood of the Baltic." Dr Ludwig Wilser makes Sweden and the north German shores the centre of the primitive Aryans, from which the Germanic tribes, Celts, Latins, Greeks, Slavs, Lithuanians, Iranians, and the invaders of India gradually detached themselves, migrating mostly southwards and eastwards. Leaving now the attempts to determine the primitive home of the Slavs and the date of their immigration into Europe, and also the names which they have in common, whether used by themselves or given by foreigners, we will trace as far as possible the derivation of the chief appellations of the Slavonic peoples.

Names of the Slavonic Peoples

(1) Russians.—For an analysis of this name see RUSSIA (vol. xxi. p. 87 sq.).

(2) Bulgarians.—By the 3d century we find Slavs settled between the Danube and the Balkans. Immigrations were going on till the middle of the 7th century, as these hordes were driven southwards by new invaders. About 681 the Slavonic settlers fell under the yoke of the Bulgarians, a Ugro-Finnish race, if we accept the views of Schafarik, Drinoff, and others. The origin of the Bulgarians themselves is obscure. Some have made them Tatars. Pro-fessor Ilovaiski believes them to have been Slavs. The theory which connects the name " Bulgarian," " Bolgare," with the Volga is now no longer held. Early modifica-tions of the name, such as Burgari, Wurgari, &c, show its analogy with forms like Onoguri, Uturguri, Kutriguri. The elements of the word are bul and gari. Brofessor Vambery attempts to derive the name from the Turkish verb bulga-mah, "to revolt"; but this seems little better than a guess. We are told that Koubrat, a Bulgarian prince, made himself independent of the Avars, and that on his death his territories were divided among his five sons. The eldest remained in the ancient settlement on the Volga, where the ruins of their former capital, Bolgari, are still to be seen. The third son, Asparoukh, crossed the Dnieper and the Dniester, and settled in a place called Onklus, probably the Old Slavonic ongl, " angulus," between the Transylvanian Alps and the Danube. From this place they migrated to the localities which they have since occupied, where they became mixed with the original settlers, to whom they gave their name, just as the German Franks imposed theirs on the Gauls, and a branch of the Slavonians took the Finnish name of their conquerors.

(3) Serbs.—See SERVIA (vol. xxi. p. 688). The name " Croat" has been already explained under SERVIA (I.e.).

(4) The Slovenes have preserved an old form of the family name, and therefore no explanation is necessary.

(5) Poles.—The first authentic date of their history is the year 963. Perhaps they are the Bulanes of Ptolemy. See POLAND, vol. xix. p. 285.

(6) Bohemians or Chekhs.— The word "Bohemia"—"home of the Boii," a Celtic tribe —has nothing to do with the Slavs who came into the country about 495, after the Marcomanni, who had dis-possessed the Boii. The derivation of the name " Chekh " or Czech has never been satisfactorily traced. Dobrovsky sought to connect it with a word ceti, signifying "to begin," and thus makes the name imply the original inhabitants. Schafarik, however, does not endorse this etymology. Perwolf connects it with a root cole, "to beat," and thus makes the name mean "the warriors." Whatever the word "Chekh" may signify, it occurs, as Schafarik has shown, in other Slavonic countries.

(7) Lusatian Wends or Sorbs.—
The word " Lusatia " (German Lausitz) is de-rived from the Slavonic lug or luza, signifying a low, marshy country.


*** SLAVONIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES ***

Classification and Characteristics of Languages

The first to attempt a classification of the Slavonic languages was Dobrovsky, who was followed by Schafarik and Schleicher. These agree in the main, except that Schafarik was so little acquainted with Bulgarian—at that time almost a lost language—that he grouped it with Servian. The following are the characteristics of the two divisions, which we take from Schafarik's account with some trifling omissions :—

== TABLE ==

This division, however, has been repeatedly challenged. Schleicher insisted upon the two following as important principles: (1) primi-tive Slavonic dj, tj become in all west Slavonic dialects dz, ts( = c); among the Chekhs and Sorbs dz becomes at a later period 2; (2) d, t before I, n are preserved in the western dialects, but disappear in the south-eastern. Upon this last canon Johannes Schmidt remarks as follows : " The dentals are preserved in Slovenish, certainly in the western part of its area ; thus modlim in the Freisingian documents, in the perfect participles, as predel, bodcl, plctel, cretel, fem. dla, tla, and in the suffix dlo, as kresadlo, motovidlo, "Hdlo. D is also preserved in Slovenish before n, as omladnem, osladnem, zbodnem, padnem, kradnem. T, on the other hand, appears every-where to vanish before n, as obernem, ' I go round.'" He also criticizes two of the principles of difference given by Schafarik. The nom. sing. masc. of pronouns appears in western Slavonic to be increased by n, thus Chekh, Polish, Lower Sorb, ten ; Upper Sorbish, ton; Polabish, to ; this, however, occurs in the Freisingian monu-ments, the earliest form of Slovenish, as ton. This n belongs to the stem, and is not a particle which has become fused with it; ten, ton, original form in, correspond to the Old Prussian tans. The use of the preposition vi instead of iz is not a criterion ; vt is as much used in Russian as in west Slavonic, thus viborni, " the village deputy"; there are traces of it in Slovenish ; it is only in Bulgarian and Servian that it is entirely wanting. The principle laid down that mot, not represent a south-eastern variation and moc, noc a western is far from being universally true; in Servian we have tsm, " black," as against Bohemian cerny, Russian cherni. Compare too Servian isesta, " a road," also Slovenish, with Chekh iesta.

== CIRCULAR DIAGRAM ==

Schmidt gives a completely new table of differences, illustrating them by the accompanying diagram. Casting aside some of the distinguishing marks previously adopted, he makes great use of the phonetic law found in the Slavonic lan-guages which will be explained shortly. The reader will easily identify the divisions of the circle to which the rules refer. (1) dj, tj become among the western Slavs dz, ts ( = c). (2) d, t disappear before I and n among the Russians, Little Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs, and Croats, but are preserved by the Slovenes, with the exception of tu, and by the western Slavs. (3) vi is not used by the Bulgarians, Serbs, and Croats, but is kept by the Slovenes, Russians, and western Slavs. (4) (a) ere by svarabhakti became rt at an early period among the southern Slavs and Chekhs, but is preserved in its original form among the rest. It became re at a later period among the Poles, Polabes, and Sorbs, (b) etc became le not only among the southern Slavs and Chekhs but also among the Polabes. Among the Poles and Sorbs ele and the cognate olo became simplified into le and lo. (c) arä in inlaut became ra among the southern Slavs and Chekhs. As in early times the Chekhs and southern Slavs were in close connexion with the Poles and Sorbs, the mutation developed among them ; thus Polish straz with stroz, Upper Sorbish straza with stroza, Polish and Upper Sorbish, trapic'. (d) dl& in inlaut became la not only among the southern Slavs and Chekhs but also among the Polabes. This contraction spread over a wider region than that of arä into ra. That the Polish also adopted it is shown by the form piazic sie compared with piozic sie.

Litu-Slavic Languages

Various opinions have been held as to what languages are to be considered the closest congeners of the Slavonic branch. That they stand in intimate relations to Lithuanian and Lettish has long been agreed ; and as a convenient classification it is customary to speak of them together as the Litu-Slavic family. In Russia there are 1,900,000 Lithuanians (including the Samogitians or Zhmudes). There are also 1,100,000 Letts. The rest of the Lithuanians, numbering 146,312, are in Eastern Prussia, commencing not far from Königsberg and extending along the shores of the Künsches Haff. The Lithuanian language in many respects exhibits an earlier type than the Slavonic. It has preserved the s of the nominative singular, as in Sanskrit; but, on the other hand, the verb exhibits a much poorer form. As Leskien truly remarks, " it has degenerated most remarkably in its conjugation, and in this respect is far inferior to the oldest known Slavonic." He adds that Lithuanian is of primary importance in the comparative treatment of the Slavonic languages. Very closely connected with Lithuanian was Old Prussian, which died out in the 16th century ; the remains which have come down to us belong to the 15th and 16th centuries. Old Prussian extended from the lower Vistula (from Thorn downwards) to the Niemen. The exact course of the boundary-line which separated it from Lithuanian can only be approximately determined by historical arguments. Leskien has proposed "Baltic" as a generic name for Lithuanian, Lettish, and Prussian. The general opinion of philologists is that Litu-Slavic is most closely connected with the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. Jacob Grimm was the first to assert this. Hiibsehmann has shown that Slavonic has affinities with Armenian, and he seeks to make the latter language a link between the European and Asiatic branches of this family. Kuhn writes, " The Slavonic languages remained a longer time in close connexion with the Indian or more probably with the Zend and Persian than with the remaining Indo-European languages." Bopp regards the separation of the Litu-Slavic languages as having taken place before the division of the Asiatic branch of the family into Indian and Iranian.

Old Slavonic

If we examine the Old or Palaio-Slavonic, the oldest known form of the Slavonic languages, we may note the following characteristics. It has the vowels a, e, i, o, u, î, a guttural i, a short e sometimes pronounced as ya, and the semi-mutes * and &. It has also two nasals equivalent to the French in and on, now only found in Polish and Kashoubish, and in some of the Bulgarian dialects ; traces of them, however, occur in Slovenish and in the words which Magyar has borrowed from Slovenish.





General Characteristics of Slavonic Tongues

The Aryan diphthongs have been contracted to single vowels and the hiatus is frequently avoided by the interposition of j (= Eng. y) or v, both of which constantly occur at the beginning of words which formerly commenced with a vowel. The addition of a y sound before vowels is one of the great characteristics of the Slavonic languages, called "praeiotization"; and the inability to mark this distinctly is one of the deficiencies of the Cyrillic alphabet. It is also worthy of note that in the provincial dialects v is frequently put before vowels, as by the lower classes in Bohemia and Russia. The Aryan aspirates gh, dh, bh have been changed into the simple explosives g, d, b ; on the other hand, a number of fricatives have been developed, as sli, z, and the French j—all unknown to the common Aryan—and k is frequently changed to the palatal ch. Servo-Croatian, Slovenish, Slovakish, and Bohemian possess the vocal r, while the vocal I is found in both Bohemian and Slovakish. The latter has also I and r, both short and long.

As regards grammar, the following peculiarities of the Slavonic family may be noted. A trace of the article exists in the adjectival termination, as in vclik-i; but this has been forgotten, and attempts have been made to supply it in the use of the demonstrative pronoun in Sorbish, which appears to have been used in the more corrupt stages of Slovenish also, but has been expelled since the regeneration of the language. Primus Truber, who translated the New Testament into Slovenish in the 16th century, was not free from this vice. The languages being in a high state of synthesis, the nouns and adjectives are fully declined, having three genders and seven cases, —the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, and prepositional. Sorbish and Slovenish have the dual number in both nouns and verbs. More of the numerals are declined than in most Aryan languages. The verbs have the so-called aspects, e.g., the iterative, perfect, imperfect, &c, whereby very delicate shades of meaning are expressed, and this partly atones for the poverty of tenses in some of them : Russian, for example, has only one past tense, which is inflected according to gender, having been originally a past participle. Traces of these verbal aspects have been detected in Celtic and in Greek.
"We now proceed to classify the Slavonic languages according to their dialects. The following table has been adapted (in the main) from the valuable Russian History of Slavonic Literatures by Pipin and Spasovich.

SOUTH-EASTERN BRANCH.— Russian.—(1) Great Russian : Mos-cow, Novgorod and northern, Siberian, and central Russian. (2) Little Russian : eastern, western (sometimes called Red Russian), and Carpathian. (3) White Russian. Bulgarian.—(1) Old Bul-garian (the ecclesiastical language ; see below). (2) Modern Bul-garian : Upper Mcesian, Lower Mcesian, and Macedonian. Servo-Croatian and Slovenish.—(1) Servo-Croatian : southern or Herzego-vinian, Syrmian, Resanian, and language of the coast or Dalmatian. (2) Slovenish : dialects of Upper, Middle, and Lower Carniola, Styrian, Ugro-Slovenish, Resanian, and Croato-Slovenish.

WESTERN BRANCH.—(1) Polish: Masovian or Mazurian, Great Polish, Silesian, and Kashoubish. (2) Bohemian : Chekish, Moravian, and Slovakish. (3) Lusatian Wendish or Sorbish : Upper Lusatian and Lower Lusatian. (4) Polabish (extinct).

South-Eastern Branch.

Russian Dialects.—These as yet have rarely been scientifically Russian, treated ; but that can hardly be a ground of complaint against the Russian people, as our own are only just beginning to be properly studied. The work entitled Opit Oblastnago Velikorousskago Slovara (Attempt at a Provincial Dictionary of the Great Russian Language), published at St Petersburg in 1S52, can, as its name implies, only be regarded as tentative: it is no more a scientific production than is Halliwell's Provincial Dictionary of English. Traces of Ugro-Finnish words and idioms occur in the northern and eastern dialects, but their importance has been much exaggerated. Whitney's theory that the Russian verb lias been modified by Ugro-Finnish influence claims attention. Some have supposed that the origin of the svarabhakti is to be traced to it; it occurs, however, in Little Russian and the western languages, as previously shown. It is much more frequent in Russian than in any other Slavonic lan-guage, and is even more developed in its dialects. An account

Siberian Russian is spoken by the descendants of prisoners and convicts who have settled in that vast tract of northern Asia since Yermak conquered it for Ivan the Terrible. Specimens of it are occasionally quoted in the letters of Kiiehelbecker, the Decabrist, and other exiles. Little Russian is spoken in all the southern governments of Russia. As current in Galicia and Bukovina it is called Red Russian ; an interesting variety is the Gouzoulian dialect in which Fedkovich composed his poems (see RUSSIA, vol. xxi. p. 110). Mention has already been made of the same language as spoken in Hungary. There is a good grammar by Osadtza, a pupil of Miklosich. The latter justly regards it as a language and not a dialect. Till quite recently there were very poor aids by way of lexicons : of the Deutsch-Buthenisches Handwbrterbuch by Professor Partitzki of Lemberg the Ruthenish - German portion never ap-peared ; the vocabularies of Piskunoff and Verkhratzki are but frag-mentary. A good dictionary, however, is now in course of publica-tion by Professor Zeleehowski of Stanislau, which promises to be all that could be desired. The orthography of Malo or Little Russian is not yet settled. A peculiar type is used for some of the books issued at Lemberg, especially the excellent ChitanJca (Reading Book) of Alexander Barvinski. An altogether whimsical orthography was adopted by Hatzouk in his Ouzhinok Bidnogo Pola (Gleanings from a Native Field), which appeared at Moscow in 1857.

The following are some of the chief characteristics which mark off the Little from the Great Russian language. The G. R. ie passes into i, as povist=poviest, L.R. richka = G.H. riechka ; o undergoes the same mutation, especially in monosyllables, L.R. pid = G.~R. pod, L.R. Jcin=Q.R. kon, L.R. vivsa = G.H. ovsa, where we may note the tendency to put v before the initial vowel already alluded to. The Russian ou is changed into L. R. v, and vice versa, thus vmirayou = G. R. oumirayou ; ouchora, on the other hand, is G. R. vchera. The Russian g is pronounced h ; the strong i (Polish I) is changed (especially at the end of a word or before other consonants) into v or on, thus G. R. pisal, L. R. pisaou. The Russian i is want-ing, and L. R. changes the Old Slavonic k and g into ch and French / oftener than Russian does. In the conjugations and declensions Little very much resembles Great Russian. It has, however, like Polish, lost the present participle passive, which is retained in Russian, and it possesses infinitive forms with diminutive mean-ings. Moreover, the accent differs considerably from Russian. The peculiarities of the Little Russian spoken in the north of Hungary are fully treated by De Vollant in his Ougro-liousskia Narodnia Picsni (Ugro-Russian Popular Songs), St Petersburg, 1885.

White Russian abounds with Polonisms, and in its orthography expresses the unaccented Russian o as a, which is in accordance with the pronunciation ; thus we have starana for storona, kago for kogo. As in Malo-Russian, g is pronounced h, as aharod, "a garden" ; gutturals are softened before ie, as na routzie, "on the hand." The collection of poems published at Vilua in 1844, entitled Piosriki Wie'sniacze (Rustic Songs), in what is called the Krevichian dialect, is in reality White Russian. There is a good White Russian diction-ary by Nosovich.

Bulgarian.—Connected with the Bulgarian division is the difficult question as to which of the Slavonic languages, ancient or modern, exhibits the earliest form. The original tongue is, of course, lost, and only an elder sister remains, but to which language shall that title be assigned ? In the early days of Slavonic philology many curious ideas prevailed on this point. According to the old-fashioned views the church language was the old and stately tongue from which all the living dialects had sprung. Russians considered it to be Old Russian, Serbs Old Servian, and those who used the Glagolitic ritual held it to be Old Croatian. These opinions were very natural. The fragments of the Old Slovenish language had not yet been found at Freising, and the only accessible manu-scripts in the infantine state of the study of Slavistic were recent ones, in which Russian, Servian, and Croatian forms were mixed. The Russians had forgotten many of their historical traditions dur-ing their long servitude under the Mongols, and the same was the case with the Serbs and Bulgarians under the yoke of the Turks. The names of Cyril and Methodius were hardly remembered. The two precursors of Dobrovsky, but of inferior intellectual calibre, were the Bohemian Fort. Durich (1738-1802), who was the first to have sound views on the relations of Old Slavonic to the later lan-guages, and the Russian Kalaidovich (1792-1832), who threw con-siderable light on the question by his edition of the works of John, the exarch of Bulgaria. He, however, considered the Palaeo-Slavonic to be Old Moravian. But the foundation of Slavonic scholarship was laid by Dobrovsky (1753-1829) and Vostokoff (1781-1864) ; the former treated the subject scientifically in his Institutiones Lingua} Slavicm Dialecti Veteris (Vienna, 1822), and the latter edited the Ostromir Codex, a Paheo-Slavonic manuscript of the Gospels, written in Russia in the 11th century. Dobrovsky at first considered Palaeo-Slavonic to be Old Servian, afterwards an early language out of which both Servian and Bulgarian were formed. Vostokoff was nearer the truth when he discovered elements of Old Slovenish.

The views held by scholars with regard to the country from which the Palseo-Slavonic, as preserved to us, has come may be briefly stated as follows. (1) It is Old Bulgarian. This opinion has been held by Schleicher, Schafarik, J. Schmidt, and Leskien. In the latter part of his life Schafarik appears to have somewhat modified his views and to have looked upon it as a mixture of Bulgarian and Slovenish. (2) It is Old Slovenish, i.e., the older form of the language now spoken in Styria, Carinthia, and a part of southern Hungary. This opinion was first held by Kopitar and afterwards by his pupil Miklosich. Among its supporters may also be mentioned Danichich and Jagic. (3) Geitler, now a professor at Agram, leans to the theory that the Russian language is a much earlier form of Slavonic than Old Slovenish. The case for Old Slovenish is clearly put by Miklosich as follows :—

"So far as the linguistic grounds of the Bulgarian hypothesis are concerned, it is undoubtedly true that Old Slovenish [Pakeo-SlavonicJ agrees with a dialect of Bulgarian with regard to the combinations St, Id, whereas the Carinthian (Carantanian) Slovenish employs generally c andj ; but how do we know that the Pannonian Slovenes pronounced S and not sd, j and not Zd 1 The Hun-garian mostoha (pr. moslitoUa), pest (pr. pesht), and palast (palasht) for the Old Slovenish maUeha, pest, and plast, and rozsda (pr. rozlida) for the Old Slovenish rZda, postulate the existence of U and 2d in the dialect of the Pannonian Slovenes. The nasalized syllables (to express the Old Slavonic nasals) in (modern) Sloven-ish and in the oldest loan words in Magyar from Slavonic separate the language from which these words are borrowed from Bulgarian.5 Let us also consider the following fact: Modern Bulgarian is more unlike Palaao-Slavonic than any other language of the eastern branch. Perhaps it may be observed with refer-ence to this that these corruptions have only crept in during the last centuries. But the language of the Tale of the Trojan War (of date 1350) is already Bul-garian, and, whatever may be said to the contrary, Modern Bulgarian. In the same stage of vocalic corruption is the Gospel of Tmov (Tirnova), which belongs to the year 1273. And does not the same remark hold good of the Psalter of Bologna, of the date 1186-1196? A Bulgarian language identical with Palseo-Slavonic fades from our eyes like a fata morgana however far we follow it."

The same author considers that even before the 9th century the Slavonic languages were separated as they are to-day. The most able exponent of the Old Bulgarian theory, Schleicher, writes as follows :—

"The proofs which Kopitar and Miklosich have brought forward in support of their opinion appear capable of being overthrown, while facts speak irresistibly for the opposite opinion that church Slavonic was the language of the Old Bulgarians, especially the softening of original Aryan t and d into slit and zhd. And besides linguistic there are also historical grounds. Cyril and his Slavonic fellow-workers were Bulgarians.6 Why, then, should they not have written in their own language, especially since they found no written language among the other Slavs? "

Schleicher asks, "How came the Bulgarisms in the Codex Sup-rasliensis [see below], which, according to the opinion of Miklosich, was written ' in ipsa linguse palteoslovenicEe patria' 1" He sums up: "We therefore hold the language which we regard in this work as alone the oldest to be Old Bulgarian." Schleicher appears to the present writer to have the best of the argument.

Modern Bulgarian

Modern Bulgaria embraces ancient Moesia, Thrace, and Macedonia ; the Danube separates it from Roumania ; on the west it has Servian, on the south-west Albanian, and on the south Greek, which begins to prevail from a line drawn from Salonica to Constantinople. Its area is dotted by Turkish colonies—the Turks, however, are now fast emigrating—and there is a considerable admixture of Greeks. Modern Bulgarian is a very corrupt form of Slavonic. The vocabu-lary, to begin with, is full of Turkish words. The wonder is that the language did not altogether disappear. It uses the Slavonic demonstrative pronoun as an article, which is placed at the end of words, as in Rouman, Albanian, and the Scandinavian languages. The cases are very defective, and are mostly expressed by preposi-tions. There is no regular form of the infinitive, for which a peri-phrasis is used. The language has only been resuscitated of late years. An American missionary named Riggs published a sketch of the grammar and a short vocabulary. In 1852 the brothers Tzankoff compiled a grammar in which Latin letters were employed. There are other grammars in Bulgarian by Momehiloff and Grouyeff. A dictionary (Bulgarian-French) has since been published by Bogo-roff, and there are indications that the language will be scientifi-cally treated, to judge by some excellent papers in the Archivfur slawische Philologie. From these we learn that in the Bulgarian dialects the nouns are much more fully inflected, and traces of nasals are found. The Upper Moesian dialect is also called the Sho2)sko narechie or dialect of the Shopi. Jirecek says that these Shopi differ very much in language, dress, and habits from the other Bulgarians, who regard them as simple folk. Their name he connects with the old Thracian tribe of the Sapsei. Those Bul-garians who have embraced Islam are called Pomaks,—a word of which no satisfactory derivation has been given.

Bulgarian Literature

As for the sake of convenience we group Palaeo-Slavonic under Old Bulgarian, we shall divide Bulgarian itself into Old and New. (1) Old Bulgarian.—We have space here only to mention some of the more remarkable codices, (a) Codex Assemani in the Vatican, edited by Racki, perhaps belonging to the 11th century, contains extracts from the Gospels for each day of the year. (b) Codex Clozianus, so called because it once belonged to Count Cloz of Trent, contains homilies by Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Epiphanius, supposed to be of the 11th century, (c) Codex Marianus, found by Grigorovich in a monastery on Mount Athos, edited by Jagic, of the 11th century, (d) Codex Zograpliensis, also edited by Jagic, assigned to the 12th century. These are the chief Glagolitic manu-scripts. One of the oldest Cyrillic manuscripts is (a) the Ostromir Code» (see RUSSIA, vol. xxi. p. 103). It is of the 11th century and was written by the diak or deacon Gregory for Ostromir, the posadnik or governor of Novgorod. Other Cyrillic documents are (b) certain legends and homilies which originally belonged to the monks of the abbey of Suprasl near Bialystok in Poland. They have been edited by Miklosich. The half Cyrillic and half Glagolitic manu-script called the Texte du Sacre must not be forgotten, because on it the French kings were accustomed to take the oath at their coronation at Rheims ; part of it is of the 14th century. There are also many translations from the Byzantine writers in Old Bulgarian, as from John Malalas, George Hamartolus, and others. (2) Modern Bulgarian.—The Bulgarians have some fine collections of popular songs. We can only allude here to the most celebrated, (a) The edition of the brothers Miladinoff published at Agram in 1861,— a very interesting collection, with notes on Bulgarian proverbs and customs ; these unfortunate men were murdered in a Turkish prison. (b) The popular songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians collected by Verkovich ; of this only one volume appeared, now very scarce. Verkovich has since published a work entitled Veda Slovena, in which he professes to have discovered Old Bulgarian ballads relating to Orpheus ; but the production is regarded by most critics as an im-posture, (c) The collection published in 1875 by Auguste Dozon, con-taining many interesting ballads, (d) The Bulgarian Popular Miscel-lany (Bulgarski Narodni Slovnik) of Basil Cholakoff, published in 1873. The rise of Modern Bulgarian literature is altogether recent. The father of it was the monk Paisi, who lived towards the end of the 18th century. He wrote a book on the history of Bulgaria in Bulgarian, which may be compared to the similar one of Raich in Servian. One of his pupils was Sophronius, bishop of Vracha (Vratza), who wrote his own life and adventures (1804). A trans-lation of the New Testament was published by Sapernoff in 1821. George Veuelin (1802-1834), a Little Russian from the neighbour-hood of the Carpathians, travelled in Bulgaria in search of manu-scripts and had some remarkable adventures there, which are related in the account of him by Bezsonoff ; he may be said to have revealed the existence of Bulgaria to the west. Among other writers may be mentioned Rakovski, the author of some eccentric works, but a true patriot, and Slaveikoff. Vazotf is a living poet of some reputation. The Bulgarian Literary Society has now been removed from Braila to Sofia, where it issues its journal (Periodichesko Spisanie).

Servian.

Servo-Croatian and Slovenish.—Of these languages the southern or Herzegovinian dialect has become the literary language of Servia. It is sometimes called the " shtokavstehina " from its use of the word shto for the interrogative "what. " The language of the coast or Dalmatian littoral is called " ehakavstchina " from the use of cha in the same way, and Slovenish " kajkavstchina " from the use of kaj. There is practically no difference between the Servian and Croatian dialects, but a quasi-difference has been created between them, much more apparent than real, by the employment of the Latin alphabet by the Croats and of the Cyrillic by the Serbs. The reasons for this divergence being theological, it is probable that it will not soon be put an end to. The Servian language is the softest of all the Slavonic tongues and elides many of the consonants. It is rich in tense forms, having preserved the Old Slavonic aorist. The accent is capricious. The vocabulary has incorporated many Turkish words ; but these will probably be gradually eliminated as the nation wakes to greater self-consciousness. For an account of Servian literature, see SERVIA, vol. xxi. p. 689.

Slovenish

The Slovenes are sometimes called " Wends " and their language "Windish " or " Wendish," au inconvenient term, as it causes some confusion with the tongue of the Lusatian Wends, of which more will be said shortly. Slovenish begins in Styria just south of Klagenfurt (Celovec). Besides Carinthia and Carniola, it is also the vernacular of a small part of Hungary, being spoken in the corner adjoining the river Mur. It is somewhat tiresome to find the few books printed in this part of the country using Magyar orthography. These Slovenish provinces formed a margravate and have long been attached to the domains of the house of Hapsburg. In 1883 they celebrated the six hundredth anniversary of this union and a handsome volume was published in commemoration of the event. For a time they were seized by Ottocar of Bohemia, but regained by Rudolph I., who divided them among his sons. The theory that Old Slovenish ex-hibits the oldest known form of Slavonic has already been discussed. The language has preserved a dual both in the noun and the verb and its vocabulary teems with interesting Slavonic forms. The attempt of Ljudevit Gaj to fuse Slovenish and Servo-Croatian and make one great South Slavonic literary language is alluded to in SERVIA (vol. xxi. p. 691). Slovenish exhibits an older form of Slavonic than Servian, just as Slovak is earlier than Bohemian. A good grammar was published by Kopitar at Laibach in 1808. To this is prefixed a valuable essay on the Slavonic languages, which was the first treatment of Slavonic philology in a scientific way ; nothing so valuable appeared till the epoch-making Institutioncs of Dobrovsky (1822). Grammars were afterwards published by, Metelko and Murko, but these have been far surpassed by that of Suman, a pupil of Miklosich. The orthography of the language has been much improved and it is to be hoped that some of the Germanisms which now disfigure it will be expelled. The Slovenes must banish from their vocabulary such words as farba (farbe), farar (pfarrer), and britov (friedhof).

Slovenish Literature

The earliest specimens of the literature are the manuscripts from Sloven-Freising in Bavaria now preserved in the library of Munich. They ish have been been assigned to the 9th or 10th century and are written inlitera-Latin letters. From that time we find no more trace of the ture, language till the Reformation, when Truber (in 1557) translated the New Testament into Slovenish. He was obliged, however, to quit his country. In 1584 the whole Bible appeared at Tübingen under the superintendence of Juri Dalmatin ; in 1584 the first Slavonic grammar was published by Bohoric, a schoolmaster of Laibach and pupil of Melanchthon; and in 1592 appeared the first Slovenish dictionary by Megiser. After the Protestant movement had been stopped by Ferdinand II., the country fell into a torpor, as did Bohemia. In this condition it remained during almost the whole of the 18th century,—the only productions of that barren period being a few plays and religious works without merit, and the grammars of Pochlin and Gutsmann. Valentine Vodnik (1758-1819) was a poet of some eminence. He flourished during the existence of the short-lived Illyrian kingdom which had been evoked by Napoleon and was destined to fall to pieces rapidly. About this time he composed his Iliria Ozivljena (The Revival of Illyria); but, sympathizing too much with the French, he incurred the wrath of the Austrians when they came back into possession, and was deprived of his posts, dying soon afterwards in poverty. Other writers are Jarnik and Ravnikar. The most celebrated poet was Francis Present (1800-1849), whose lyrics enjoy great popu-larity among his countrymen. The Matica Slovenska (Slovenish Literary Society) issues a journal and publishes useful works. In a recent number there is an interesting article by M. Erjavec, entitled "Fragments from a Traveller's Wallet," where we have lists of words gathered by the author from rural districts inhabited by Slovenes. The Resanian dialect of Slovenish may be said to have been discovered by Professor Baudouin de Courtenay; certainly no one before his time had made any stud}' of it. The Rezani, amounting to about 27,000, live on the north-eastern corner of the Italian frontier, in two valleys of the Julian Alps, and are Italian subjects. There is also a work on this dialect by Carlo Podrecca, called Slavia Italiana. The Ugro-Slovenish dialect, although it has not been used much as a literary language, is interesting, because it shows some connexion with Slovakish, and is thus a link between the south-eastern and western branches of the Slavonic languages.





Western Branch.

Polish.—The dialect of Great Poland has become the literary language. It is a vigorous tongue, but has incorporated too many German and Latin words. The "macaronic" style of Polish writing which did so much to disfigure the language is discussed in POLAND (vol. xix. p. 301). Polish has preserved the nasals q, and j. Its accent is almost invariably on the penultimate. There are excel-lent grammars by Malecki and Malinowski, and the monuments of Old Polish have been well edited by Nehring and Baudouin de Courtenay. The splendid lexicon of Linde in six large volumes is a monumental work. The Silesiau dialect is threatened with rapid extermination by the encroachment of the Germans. It has been treated of by Malinowski. Here also may be mentioned a book by Krynski on the dialect of Zakopan at the foot of the Tatra mountains to the south of Cracow. Under POLAND (vol. xix. p. 299 sq.) will be found an account of Polish literature.

Kashoubish

The Kashoubish dialect is spoken by about 200,000 persons according to Hilferding (others, however, make the number less) in the neighbourhood of Dantzic. This dialect presents some very interesting variations: among others the accent is free and not confined to the penultimate as in Polish, and it has more nasals. Its philology has been treated by Dr Cenova,1 who has also collected their songs and published a small volume of dialogues and literary miscellanies. The word "Kashoub" appears to be a nickname, their proper appellation being "Slovintzi." Schafarik makes the word signify "goats." The position of Kashoubish in the Slavonic family has formed the subject of controversy. In his Beitrdge zur Slavischen Dialektologie, Herr Leon Biskupski has written an interesting pamphlet in which he essays to prove that it is only a dialect of Polish. This is in opposition to the opinions of Schleicher and Hilferding, who have connected it with the extinct Polabish. The pamphlet contains curious details on the varieties of Kashoubish : the author tells us that eveiy district has its own local dialect. For Kashoubish and its dialects Prince Lucien Bonaparte proposes the term " Baltic " ; this appellation, however, would be more appropriate to group together Lithuanian, Lettish, and Old Prussian, and. in this way it has been used by Leskien.

Bohemian

(2) Bohemian (Chekh).—This language has several dialects, some too small to be specified here ; they will be found enumerated along WTth other Slavonic dialects in Erben's work. Connected with the Moravian is the Hanacky. Both the grammar and the lexico-graphy of Chekh have been copiously treated, the latter in the excellent work of Jungmann. Schafarik wrote a grammar of the old language. The vocalization of both r and I has been previously mentioned ; h has crept in in many places instead of g, but this is not found earlier than the 13th century. The accent is always on the ante-penultimate.

Bohemian literature may be divided into the three following periods, in which we follow Tieftrunk in his History*:—(1) the early period, the productions of which are chiefly of poetry from the beginning of Chekh literature till the Hussite wars (1410); (2) the second period, which shows a great development of prose, but also a great decline in literature generally, extends from the time of Hus to the latter part of the 18th century ; (3) from the renaissance of Chekh literature till the present time.

Bohemian Literature - Early Period

(1) The earliest period of Bohemian civilization was subjected to both Latin-German and Greek - Slavonic influences. The Latin alphabet may have been introduced even in heathen times. Rostislaff of Moravia invited to his kingdom Methodius, who was appointed archbishop of the country by the pope. We hear even in the 11th century of a Slavonic school in the Vysehrad (Wy-scherad, Prague) where St Procopius studied, to whom tradition assigned a hand in the transcription of the Texte du Sacre, pre-viously alluded to. Professor Jagic has printed an extract from an old service book the language of which shows Chekh influences. He has assigned the book to the 10th century. Some other very early specimens of the language are contained in the so-called Glagolitic fragments, Zlomky Hlaholski. Two ancient hymns belonging to this orthodox period of the Bohemian Church have come down to us, Hospodine, pomilvA ny (Lord, have mercy upon us) and Svaty Vaclave, Vevodo Ccske Zeme (Holy Wenceslaus, Lord of the Bohemian land). In 1817 a fragment called Libusin Soud (The Judgment of Libusa) was anonymously forwarded to the newly founded Bohemian museum. The sender was afterwards found to have been one Kovaf, the steward of Count Colloredo. Some critics assigned it to the 9th century ; according to others it is a forgery. With the limited space at our disposal it would be impossible to discuss the question here. The same year also wit-nessed the discovery by Hanka of the so-called Koniginhof manuscript (Kralodvorsky Rukopis), consisting of epic and lyric pieces, the authenticity of which some critics have attempted to bring into doubt. The chief hand in these forgeries is alleged to have been Wenceslaus Hanka (1791-1861), who was for some time head of the museum library and the author of some mediocre verse. The next poem of any importance is the Alexandreis, a free Chekh version of the Latin work of Philip Walter ab Insulis, surnamed "De Castellione." The Bohemian version was composed by an un-known author probably between 1240 and 1253. To this time belong many versified lives of saints and legends, such as those of St Procopius and St Catherine. The manuscript of the latter poem has been brought back from Sweden, whither it had been removed _during the Thirty Years' War, and is now preserved at Briinn in Moravia. The so-called Chronicle of Dalimil, a work of some importance, belongs to the 14th century. It is a tedious produc-tion, written in octosyllabics, and extends from the creation of the world till 1314. The author is supposed to have been a Bohemian knight, but there is no ground for believing that his name was Dalimil. The work is inspired by great hatred of the Germans. "We have a good deal of tedious moral poetry belonging to the 13th century. More interesting matter can be found in the '' Satires on Craftsmen" (Satyry o Rcmeslnicich), and a poem on the Ten Commandments. Most of these pieces are anonymous, but the name of one author is known, Smil of Pardubitz, surnamed '' Flaska," a leading Bohemian of his day. But little is known of the events of his life, except that he was killed in a skirmish in 1403. His chief work is the New Council, one of the beast epics so much in vogue in the Middle Ages. Others, however, are assigned to him, of which the most original and amusing is the " Dialogue between the Groom and Scholar " (Podkoni a Zak). A valuable legal document belonging to this period is the Book of the Old Lord of Rosenberg, which is one of the earliest specimens of Bohemian prose. Rosenberg was royal chamberlain from 1318 to 1346 and died the following year. Another legal work of im-portance is the '' Exposition of the Law of the Land of Bohemia " (Vyklad na Pravo Zeme Ceslce), by Andrew of Duba, chief justice of the country. Considerable portions of the Bible were translated into Bohemian during the 13th and 14th centuries. The version was completed at the beginning of the 15th century. AVickliffe says of Anne of Luxemburg, the first wife of Richard II., " Nobilis regina Anglia?, soror Ceesaris, habet evangelium in lingua triplici exaratum, scilicet in lingua Bohemica, Teutonica, et Latina." There are two early versions of the Psalter,—the Clementine at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century, and the Wittenberg also at the beginning of the 14th. The doubts which have been thrown on the fragments of the early version of the Gospel of St John appear to be completely dissipated by the well-timed work of Dr Jan Gebauer. Dr Adolf Patera has discovered recently another religious poem of this period.6 Another early prose chronicle deserving of mention is that of Pulkava, a priest, who died in 1380. It extends from the earliest times to the year 1330, and was originally written in Latin, but he afterwards translated it into Chekh. '' The Weaver" (Tkadleick), called after the name of its author, who lived in the first half of the 14th century, is a curious prose poem, in which the author celebrated the fair Adlicka, one of the beauties of the Bohemian court. The piece is full of the usual conceits of the age ; it has not yet been ascertained whether it is original or only an adaptation. It very much resembles Her Ackermann aus Böhmen, of which four manuscripts have been preserved. Perhaps, as Gebauer has surmised, they are both adaptations of a piece which is now lost. Passing over a quantity of mediaeval legends and tales, such as Flore et Blanch-flore, we need only mention, as dealing with native subjects, the two chronicles of Stilfrid and Bruncvik, supposed to have been originally written in verse. The most remarkable Bohemian writer of the 14th century is Thomas of Stitny, who writes on ethical and religious subjects. He was born of a noble family about 1330, and probably lived till the close of the century. He appears to have studied at the university of Prague, then newdy founded. His chief works are a treatise on General Christian Matters, in six books (edited in 1852), and the Books of Christian Instruction, printed with an introduction by Vrtatko in 1873. His style js easy and flowing. Loserth has rightly said that the object of Stitny was to put in a popular form the sum total of the scholastic knowledge of his age. There is also a Chekh version of the History of the Trojan War, composed by Guido di Colonna from Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius ; it was one of the first printed in Bohemian, and was issued from the press at Pilsen in 1468.

Second Period

(2) The second period begins with the great name of Hus, whose Bohemian writings were edited by Erben in 1865-68. Hus developed his native language as Luther did German. He corrected the translation of the Bible, and improved Bohemian orthography. We have nine letters written by him while in prison at Constance. During the period of the Hussite wars there was abundance of political and religious pamphlets. Most of these productions, how-ever, were of ephemeral interest. The travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville were translated into Bohemian. Peter Chel-cicky, one of the leaders of the United Brethren, was a popular writer. He was a cobbler by trade, hence he was nicknamed "Kopyta," or the Shoe-Last. His works, written between 1430 and 1456, have a strongly marked democratic tone ; among them may be especially mentioned his Postils and the Net of Faith (Sit Viry). In 1488 the complete Bible was printed in Bohemia, the first regular printing press at Prague having been set up the year before. In 1506 a Calixtine Bible appeared at Venice. The national literature made distinct progress under George PodSbrad, a native king. Vavrinec z Brezove (1370-1455) wrote in Latin Historia de Bello Hnssitico, of which there is an early Chekh trans-lation. There is a satire in Latin by Jan Hasisteinsky z Lobkovic, entitled Lament of St Wenceslaus over the Morals of the Chekhs. He was also a considerable traveller in the East. The Chekhs were fond of making pilgrimages to the Holy Land; Martin Kabatnik was a traveller of this kind. His Peregrinations were first printed in 1518. Works on law were written by Ctibor and Ariktorin, and many translations from the classics appeared. Gregory Hruby z Jelene (called Gelenius) and his son Sigismund were very industrious in this way; the latter published at Basel in 1536 a curious dictionary, Lexicon Symphonum, an early attempt at comparative philology, in which he compares Greek, Latin, German, and Slavonic. We must find space for a mention of the writings of Dubravius (c. 1489-1553), bishop of Olmiitz, although he used the Latin and not the Bohemian language. His work on fish-ponds and fish (Libettus de Piscinis et Piscium qui in eis aluntur Natura, 1547) is not altogether unknown to Englishmen owing to the citations in Izaak Walton, with whom the bishop was a great authority. His most important work, however, was his History of Bohemia in thirty-three books, from the earliest times to the coronation of Ferdinand I. at Prague in 1527, the termination of Bohemian independence. In 1533 appeared the first Chekh gram-mar, by Benes Optat. Verse-writers abounded at this time, but no poet of eminence. Veleslavin (1545-1599) was an indefatigable worker, being, like Caxton, both printer and author. The Latin herbal of Andrew Matthiolus, physician to the archduke Ferdinand, was translated by Thaddeus Hajek. Some good works on law appeared, and there are quantities of sermons. Simon Lomnicky (b. 1560) wrote a great deal of poetry ; he was the laureate of Rudolph II., and also wrote a triumphal song for the elector Frederick when chosen king of Bohemia by the Protestants. He was severely wounded at the battle of the White Mountain and spent the rest of his days in poverty ; but there appears to be no truth in the story that he became a public beggar. The claims of Lomnicky to be considered a poet are but meagre; he writes little better than rhymed prose. There is some merit, however, in his comic pieces and satires. At this period flourished the chronicler Hajek, who appears to have been a priest, and who died in 1553. His work is interesting, but altogether uncritical, and he does not seem to have cared much about truth. He gives us all the old Chekh sagas, and fortunately uses the Chekh language. His book attained great popularity, and was translated into German. Indeed, it was almost the chief authority for Bohemian history till towards the close of the 18th century. The travels of Christopher Harant in the Holy Land are full of learning and of curious matter. A new edition was published in 1854. The author perished on the scaffold on the memorable 19th June 1621, when Bohemia lay completely at the feet of the Hapsburg conqueror. Harant started for his journey in 1598, he and his companions being dressed as Franciscan friars. There is also the account by Wenceslaus Vratislav of Mitrovitz (1576-1635) of his three years' captivity at Constantinople,—a work full of picturesque incidents. The letters of Karl ze zierotin (d. 1636), one of the Moravian Brethren, who was for some time in the service of Henry IV. of France, have been edited by Brandl. With the battle of the White Mountain in 1620 terminates what has been called the golden age of Chekh literature. In 1615 the diet had made a resolute effort to protect the national language. But now the country became Germanized, and books in Chekh were eagerly sought out and destroyed. In addition to its sufferings during the Thirty Years' War, Bohemia had the misfor-tune to lose many of its most valuable manuscripts, which were carried off by the conquerors. For nearly 200 years Bohemia ceased to be counted among the nationalities of Europe. Here and there a patriot laboured in the interest of his country, such as the Jesuit Balbin or Balbinus (1621-1688), who was professor of rhetoric at Prague and author of Epitome Eerum Bohemicarum (1677) and also Miscellanea Rericm Bohemicarum (1680-81). His services to Bohemian literature were considerable, but his writings are in Latin. Many authors of repute were, however, at this time in exile, and of these no one has earned a greater renown than Jan Amos Komensky (frequently styled by the Latin form of his name, Comenius). This eminent main was born at Nivnitz near Hungarian Brod in Moravia and was the last bishop of the old church of the Moravian Brethren. After the battle of the White Mountain he fled to Poland, which at that time had not altogether lost its spirit of toleration. Here he was joined by some Polish dissidents and formed the nucleus of a reli-gious society. In 1631 he published his Janua Linguarum Beserata, in which he developed a newtheory of learning languages. This work became very popular and has been repeatedly translated. He after-wards visited England and Sweden, and in 1658 gave to the world his Orbis Pietus, which also enjoyed great reputation as an educational work. He died at Amsterdam in 1671. It would be impossible in a brief sketch like the present to give a detailed list of the writings of Komensky. Of his Bohemian works we may mention the prose poem Labyrint Svita a Baj Srdce (The Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart) and his Informatorium Skoly Matefske. He also translated the Psalms into Chekh. In 1656, on the destruction of the town of Leszno by fire, Komensky lost some of his most valuable works still in manuscript; we may especially regret his Poklad Jazyka Ceskeho (Treasury of the Bohemian Language), upon which he had been engaged from 1612. During the latter part of the 17th century and the greater part of the 18th the language and literature of Bohemia steadily declined. A few scribblers appeared, such as Rosa, Pohl, and Simek, but their names are hardly deserving of mention. But Gelasius Dobner and Martin Pelzel were valuable workers in the field of Bohemian history.

Modern Period

(3) The true study of the Slavonic languages may be said to have begun with Joseph Dobrovsky. In 1809 he published Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der böhm. Sprache. In 1822 appeared at Vienna his great work Institutiones Linguae Slavicae Dialecti Veteris. Dobrovsky died in 1829. The strange thing about him is that, in spite of all his labours, he had no faith in his native language and despaired of its revival. But, like Columbus, he was destined to accomplish greater results than he expected. Joseph Jungmann (1773-1847), another regenerator of the Chekh language, was author of the great dictionary and an esteemed translation of Paradise Lost. Besides these works he wrote a history of Bohemian literature. Kollar (1793-1852) and Celakovsky (1799-1852) both earned a considerable reputation as poets,—the first by a series of sonnets called Slavy Dcera (The Daughter of Glory), under which title he celebrates the praises of all Slavonic lands and at the same time his love for the daughter of a German pastor ; the second by his "Echo of Russian Songs" (Ohlas Pisni Buskych) and the "Rose with a Hundred Leaves " (Buze Stolista). A good poetical style was now formed for the Bohemians, and a host of minor poets appeared for whose names we cannot find space. Karel Erben (1811-1870) has left some excellent ballads in his Kytice (Garland). " His genius was kindled by the folk tales with which Bohemia abounds. He conferred a benefit upon Slavonic students by his interesting collection of national tales previously alluded to ; moreover, he was a sound scholar and an indefatigable antiquary. Begesta dAplomatica necnon epistolaria Bohemias et Moravian, extending to 1253, and editions of Harant's Journey to the Holy Land and Nestor's Chronicle are monuments of his industry. A great impulse to Bohemian poetry was given by the discovery of Libusin Soud and of the Kralodvorsky Bukopis by Hanka. Vitezslav Halek (1835-1874) has left two volumes of poems, which were reprinted in 1879 under the editor-ship of Ferdinand Schütz. Halek presents a twofold appearance, first as the writer of a series of narrative pieces of a half dramatic character, reminding us of the Idyls of Tennyson, secondly as a lyrical poet. In his "Heirs of the White Mountain" (Dedicove Bile Hory) he has chosen a patriotic subject which must find its way to the heart of every Bohemian. He has been fortunate in having some of his poems wedded to the music of Dvorak. Jan Neruda (b. 1834), still living, has written " Flowers of the Church-yard " (Hrbitovni Kviti), published in 1858, and a volume of poems called " Cosmic Songs " (Pisne Kosmicke). According to some Bohemian critics the greatest of their modern lyric poets is Adolf Heyduk, born in 1836 and still living at Pisek. Much of his poetry has been inspired by the south of Europe. His " Forest Flowers " (Lesni Kviti) were gathered, as he tells us, while wandering amidst the delightful scenery of the Sumava or Böhmerwald. Heyduk, although a Slovak, has avoided the Slovakish dialect, which has been used by Holly, Sladkoviö, and others. His patriotism is very conspicuous in Cymbal and Guitar. One of his most popular works is Deduv Odkaz (The Grandfather's Bequest), the grandfather being the genius of the country, who instructs the poet. Some very elegant verses, showing a true feeling for nature with feminine delicacy of expression, have been published by Mademoiselle Henri-etta Pech, who writes under the name of "Eliska Krasnohorska." Her first volume was published in 1870 and entitled Z Maje Ziti (Life in May). Her " Poetical Pictures" (Basnicke Kresby) show great power of word-painting. M. Josef Vaclav Sladek (b. 1845), who has published several volumes of original poems, besides trans-lations from English and other languages, shows considerable lyrical power. The most voluminous, however, of the modern writers is Emil Bohus Frida (b. 1853), who uses the pseudonym of "Jaroslav Vrchlicky." He has been astonishingly active; among his prin-cipal productions may be mentioned the following,—My thy (Myths), which he divides into two cycles ; the miscellaneous collection "From the Depths" (Z Hlubin), which is inscribed to Vitezslav Halek, and seems to be inspired by the same scenery as kindled Halek's fancy ; Buch a Svet (The Spirit and the World), fine lyrics, the motive of which has been supplied by Greek mythology. He has subsequently published Dojmy a Bozmary (Impressions and Fancies), and, besides other translations from various languages, a version of the Divina Commedia in the terza rima of the original. He is also the author of some plays which are much esteemed, especially Drahomira. Dr J. Durdik, J. J. Kolar, and L. Strupez-nicky have attained celebrity in this branch of literature. Some good poetry has been written by Svatopluk Öech. Some critics rank him as the greatest poet of the modern school since the death of Halek. In addition to poetry he has also published three volumes of tales (Povidky, Arabcsky, a Humorcsky), collected by him from his various contributions to magazines. Many of these show considerable humour. Another poet by no means to be passed over in this brief sketch (which only attempts to grasp the salient facts with regard to these authors) is M. Zeyer, who has published a series of epic pieces, called Vysehrad, after the well-known Chekh stronghold or acropolis at Prague. The subjects are all taken from the Old Bohemian legends on Libusa, Vlasta, Lumir, &c. Zeyer has adopted the Slavonic metre as we find it in the Servian songs collected by Vuk Stephan ovich. Besides these poems he has written a good historical novel entitled Andrew Chernisheff, which deals with the reign of Catherine II. of Russia. In 1880 appeared two other tales by the same writer, Romance concerning the Faithful Friendship of Amisa and Anvil, and a strange book of Oriental tales styled Baje Sosany (Stories of Susannah). As with us, the social romance or novel of domestic life has latterly been much cultivated among the Chekhs. The legends and tales current among the peasantry have also been carefully collected, first by Bozena Nemcova (1820-1862), whose Slovenske Povesti had a very great success. She was followed by Madame Muzak, authoress of some of the most popular of the modern Bohemian novels. Her " Country Romance " (Vesniclcy Roman) has been translated into French. Excellent pictures of rural life have also been given by Vaclaff Smilovsky (a nom de plume of Smilauer), who has written a great many novels, as the "Old Organist" (Stary Varliarnih), Martin Oliva, &c, much in the style of Auerbach and Zschokke. Other writers of historical novels are M. Bohumil Cidlinsky and Vaclaff Vleek. Madame Zofie Podlipska, sister of Madame Muzak, is known as a popular writer of social romances. For an account of the historical labours of Francis Palacky, see PALACKY. Among the pupils of the great historian the first place must be given to Vaclaff Vladivoj Tomek (b. 1818), now professor of Austrian history in the university of Prague, whose chief production is a history of that city, which he has carried to a fifth volume. In 1849 he published the first volume of a history of the university of Prague, which seems never to have been completed, and in 1880 a biography of the Bohemian hero Zizka. Ho appears throughout as a most accurate and painstaking writer, Vocel (1803-1871) is the author of a valuable work, '' The Early Days of Bohemia" (Pravik Zemi Ceske), which we have quoted already when treating of Slavonic ethnology. Alois Sembera (1807-1882), whose literary activity ex-tended over a long period, wrote voluminously on Bohemian history and literature. He was professor of the Bohemian language at the university of Vienna. In a work on the western Slavs (0 Zdpadnich Slovancch) he maintained that the Chekhs, Moravians, Slovaks, and Polabes were settled much earlier in the countries which they at present occupy than many historians have been willing to admit. As a critic, Professor Sembera is an iconoclast and has attacked many of the (supposed) early monuments of the Chekh language. Dr Antonine Gindely, born at Prague in 1829, has proved himself to be a most conscientious and enthusiastic worker in the field of historical research. In order to collect materials for his publica-tions he travelled in various parts of Bohemia, Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, and Spain. The results of this diligence have appeared in a collection of valuable historical works, such as the History of the Bohemian Brethren, Rudolph IB and his Times, and later a History of the Bohemian Bevolt of 1618. The brothers Joseph and Hermenegild Jirecek have won a reputation in Bohemian literature by many useful works. They have conjointly published a book in defence of the Kralodvorsky Bukopis which is well worthy the attention of those who wish to make themselves acquainted with the literature of this vexed question. Joseph is now occupied in editing in a cheap form some of the most interesting monuments of early Bohemian literature. In 1880 Hermenegild published a valuable Collection of Slavonic Laws, containing an almost complete series of the early codes of the Slavs in the original languages. Joseph Jirecek is also author of a useful chrestomathy of Bohemian literature with biographical and critical notices. Joseph Constan-tine Jirecek (son of Joseph, born in 1854), formerly a privatdocent of the university of Prague, has devoted himself to Bulgarian his-tory and bibliography. In 1872 he published a Bibliography of Modern Bulgarian Literature, and has written a History of Bulgaria, of which a German translation has appeared. Joseph Emler and Karl Tioftrunk have been co-operators with Dr Gindely in his "Old Monuments of Bohemian History " (Stare Pamiti Bejin Ceskych). The former has also edited the second volume of the Begesta Bohemica and since 1870 has been editor of the " Journal" (dasopis) of the Bohemian museum. Karl Tieftrunk has written several useful works, among them the History of Bohemian Literature from the earliest period to the present time, and the interesting mono-graph on the opposition of the Bohemian states to Ferdinand I. in 1547. The History of Bohemian Literature is very carefully written and gives in a short compass much valuable information. An elaborate work is now appearing in parts by F. Backovsky, entitled Zevrubne Dejiny IJeskeho Pisemnictvl Doby Novi (A Com-plete History of Modern Bohemian Literature) from the year 1774 to the present time. There is also a work by Jerabek, Early Days of Bomaniic Poetry. Many valuable contributions to Bohemian history have proceeded from the pen of Dr Joseph Kalousek (b. 1838). Vincent Brandl and Beda Dudik have devoted particular attention to Moravian history and antiquities. The former, among other works, has edited the letters of Karl ze zterotin, previously mentioned. Beda Dudik, a Benedictine monk and historiographer of Moravia, has published some valuable works on the history of that portion of the Bohemian kingdom and has also written a History of Moravia. Like the great work of Palacky, it was first written in German, but has since appeared in the Bohemian lan-guage. Extracts from the interesting diary of ^erotin have been edited by him in the Mährische Geschichtsquellen. Through his efforts twenty-one Bohemian manuscripts which had been carried away to Sweden at the time of the Thirty Years' War have been restored, and are now preserved in the state archives of Brünn. Among these is the Legend of St Catherine, many words in which are said to explain difficult passages in the Kralodvorsky Bukopis and to furnish testimony to its authenticity. Jakub Maly (d. 1885) was the author of many important articles in the Slovnik Naucny, the Chekh Conversations-Lexicon, and of a popular his-tory of the Bohemian people. He also wrote a grammar of Chekh for Englishmen, besides assisting in the translation of Shakespeare, which has been produced by the joint labours of many Bohemian scholars. In 1868 was published under the editorship of Erben the second volume of the Vybor z Literatury Öeske, a very important work, containing specimens of the old Bohemian authors. The first volume had been edited by Schafarik, for an account of whose literary activity see ScHAPAlUK. Valuable works on philology have been written by Martin Hattala, by birth a Slovak, who is now professor of Slavonic philology at the university of Prague. One of his most important productions is in Latin, De Contiguarum Consonantium Imitatione in Unguis Slavicis. He is a defender of the genuineness of the two celebrated manuscripts, the Zelenohorsky (i.e., "that which contains the judgment of Libusa") and the Kralod-vorsky. Among sound philologists are reckoned Drs Gebauer and Geitler. The former has contributed some valuable papers to the Archiv für slawische Philologie, edited by Professor Jagic of St Petersburg. The latter, born in 1847, is at present professor of Slavonic philology at the university of Agram. He commenced his studies at Prague under Alfred Ludwig, the translator of the Vedas, and Hattala, and at Vienna under Miklosich. Having begun with a dissertation in the Casopis on the present condition of comparative philology, he published in the same year a work on the Old Bulgarian language. In 1873 he made a tour in Russian and Prussian Lithuania, that, like Schleicher, he might study that interesting language from the mouths of the people. He afterwards published the results of his travels in his Lithauische Studien. He has since written a treatise on the Albanian alphabet (Die Albanesischen und Slavischen Schriften, Vienna, 1883). In this an attempt is made to connect the Glagolitic and Albanian alphabets. A valuable work was written by Antonin Matzenauer (b. 1823), entitled "Foreign Words in Slavonic Languages" (Cizi Slova ve Slovanskych Hecech). Excellent works on classical philology have been published by A. Kvicala and Vanicek. Natural science was successfully cultivated by Jan Svatopluk Presl (1791-1849), professor in the university of Prague, and Jan Ev. Purkyne (1787-1869), pro-fessor of physiology in the same university. As regards moral philosophy, the first part of Dr J. Durdik's History of Recent Philosophy has just appeared, which extends from Kant to Herbart. Throughout the whole period of the resuscitation of Bohemian literature the society called the Matice Ceska has worked energe-tically, printing its excellent journal or Öasopis four times a year, and also issuing some of the old Bohemian classic and meritorious works by modern authors. It was a great triumph for the Chekhs when a part of the instruction of the university was allowed to be carried on in the Bohemian language. A new magazine (Slovansky Sbornik) made its appearance at the beginning of 1884. The Listy I'hilologicke (Philological Leaves) is still published. Recently a new literary journal (The Athenseum) has been started, which seems to be more or less modelled upon its English namesake.

Slovak.—This language or dialect is spoken in the north-western corner of the kingdom of Hungary. It is generally considered to exhibit an earlier form of Chekh, and this is proved by many of its grammatical peculiarities being found in the older Chekh litera-ture. One characteristic of the language is the use of diphthongs in cases where the other Slavonic tongues use simple vowels. For a long time the Slovaks employed Chekh in all their published writings. About the close of the 18th century a separatist move-ment began. The first Slovak grammar was published by Bernolak at Presburg in 1790. It was followed by those of Dianiska and Viktorin. There is a Slovak dictionary by Loos. The attempt to form a new literary language was to be deplored on many grounds, for both the Magyar and the German have to be resisted. For a short time a literary society existed among the Slovaks, which published useful books and a journal. The Magyars, however, sup-pressed it, because it was " contra integritatem patriae," as we were told by one of their ecclesiastics. The Bohemian naturally resents the attempts at separation by the Slovak, and in 1846 the Chekh Literary Society issued a work entitled " Opinions in Favour of One Written Language for the Chekhs, Moravians, and Slovaks " (Hl.asove o potfebe Jednoty Spisovneho Juzyka pro Cechy, Moravany, a Slovaky). The Slovaks have produced a few poets of repute, such as Holly, Sladkovic, and Chalupka, but their literature is meagre.

Lusatian Wendish.—This language is divided into two dialects, Upper and Lower, although even these are capable of subdivision. The word "Wend," as previously explained, is a purely German name and is never used by the Slavs themselves. The Lusatians are also sometimes called Serbs and Sorbs. They are the remnants of the powerful tribes which once occupied nearly the whole of north Germany. The Lusatians in the earlier period of their history were under the dominion of the Poles and afterwards of the Chekhs. In the early part of the 17th century the bulk of them had been annexed to the electorate of Saxony, with the exception of the small part about Kottbus, which had belonged to Brandenburg since 1445. In 1815, however, when the states of Europe were rearranged, in most instances with very small regard to the nationalities under their sway, many more of the Lusatians were handed over to Prussia; and, according to the statistics of Boudilovich, at the present time (1886) all the Lower Lusatians, amounting to 40,000, belong to Prussia, as well as 44,000 of the Upper Lusatians. Besides the two dialects specified there are other minor ones, to judge from an article in the Bohemian Literary Journal ; but they are too minute to be specified here. The Upper Lusatian dialect shows most affinity with Chekh, especially in substituting h for g ; the Lower more resembles Polish, and has the strong or barred i, as in fas, "hair." The Upper dialect has been the most cultivated ; some good gram-mars have been published by Seller, Jordan, and Pfuhl, and there is a copious dictionary edited by Pfuhl in conjunction with others. The language is full of Germanisms and German words and cannot hold out long against the vigorous attempts at denationalization made by its Teutonic neighbours. There is a small Lower Lusatian dictionary by Zwahr, a posthumous work of very little merit. The Macica Serbska, the literary society of the Sorbs, founded on the model of the Bohemian Society in 1847, publishes its journal twice a year, which contains interesting articles on folk-tales and folk-lore generally, with popular songs taken down from the mouths of the people.

Sorbish The first printed book in the Upper Sorbish language was the little catechism of Luther, published in 1597 by the pastor Worjech.This was not, however, the first time that any Lusatian or Sorbish words had been printed, for we find the names of plants in that language given in Eranke's Sortus Lusatim, published in 1594. In 1706 Michael Brancel or Frencel published a translation of the New Testament into Sorbish ; a little before, in 1689, a grammar had appeared by Zacharias Bierling, entitled Didascalia sou Ortlio-grapMa Vandalica. In 1693-96 Abraham Frencel, son of Michael, published a dictionary. In 1806 Mohn translated some extracts from Klopstock's Messiah. From 1837 anew impulse was given to Sorbish literature: newspapers were printed in the language and useful books translated into it. One poet has appeared among them, Andrew Seiler, a clergyman, who died in 1872. Lower Sorbish has always been much less developed than Upper. The first book printed in it was a collection of hymns and a catechism, by Albin Moller, in 1574. Chojnan, a pastor in Lubin, wrote the first grammar between 1642 and 1664 ; in the latter half of the same century Körner compiled a dictionary. At the commencement of the 18th century Bohumil (Gottlieb) Fabricius published his trans-lation of the New Testament (first edition in 1709) ; at the end of the same century a version of the Old Testament by Frico appeared. A good collection of Sorbish songs has been edited by Haupt and Schmaler. According to an interesting article by Hornik in the second volume of the Slavianski Sbornik, a number of these Wends emigrated to America and settled in Bastrop county, Texas, where they have divine service performed in their own language, and publish some newspapers.

Polabish.—Of the Slavonic languages spoken in the north of Germany the Lusatian Wendish and Kashoubish are alone living. Of those which are extinct Polabish is the only one of which any memorials have come down to us, and these are but scanty. The language affords a parallel to Cornish, not only in the few fragments which remain, but also in the date of its decline and extinction. It is considered by Schleicher, who has w-ritten an excellent grammar by piecing the scanty materials together, just as geologists restore an ichthyosaurus, to have more affinity to Polish than to Chekh, owing to the possession of nasals. This interesting language ex-pired in the first quarter of the 18th century in the eastern corner of the former kingdom of Hanover, principally in the circuit of Lüchow, which even at the present time is called Wendland. Between 1691 and 1786 certain vocabularies and dialogues in this language (including also a song) were taken down, and from them Schleicher has taken the materials for his grammar and the valu-able little dictionary appended to it. Dr Pfuhl printed these memorials in their entirety in 1863-64. The spelling is altogether phonetic, and, owing to the ignorance of the Slavonic peasant and his German interrogators, the former of German and the latter of Slavonic, there are some ludicrous blunders. The two most im-portant of these documents are a German-Wendish dictionary, compiled at the end of the 17th century by Christopher Henning, by birth a Lusatian, and pastor of Wustrow near Lüchow. Divine service is said to have been held in that town in Wendish as late as 1751. Secondly, we have the Slavonic words and dialogues col-lected by a farmer named Johann Parum-Schultz. His manuscript is still in the possession of his descendants. There is a valuable monograph on the dialect of the Lüneburg Slavs by Biskupski. In the 15th century Slavonic had ceased to be spoken in the island of Rügen, and in the same century it could only be heard from peasants in the market-place of Leipsic, a town (as already stated) with a Slavonic name. What the Slavs, however, have lost in the West they have partly gained in the East, and few languages have a more magnificent prospect than Russian,—the dignity and strength of which fit it to be the tongue of an imperial people. (W. B. M.)


Footnotes

This spelling has been adopted as best calculated to show the pronunciation of the name Czech, in the same way as the French write the word Teheque.
Origines Armcse, Vienna, 1883. , i s Sprachvergleichang wild UrgescMchte, 1885.

Die Arier, ein Beitrag zur historischen Anthropologic, Jena, 1878.
See, however, the arguments on the other side in the article
SCYTHIA. 3 Op. cit, p. 126. 4 Op. cit, p. 125.
Bell. Goth., iii. 14—"ra Se trucara Kai ras KÓpas, oure XevKol es äyav ij %avdoi tlffiv, oöre TTIJ es rb peXav aurols TravrekGis rérpairrai, á\X birépvdpoí eícriv airavres."
Pravek Zeme Ceské (The Early Days of Bohemia), Prague, 1868. It is cited by Schrader, p. 90.

The words not specified as Old Slavonic are Bohemian.
Einleitung in die slavische Litteratur-Geschichte, Gratz, 1874 ; see Schrader, p. 92.
ü A word which some recent scholars are inclined to think of Armenian origin.

Die Herkunft der Deutschen: Neue Forschungen über Urgeschichte, Abstammung, und Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse unseres Volkes, Carls-ruhe, 1885.
See an interesting article in the American Kation (3d December
1885), where it is shown that the first person to advocate this theory,
which seems to be gaining ground among scholars, was Dr Latham, in

his edition of the Germania of Tacitus. This view was supported by
Theodor Benfey in 1868.

3 See Drinoff s "Settlement of the Balkan Peninsula by the Slavs" (Zaselenie Balkanskago Poluostrova Slavyanami), Moscow, 1873.
4 Arch.f. slaw. Phil., vii. 622.
5 Jnstitutiones Linguse Slavicne Veteris Dialecti, Vienna, 1822.
6 Geschichte der slawischen Sprache und Literatur nach alien Mundarten, Pesth, 1826, p. 32.


Zur Geschichte des Indo - Germanischen Vocaiismus, part ii. p. 178. Vienna. 1871-75.

3 See Drinoff s "Settlement of the Balkan Peninsula by the Slavs" (Zaselenie Balkanskago Poluostrova Slavyanami), Moscow, 1873.
4 Arch.f. slaw. Phil., vii. 622.
5 Jnstitutiones Linguse Slavicne Veteris Dialecti, Vienna, 1822.
6 Geschichte der slawischen Sprache und Literatur nach alien Mundarten, Pesth, 1826, p. 32.

This is the name given by the Indian grammarians to the vowel developed between the liquids I and r and the consonant with which they come into eon-tact, as vlas, volos. It has been called in Russian polnoglasie, and in Greek av&TTTV^is. It means in Sanskrit " voice-breaking," It is a marked feature in the Slavonic languages.
This is the way adopted by Schmidt to express the unaccented Slavonic o,
which is pronounced a; the form is taken from Swedish.
» Proc. Phil. Soc., 1877, p. 49.
* Zur ältesten Gesch. d. indog. Völker, Berlin, 1S45, p. 324.
See Hovelacque, Science of Language, p. 2S0, London, 1877.

The quaint little English-Russian vocabulary compiled by Richard James in Russia at the beginning of the Kith century, and still preserved in manu-

5 Sometimes called "the church language."

An excellent map of this district is given in the Slavianski Sbornik (Slavonic Miscellany), voL it
Ueber den Ursprung und die Heimath des Glogolitismus, Prague, 185S.
See his Starobulharska Fonologie se stalym zfetelem k Jazyku Litevskemu (Old Bulgarian Phonology in Relation to Lithuanian), Prague, 1S73.
Altslovenische Formenlehre in Paradigmen, Vienna, 1S74.


5 But, as previously stated, nasals have been found in Bulgarian dialects.

6 This is rather strongly stated. They are said to have been of Greek origin, but had probably become thoroughly Bulgarized ; yet the argument used by Schleicher remains quite as strong, for they would use the form of Slavonic with which they were familiar.


Die Formetllere der Kirchen-Slawischen Spraclie, Bonn, 1S52.

But, as previously stated, nasals have been found in Bulgarian dialects.
6 This is rather strongly stated. They are said to have been of Greek origin, but had probably become thoroughly Bulgarized ; yet the argument used by Schleicher remains quite as strong, for they would use the form of Slavonic with which they were familiar.

The origin of the Glagolitic alphabet still remains a puzzle. It is now considered older than the Cyrillic. According to some, it is a modification of Greek cursive writing. Others connect it with Armenian and Albanian alphabets. But none of these views have found general acceptance. The alphabet is now only used by the Dalmatian Slavs in their liturgical books.
An account of the Cyrillic alphabet is given in vol. i. p. 613 sq.
The accent in Russian and Servo-Croatian is especially difficult. Professor
Grote of St Petersburg has already written with great learning on the subject,

and Professor Leskien of Leipsic is now publishing a work, Untersuchungen
über Quantität und Betonung in den slawischen Sprachen, of which the first part ou quantity in Servian has already appeared.

Slovenska Slovnica, by J. Suman, Laibach, 1882.
s Others have since appeared by Murko and Janez'ié'. The Slovenish Literary Society is now publishing a dictionary, of which the German-Slovenish part lias appeared in two stout volumes,—a very valuable work.
6 Beiträge zur slavlscheti Diabetologie; über die Oppelnsche Mundart ill Oberschlesien, Leipsic, 1S73.

1 Die Kassubisch-Slovinische Spraclie. 2 Trans. Phil. Sue., 1883.
Sto Prostond'rodnicli PohadeJc, &c (A Hundred Popular Tales), Prague, 1865.

- Laut- und Form.en.Lere der Polabischen Sprache, St Petersburg, 1871.
To avoid confusion it must be remembered that the word " Pola-bish " is used somewhat carelessly by ethnologists to denote (1) the Slavonic tribes in north Germany generally, (2) the particular Slav-onic tribe on the Elbe (Slav. Laba).

4 Slovenska Slovnica, by J. Suman, Laibach, 1882.
5 Others have since appeared by Murko and Janez'ié'. The Slovenish Literary Society is now publishing a dictionary, of which the German-Slovenish part lias appeared in two stout volumes,—a very valuable work.
6 Beiträge zur slavlscheti Diabetologie; über die Oppelnsche Mundart ill Oberschlesien, Leipsic, 1873.

4 Second ed., Prague, 1880.