II. ILLYRICO-SERVIAN BRANCH.
1. The ILLYRICO-SERVIANS proper, frequently called Rascians or Raitzi, comprising five subdivisions.
a) The SERVIANS in Servia, lying between the rivers Timock, Drina, Save, the Danube, and the Balkan mountains; and, as a Turkish province, called Serf Vilayeti. Their number is at least a million. In earlier times, and especially at the end of the seventeenth century, many of them emigrated to Hungary; where even now between three and four hundred thousand of them are settled; exclusive of their near relatives, the Slavonians, in the kingdom of Slavonia so called.
[pg.10]b) BOSNIANS, between Dalmatia, the Balkan mountains, and the rivers Drina, Verbas, and Save; from four to five hundred thousand in number. Most of them belong, like their brethren the Servians, to the Greek Church; about 100,000 are Roman Catholics. There are of late many Muhammedans among them, who still retain their language and most of their Slavic customs.
c) MONTENEGRINS (Czernogortzi). The national name of the Montenegrins, here given as Czernogortzi, is better written Tzernogortzi; see p. 119, n. 17. Their number is given by Sir J.G. Wilkinson at 80,000, or more. These are the Slavic inhabitants of the Turkish province Albania, among the mountains of Montenegro. They have spread themselves from Bosnia to the sea-coast as far as Antivari. This remarkable people the Turks never have been able to subjugate completely. They enjoy a sort of military-republican freedom: their head chief being a Bishop with very limited power. They amount to nearly 60,000 souls, belonging to the Eastern Church.
d) SLAVONIANS. These are the inhabitants of the Austrian kingdom of Slavonia and the duchy of Syrmia, between Hungary on the north and Bosnia in the south, about half a million in number. A small majority belongs to the Romish Church; the rest to the Greek Church.
e) DALMATIANS. The country along the Adriatic, between Croatia and Albania, together with the adjacent islands, is called the kingdom of Dalmatia, and belongs likewise to the Austrian empire. It has, together with the Istrian shore north of it, towards 600,000 inhabitants; of whom 500,000 belong to the Slavo-Servian race. They are all Roman Catholics; with the exception of about 80,000 who belong to the Greek Church.
2. The Austrian kingdom of CROATIA in our time, between Styria, Hungary, Slavonia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, and the Adriatic, is not the ancient Croatia of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Together with the Croatian colonists in Hungary, and the inhabitants of the Turkish Sandshak Banialouka, it contains about 800,000 souls. Of these less than 200,000 belong to the Greek Church; the great majority are Catholics. We shall see further [pg.11]on that the Croats are divided in respect to their language into two parts: one of them having affinity with the Servians and Dalmatians, the other with the Slovenzi of Carniola and Carinthia.
3. SLOVENZI or VINDES. These names comprise the Slavic inhabitants of the duchies of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, (the two latter forming the kingdom of Illyria,) and also those of the banks of the rivers Raab and Muhr in Hungary. Their number is over one million. With the exception of a few Protestants, they are all Catholics. They call themselves Slovenzi; but are known by foreign writers under the name of Vindes.
III. BULGARIAN BRANCH
The BULGARIANS occupy the Turkish province Sofia Vilayeti, between the Danube, the Euxine, the Balkan, and Servia; they are about three and a half millions in number, the remnant of a great nation. About 80,000 more are scattered through Bessarabia and the other provinces of South Russia. Schaffarik enumerates seven thousand as Austrian subjects, living in that great receptacle of nations, Hungary. Most of them belong to the Greek Church.
B. WESTERN STEM.
I. CZEKHO-SLOVAKIAN BRANCH.
1. BOHEMIANS and MORAVIANS (Czekhes). These are the Slavic inhabitants of the kingdom of Bohemia and the Margravate of Moravia, both belonging to the Austrian empire. They are [pg.12]about four and a half millions in number; of whom 100,000 are Protestants, the rest Catholics. Schaffarik includes also 44,000 of the Slavic inhabitants of Prussian Silesia in this race.
2. SLOVAKS. Almost all the northern part of Hungary is inhabited by Slovaks: besides this they are scattered through the whole of that country, and speak different dialects. They are reckoned at between two and three millions.
II. POLISH OR LEKHIAN BRANCH.
This comprises the inhabitants of the present kingdom of Poland; of a part of what are called since 1772 the Russian-Polish provinces; of the duchy of Posen; and of Galicia and Ludomeria. The bulk of the people in this latter country are Russniaks or Ruthenians. In the Russian provinces, which were formerly called White Russia, Black Russia, and Red Russia, and were conquered by the Poles in former times, the peasantry are Russians and Russniaks; in Lithuania, they are Lithuanians or Lettones, a race of a different family of nations. In all these countries, only the nobility and inhabitants of the cities are really Poles, or Slavi of the Leckian race. To the same race belongs also the Polish population of Silesia, and an isolated tribe in the Prussian province of Pomerania, called the Kassubes. The Slavi of the Leckian race hardly amount to the number of ten millions; all Catholics, with the exception of about half a million of Protestants.
II. SORABIAN-VENDISH BRANCH.
There are remnants of the old Sorabæ; and several other Slavic races in Lusatia and some parts of Brandenburg. Their[pg.13] number is less than 2,000,000; divided between Protestants and Catholics.
There is no doubt, that besides the races here enumerated, there are Slavic tribes scattered through Germany, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Walachia, nay, through the whole of Turkey. Thus, for instance, the Tchaconic dialect, spoken in the eastern part of ancient Sparta and unintelligible to the other Greeks, has been proved by one of the most distinguished philologists to have been of Slavic origin.[[17]] But to ascertain their number, at any rate very small, would be a matter of impossibility, and in every respect of little consequence.
We thus distinguish among the nations of the Slavic race two great families, the connection of whose members among each other is entirely independent of their present geographical situation; and this division rests upon a marked distinction in the Slavic language. To specify the marks, by which the philologist recognizes to which of these families each nation belongs, seems to be here out of place. The reader, without knowing the language itself, would hardly be able to comprehend them sufficiently; and he who understands it, will find better sources of information in philological works. All that concerns us here, is the general character, the genius of the language. For this purpose we will try to give in a few words a general outline of its grammar; exhibiting principally those features, which, as being common to all or most of its different dialects, seem to be the best adapted to express its general character.
The analogy between the Slavic and the Sanscrit languages consists indeed only in the similar sound of a great many words;[pg.14] the construction of the former is purely European, and it has in this respect a nearer relation to the Greek, Latin, and German; with which idioms it has evidently been derived from the same source.[[18]] The Slavic has three genders. Like the Latin, it knows no article; at least not the genuine Slavic; for those dialects which have lost their national character, like the Bulgarian, or those which have been corrupted by the influence of the German,[[19]] employ the demonstrative pronoun as an article; and the Bulgarian has borrowed the Albanian mode of suffixing one to[pg.15] the noun. For this very reason the declensions are more perfect in Slavic than in German and Greek; for the different cases, as in Latin, are distinguished by suffixed syllables or endings. The Singular has seven cases; the Plural only six, the vocative having always the form of the nominative. As for the Dual, a form which the Slavic languages do not all possess, the nominative and accusative, the genitive and local; the dative and instrumental cases, are always alike.
For the declensions of adjectives the Slavic has two principal forms, according as they are definite or indefinite. The Old or Church Slavonic knows only two degrees of comparison, the positive and comparative; it has no superlative, or rather it has the same form for the comparative and superlative. This is regularly made by the suffix ii. mostly united with one of those numerous sibilants, for which the English language has hardly letters or signs, sh, tsh, sht, shtsh, etc. In the more modern dialects this deficiency has been supplied; in most of them a superlative form is made by prefixing the particle naï; e.g. in Servian, mudar, wise, mudrii wiser, naïmudrii, the wisest. The Russian, besides this and several other superlative forms, has one that is more perfect, as proceeding from the adjective itself: doroghii dear, doroshe dearer, doroshaïshii, dearest. Equally rich is this language in augmentative and diminutive forms not only of the substantive but also of the adjective, a perfection in which even the Italian can hardly be compared to it; of which however all the Slavic dialects possess more or less. Almost all the Russian substantives have two augmentatives and three diminutives; some have even more. We abstain with some difficulty from adducing examples; but we are afraid of going beyond our limits. It deserves to be mentioned as a peculiarity, that the Slavi consider only the first four ordinal numbers as adjectives, and all the following ones as substantives. For this reason, the governed word must stand in the genitive instead of[pg.16] the accusative: osm sot (nom. sto), eight hundred. In all negative phrases they employ likewise the genitive instead of the accusative. A double negation occurs in Slavic frequently, without indicating an affirmation; for even if another negation has already taken place, they are accustomed to prefix to the verb the negative particle ne or nje.
In respect to the verb, it is difficult to give a general idea of its character; for it is in the forms of this part of speech, that there reigns the greatest variety in the numerous dialects of the Slavic language. The same termination which in Old Slavonic and in Russian indicates invariably the first person of the present, u or gu, is in Servian that of the third person Plural of the present and imperfect; and the general termination of the Servian and the Polish for the first person of the present, am, em or im, is in Old Slavonic and Russian used for the Plural, em and im. There is however one fundamental form through all the Slavic dialects for the second person of the present, a termination in ash, esh or ish; and this is consequently the person, by which it is to be recognized to what conjugation a verb belongs.
The division of the verbs adopted in all other European languages into Active and Passive, seems to be useless in Slavic; for their being active or passive has no influence upon their flexion; and the forms of the Latin Passive and Deponent must in Slavic be expressed by a circumlocution. A division of more importance and springing from the peculiarity of the language itself, is that into verbs Perfect and Imperfect. Neither the Greek, nor the Latin, nor the German, nor any of the languages derived from them, admits of a similar distinction. It seems therefore difficult for persons not perfectly acquainted with any Slavic dialect, to form to themselves a clear idea of it. It is however one of their most striking features, which adds very considerably to their general richness and power. The relation in[pg.17] which the perfect and imperfect verbs stand to each other, is about the same as that of the perfect and imperfect tenses in the conjugation of the Latin verb. Perfect verbs express that an action takes place a single time, and therefore is entirely completed and past; from their very nature it results, that they have no imperfect tense, and their conjugation must be in general incomplete. Imperfect verbs express that the same action continues. Both have in most cases the same radical syllable, and may be formed with a certain degree of freedom; thus in Servian, viknuti, to cry once, vikati, to be crying; umriyeti, to die, umirati, to be dying. There are however others, which stand in the same relation to each other without issuing from the same verbal stock; e.g. in Servian, tchuti and sluskati, to hear; retji and govoriti, to speak, etc.
The Polish language, which is remarkably rich in every kind of flexion, has a still simpler and more regular way of forming also a frequentative out of almost every verb; e.g. czytam, I read, czytivam, I read often; biore, take, bieram, I take often, etc. In Bohemian, which in respect to grammar is by far the most cultivated of the Slavic languages, there is a refinement in the tenses, of which even the most perfect knowledge of the classical languages gives hardly any idea, and the right use of which is seldom, if ever, acquired by foreigners. Duration, decision, repetition, all the different shades of time and purpose, which other languages have to circumscribe in long phrases, the Bohemian expresses by a slight alteration of one or two syllables.
Not less rich in these variations of the verb is the Russian. Besides a vast treasure of original, genuine indefinite verbs, as they call all those, which have the general character of the verb of other languages, without any allusion to the duration or continuance of the action, they have verbs simple, frequentative and perfect. A single example will illustrate the fact:[pg.18]
Verb indefinite, dvigat',[[20]] to move.
Verb simple, dvinut', to move a single time.
Verb frequentative, dvigivat', to move repeatedly.[[21]]
Verb perfect, sdvigat', to move completely.
The reader may judge for himself, of what precision, compactness, and energy, a language is capable, which has so little need of circumlocution. It must be mentioned, however, that not all these verbs are complete; as indeed it is obvious from their very nature, that in many of them, various tenses must be wanting. It is probably for this reason, that some of the most distinguished grammarians do not acknowledge this division of the verb itself; but put all its variations under the conjugation of a single verb, as different tenses,—a proceeding which contributes much to make the Slavic grammar a horror to all foreigners.
If this short and meagre sketch is hardly sufficient to give the reader an idea of the richness, precision, and general perfectibility of the Slavic languages, it will be still more difficult to reconcile his mind to their sound; against which the most decided prejudices exist among all foreigners. The old Slavic alphabet has forty-six letters; and from this variety it can justly be concluded, that the language had originally at least nearly as many different sounds, although a great part of them are no longer to be found in the modern Slavic languages. It is true, that all the dialects are comparatively poor in vowels, and, like[pg.19] the oriental languages; utterly deficient in diphthongs.[[22]] They have neither the oe nor ue, which the Germans consider as the best sounds of their idiom: nor the Greek,[Greek: ei], [Greek: ui], [Greek: au], [Greek: eu], and the like; still less the variety of pronunciation of one and the same vowel, peculiar to the English. The Poles, Russians, and Bohemians, possess however a twofold i,[[23]] a finer and a coarser one; the latter of which is not to be found in any other European language, and is unpleasant to the ear of foreigners. The Poles, besides this, have nasal vowels, as other languages have nasal consonants.[[24]]
It is a striking peculiarity, that Slavic words very seldom begin with a pure a,[[25]] hardly ever with e.[[26]] There are in the whole Russian language, only two words of Slavic origin, which have an initial e, and about twenty foreign ones in which this letter has been preserved in its purity; in all the rest the e is introduced by y; e.g. Yelisaveta, Elizabeth; yest', Lat. est, it is; Yepiscop, episcopus, bishop; yeress, heresy, etc. The initial a is more frequent, and is especially preserved in most foreign proper names, e.g. Alexander, Anna; or in other foreign words, where they omit the H, as Ad, Hades, Hell, Alleluya, Hallelujah. But the natural tendency of the language is to introduce it likewise by y; thus they say yagnya, in preference to agnya, Lat. agnus, although this last also is to be found in the old church books: yasti, to eat, yakor anchor, yavor, maple, German ahorn.[[27]] The o in the beginning of words is pure in[pg.20] most Slavic dialects, i.e. without a preceding consonant. In Russian it sounds frequently more like an a than an o; e.g. adin, one, instead of odin; atiotz, father, instead of otetz. But the Vendes of Lusatia pronounce it vo; as also the Bohemians in the language of common life; although in higher style they have a pure initial o. The Croats, on the other hand, have no pure initial u; they say vuho ear, instead uho or ucho.
As to consonants, there is a great variety in the Slavic languages. There is however no f to be found in any genuine Slavic word; and even in words adopted from foreign languages, this letter has frequently changed its sound. So the Bohemian has made barwa from the German farbe, color. In respect to the connection of the Slavic with the Latin, it is interesting to compare bob with feba, bodu with fodio, vru with ferveo, peru with ferio, plamen, with flamma, pishozala with fistula, etc.
The greatest variety among the Slavic letters exists in the sibilants. Of these there are seven, perfectly distinct from each other; some of which it would be difficult to denote by English characters[[28]]. They are the favourite sounds of the language. Not only the guttural sounds, g, ch, and k, but also d and t, are changed in many cases into analogous sibilants, according to fixed and very simple rules. On the other hand, the Slavic nations have a way of softening the harshness of the consonants, peculiar in that extent to them alone. The Frenchman has his l mouillé, the Spaniard his elle doblado and ñ. the Portuguese his lh and nh; the Slavic nations possess the same softening sound for almost all their consonants. Such is the usual termination of the Russian verb in at' or it', etc. where other Slavic nations say ati or iti or those of the western branch acz or ecz. In the same[pg.21] manner it occurs after initial consonants; thus mjaso, meat; bjel, white; ljbov, love, etc.
The letters l and r have in all Slavic languages the value of vowels; words like twrdy, wjtr, which judging from their appearance a foreigner would despair of ever being able to pronounce, are always in metre used as words of two syllables. Thus Wlk, Srp, are not harsher than Wolk and Serp. We feel however that these examples cannot serve to refute the existing prejudices against the euphony of the Slavic languages. Instead of ourselves, let one of their most eloquent and warmest advocates defend them against the reproach of roughness and harshness.[[29]] "Euphony and feminine softness of a language are two very different things. It is true that in most of the Slavic dialects, with the exception of the Servian, the consonants are predominant; but if we consider a language in a philosophical point of view, the consonants, as being the signs of ideas, and the vowels, as being mere bearers in the service of the consonants, appear in a quite different light. The more consonants, the richer is a language in ideas. Exempla sunt in promtu. The euphony of single syllables is only partial and relative; but the harmony of a whole language depends on the euphonic sound of periods, words, syllables, and single letters. What language possesses these four elements of harmony in equal measure? Too many vowels sound just as unpleasantly as too many consonants; a suitable number and interchange of both is requisite to produce true harmony. Even harsh syllables belong to the necessary qualities of a language; for nature herself has harsh sounds, which the poet would be unable to paint without harsh sounding tones. The roughness of the Slavic idioms, of which foreigners have complained so frequently, is therefore exclusively to be ascribed to the awkwardness of inexperienced or tasteless writers;[pg.22]
or they are ridiculous mistakes of the reader, who, unacquainted with the language, receives the sounds with his eyes instead of his ears."—"The pure and distinct vocalization, which does not leave it to the arbitrary choice of the speaker to pronounce certain vowels or to pass them over, as is the case in German. French, and English, gives at the same time to the Slavic languages the advantage of a regular quantity of their syllables, as in Greek; which makes them better adapted than any other for imitating the old classic metres. We must confess, however, that this matter has been hitherto neglected in most of them, or has been treated with little intelligence. We mean to say: Each Slavic syllable is by its very nature either short or long; since each Slavic vowel has a twofold duration, both short and long. This natural shortening and lengthening of a syllable is, as with the Greeks, entirely independent of the grammatical stress or falling of the voice upon them, or in other words, of the prosodic tone; the quantity being founded on the nature of the pronunciation, on the longer or shorter duration of the vowel itself, and not on the grammatical accent. This latter may lie just as well on syllables prosodically short, as on those which are long."
From these introductory remarks, we turn again to the historical part of our essay, referring the reader back to our division of the whole Slavic race into Eastern and Western Stems. We have, first of all, that most remarkable Old or Church Slavonic, the language of their Bible, now no longer a living tongue, but still the inexhaustible source of the sublimest and holiest expressions for its younger sisters. Then follow the four languages, perfectly distinct from each other, spoken by the Eastern Slavic nations, viz. the Russian, Illyrico-Servian, Vindish, and Bulgarian. Three of them possess a literature of their own; and one of them, the Illyrico-Servian, even a double literature; for political circumstances and the influence of the early division[pg.23] of the oriental and occidental churches, having unfortunately split the nation into two parts, caused them also to adopt two different methods of writing one and the same language, as we shall show in the sequel. And lastly, among the Slavic nations of the Western stem, we find either three or four different languages, according as we regard the Czekhish and Slovakian idioms as essentially the same or distinct, viz. the Bohemian, [Slovakian,] Polish, and Sorabic in Lusatia. Of these, the first and third have each an extensive literature of its own.[[30]][pg.24]