Page:Bohemia under Hapsburg misrule (1915).pdf/118

 old grouping of Slovak jointly with Bohemian is wrong; and that the language should be treated as an independent Slavic idiom, precisely in the same way as Polish, Russian, etc. But, though grammarians may disagree about this or that Slovak or Bohemian root or termination of a verb; though they may fancy they see a difference where probably none exists, the people themselves have no quarrels to pick, no disputes to adjust. On the contrary, they have always been good neighbors and loyal friends. As for real differences of speech, these are so slight that a Slovak will understand a Bohemian as readily as an Englishnan from Yorkshire will his cousin, the Yankee. One is reminded of the closeness of the two languages when one recalls that Slovaks of the Protestant faith read at their church services from the Bohemian Bible. Recently a meeting of representative Bohemians and Slovaks in New York passed a resolution, in which occurs this significant passage: “Nothing now separates us, except that we owe political allegiance to two different states, one to Austria, the other to Hungary. Remove that barrier, and it will be seen that the Bohe-