Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/731

Rh E U K O P E 701 Italy which French possesses in France. The dialects arc usually divided into three main groups : those of Upper Italy, including Genoese, Piedmontese, Venetian, jEmilian, and Lombard; those of Central Italy, including Tuscan, Roman, and Corsican; those of Southern Italy, including Neapolitan, Calahrian, Sicilian, and Sar dinian. From Italian the other peoples of Europe have borrowed many terms for artistic technicalities, but comparatively little which belongs to everyday life. Literary Spanish or Castilian is in much the same position as literary Italian, with this difference, that its literary precedence is more definitely established. A large area is still occupied by i atalonian or Catalan, both in Catalonia proper, in Valencia, and in Majorca; and the speech of the Galicians is much more akin to Portuguese. In Catalonia rich and poor, citizens and peasants, speak the provincial language ; in Valencia and Majorca only the cultivated classes employ Castilian. On the whole, how ever, the Castilian territory is on the increase, and it is making its most rapid acquisitions from the Galician and Basque. 1 Spanish is naturally distinguished from the other Neo-Latiu languages by the greater number of words which it has borrowed from Arabic. Portuguese is really what the name implies, and has to contend against no alien idioms. In comparison with Spanish it has di verged further from the Latin type. It has been equally indebted to Arabic, and has also a considerable French element. Walloon, the language spoken by the Latinized people of the Low Countries, is now a mere patois. Ladin is spoken by about 580,000 persons who occupy several considerable areas in the Alpine region, from the valley of the Rhine in the west to the neighbourhood of Aquileia on the Adriatic in the east. 2 Roumanian is not only the national language of the country of that name, but is used by a considerable population in Servia, Hungary, Transylvania, Buko- vina, Bessarabia, Roumelia, Thessaly, and Albania. In Roumania it is the object of increasing fiterary culture ; and in spite of the foreign influences to which it has been so long exposed, it d^es not present much variety of dialect in the other districts. Of the Teutonic languages the Gothic furnishes the oldest literary monument the translation of the Scriptures by Ulphilas or Wulfila, who flourished in the latter part of the 4th century ; but it is totally extinct, and among the living representatives of the branch the first place is due to what is popularly known as German par excellence, that is, the modern literary or cultured form of High German. This is usually dated from Luther s translation of the Bible, which marks the transition from the &quot;Middle&quot; to the &quot; New &quot; period. It is not only the recognized speech of the various states of the German empire, but either in its cultured shape or in tributary dialects it is spoken by about9,000,000&quot;people in Austria- Hungary, and by nearly 2,000,000 in Switzerland. It has lost ground through the revival of Bohemian and Hungarian, but has gained on all the minor linguistic enclaves. Along the frontier regions of Russia and Poland it is partially retreating, partially advancing : Russia naturally discourages the German element in the Baltic provinces, and Germany as naturally the Polish element in Prussia. In both districts, German is the language of higher education. Whatever repressive measures Russia may adopt, it can plead, not only the example of Germany, but the fact that it is only attempt ing to recover ground that has been lost by the Slavonic tongues. Slavonic names of places occur as far west as Hanover, though the Germans frequently disguise or destroy them. Where it meets the Italian frontier the Teutonic language is retrogressive. Botzen in the end of last century was a border town of the German area ; it is now thoroughly Italianized ; and even Meran, several miles up the valley of the Adige, and 60 miles from the political frontier, is rapidly losing its Teutonic character. That the movement has been in this direction for centuries is clear; but it is doubtful whether the present German enclaves of the Sette Communi and Tredici Communi were always insular, or are to be taken as proof that the Teutonic frontier formerly extended as far south as the neighbourhood of Verona and Vicenza. 3 The territorial relations of the Scandinavian languages arc suf ficiently indicated by their names. They are nowhere aggressive, except where they come, into contact with Finnish and Lapp. All of them, even the Faroese, have a certain amount of literature ; but three only, Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic, are vigorously cultivated. Norway is mainly indebted for its books to Sweden and Denmark, and its language is slowly passing into a patois. Danish has under gone the greatest changes from the old Norse type, and naturally from its position has been most affected by foreign influences. Of the Low German group the Old Saxon, formerly spoken behveen the Rhine and the Elbe, has left several remarkable literary monuments ; and two or three of its dialects, now bracketed together as Anglo-Saxon, furnished the basis of the present English language, 1 M. Tubino, Revue Scientiftque, 1876, p. 204. I/aliano, vol. i. 3 See Petermann s Mittheilungen, 18G6, and Charnock in Journ. of Anthnywloffical Institute, 1873. which, however, by its mere vocabulary has nearly as much right t&amp;lt;* be considered a member of the Latin or Italic branch. The only modern representative of the group besides English which ranks as a literary language is Dutch, which is spoken in Holland, arid, under a slightly modified form known as Flemish, in a large part of Bel gium. Along the coast and islands of the North Sea the current dialects, varying from district to district in an almost exceptional manner, are remnants of the old Frisian tongue, whose oldest written documents date from the 13th century ; and the popular language of the countries between the Rhine and Weser and the Weser and Elbe, where it is not Dutch or Frisian, is Platt-Deutsch, which, while overshadowed by the High German, has recently attained a certain literary position through the writings of Fritz Renter. The Celtic languages are all without exception decadent, the most tenacious of life being the Welsh and the Breton. The people who still retain them as their mother tongues are becoming more and more accustomed to the simultaneous use of the dominant languages around. The Welshman and the Scottish Highlander learn English, the Breton French. Cornish died out last century, and left only a few fragmentary texts ; Irish is rapidly following it. but will be preserved in a considerable literature ; Welsh alone has a fairly vigorous literature at the present time. According to Professor Zerffi, there are no less than seventeen Slavonic dialects. The most important is Russian, or Great Rus sian, the national speech of the empire whose name it bears. At present it is spoken by about 34,390,000 of the 65,705,000 of the total population ; and its area is rapidly being extended by the direct agency of the Government. In 1871 it was made the official language of Poland, and rendered obligatory in all the law courts of the country ; and in 1876 it became practically the only permissible form in Little Russia, where all popular literature and public notices in the local language were prohibited. While it retains a rich in flexional system, Russian has enriched its vocabulary by a large foreign element, from French, English, and German ; and its scientific terms are for the most part those of Western Europe. As a written language it is deeply indebted to the Church Slavonic. Closely cognate is the Little Russian, or Ruthenian, already men tioned, which ; fl spoken by about 14,201,280 people in Russia and upwards of 3,000,000 in Austria. Its Russian area includes Vol- hynia, Podolia, Kiel! , Kherson, Ekaterinoslatf, Kbarkoff, Poltava, Tchemigoff, Minsk, Grodno, and Lublin, as well as portions of Astrakhan, the Don Cossack Country, Saratoff, and Voronezh; in Austria it is mainly confined to Galicia. Possessing as it does a rich store of popular tales and songs, and employed by several writers of great ability during the present century, it ranks much higher than the third Russian dialect the White Russian which is the current speech of about 3,592,000 people, for the most part in Grodno, Minsk, MohilefF, Vilna, and Vitebsk, and is mainly dis tinguished by Lithuanian and Polish elements. The second place in the Slavonic group may be assigned to Polish, which in spite of political disasters is still spoken by a large but scattered population. It is estimated that there are 3,905,871 Poles in Russian Poland, 2,450,000 in Prussia, 2,465, 000 in Austria-Hungary, and 861,000in European Russia. An extensive and vigorous literature will preserve the language even if it pass, as seems not improbable, altogether from the lips of men. Czech, or Tsekh, is the national language of Bo hemia, and is also largely spoken in Moravia and north-western Hungary, where it is usually known by the names of Moravian and Slovak. The differences between the dialects of the several countries are on the whole comparatively slight ; but as between Bohemian proper and Slovak, they are sufficiently marked to lead some philologists to recognize the Slovak as a separate language. There is a rich Bohemian literature which, dating fiom the 10th cen tury, has after along period of depression and threatened extinction received a new development in modern times. Bulgarian is distri buted throughout European Tuikey far beyond the district that bears the name of Bulgaria, and it also appears in eastern Roumania and south-western Russia. A very small proportion of the people by whom it is used are of Slavonic blood ; and it has departed more than any other Slavonic language from the common type. Its literature is almost exclusively modern, and would be of little moment were it not for its possible value to a possible nation. A much higher position has been attained by the Servo-Croatian, which is spoken by about 5,500,000 people, in Servia, Bosnia, Montenegro, southern Hungary, Slavonia, Croatia, Istria, and Dalmatia. Its dialects though numerous are so slightly differentiated that with any one of them a traveller can make himself understood by those accustomed to any other. It is usual to divide them into three groups a west ern or Istrian, a southern or Dalmatian, and an eastern or Servian. Even if the political unification of the South Slavonians should never be realized, the future of the Servo-Croatian is secured by the vigor ous literary development which is encouraged both at A gram and Belgrade. Unfortunately it is written and printed in two alphabets the Cyrillian being employed by the Servians and the Latin by the Croatians. The remaining Slavonic tongues are of little practi cal importance except to the philologist. The Wends are being rapidly Germanized, and .ire now estimated at about 137,000, princi-
 * For details see Ascoli s map at the end of his Archivio Glottologico