Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/466

 382

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vn. MAY is, 1907

whence also Slav.* (The province known as Slavonia bears but a fragmentary relation to the vast amount of territory, extending over many countries, occupied by the Slavs or where they have left traces.) During the Napoleonic wars Russian soldiers detected similarities between their language and the dialects of Styria (Steirmark, Stajera), Carinthia (Karntner, Koroshko), and Car- niola (Krain, Kranjsko). The last of these resembles the name Ukraine, Russia. The poet Valentine Vodnik (1758-1819), who suffered severely for his enthusiasm for foreigners, eulogized the Russian language (called Moskovitarski by the Slovenes) as that to which regenerators of Slovene must look. Writing in 1799, he exclaims at the sight of Russian troops at Laibach (Ljubljana) :

" Important news for us Carniolans (Kraintsi). The Russians, our ancient brethren, have come not only to visit us, but to defend us against the enemy. Fifteen hundred years ago the first Slavs entered our country. They were of the race of the Russians and the other Slavs. That is why we so easily understand the Russian language ; they are indeed Slavs, and the root whence our forefathers sprang.

grand brethren we have on the earth. They nave kept our language in perfect purity. We should make advances to them when we desire to purify our language."

Enthusiasm seems to have carried the poet off his feet, as the date for the arrival of the Slavs seems rather remote, and during the eighteenth century the Russian language, far from being pure, had been materially affected, first by German, and later by French usage. In 1821, at a congress at Lublin, Zhupan strongly affirmed the superiority of " Krainstshina " over Russian. For many years Slovene writers occupied themselves with Russian literature, as though, to borrow Pushkin's expression, this Slav stream was to flow into the Russian sea. Some authors are charged with borrowing Russian words instead of using native ones, and Prof. Jagic gives a list of Russisms adopted by Stiftar, with their Slovene equivalents, e.g. : Enssian. Slovene. English.

vladanie posestvo (apparently property

of Latin source)

besiti se jeziti se to rage

mednik kotlar worker in brass

krasayitsa lepotica dostoinstvo vrednost trudno tezavno

The Russian ogorod, a kitchen garden, has

or copper a beauty worth difficult

Great against the Slavs ; slavus belongs to the tenth century. The Dutch word* sloeb, a drudge, and slooven, to toil, are referred to the same origin.
 * The term slave is due to the wars of Otho the

also been confused with ograd, a fence or rampart ; but this is not surprising.

Examination of the grammar shows that there is closer affinity with Russian than with Cech, and it would perhaps appear more comprehensible to a Russian than some other Slav tongues. (Prof. Jagic told me that Russian students tacitly assume know- ledge of other Slav tongues without study, but this is perilous, as apparent similarities are often fallacious.) In Slovene the dual forms of substantives and verbs are pre- served, whereas those of the kindred tongues are either lost or fragmentary. Thus mi ( we ), vi (you), and oni (they) take the syllable dva or dve to signify we, you, and they two. Verbs are conjugated in accordance with this plan. Prepositions modify or intensify verbal forms, e.g., plavati, to swim ; pre- plavati, to swim through. The indeclinable definite article the is a parallel to our own,, except in pronunciation ; and the in- definite an, ana, anu (ein, eine, ein), is not unlike a and an. These are importations, like the Bulgarian postponed definite article, as this part of speech does not belong to Slavonic tongues. The following words are clearly borrowed : ornenga (Ordnung), znidar (Schneider), flisek (fleissig), and Vinahti (Weihnacht, Cech Vanoce). Dosihmal (Rus- sian do sikh por), until now, is a curious compound. Bez, without, becomes brez in Slovene. As in Servian, the infinitive termination is the Slavonic ti, which has been lost from most Russian verbs. The termina- tion in nemscina (German) and francoscina (French) indicates the language, but the ironical Russian expressions Birenovshtshina and Pugatshevshtshina mean the time or regime of Biren and Pugatshev.

Here is a short comparative list of words :

Slovene. Russian. Cech. English.

zlahten shliakhta slechta the nobility

morebiti mozhet-bit (not used) perhaps

golob golub holub a dove

krompir kartoflfel brambor potato

samostan zatvor Master a cloister

solza slioza slza a tear

gledalisce teatr divadlo a theatre

Dr. Pecnik, author of the little grammar of Slovene in Hartleben's series, writes that the literature is indirectly indebted to Martin Luther, as the Reformation penetrated into these southern valleys and brought about the translation of the Scriptures.

In conclusion, here are two verses of a Slovene poem by Vodnik :

Ljubljanke so lepe,

Pa hude so tud', So bele ko repe,

Pa hude ko zlod'.