Page:The Position of the Slavonic Languages at the present day.djvu/15

 their countrymen living in Russia are known by this name in its Lithuanian form Žemaičei. In general the Lithuanians call themselves Lietuvininkai, and their country Lietuvà; the Letts they call Kùršei, a name that perpetuates the old tribal appellation Kors. The Letts call themselves Latwis, Latweetis, and they call the Lithuanians Leitis. The names sometimes applied to the country or nationality of the Letts— Letgola, Zimigola— are nothing more than distorted forms of Lithuanian words meaning 'Lithuania's End' and 'Land's End' respectively. The names given by the Russians and Poles to the Letts and Lithuanians are distinctive, that for the Letts is in Russian Latiší, and in Polish Lotysze; that for the Lithuanians Litóvci in Russian, Litwini in Polish. The name given by the Letts to the Russians is of great interest and historical importance. In Lettish all Russians are to this day known as Kreewis, and this is nothing but a perpetuation and generalization of the name of one of the original Slavonic tribes, the Kriviči, whom history discovered settled in the basin of the western Dvina. There is nothing correspondingly interesting in the Lithuanian name for Russian, which is simply Rùssas, but the names given by the Lithuanians to their Western German and their Southern Polish neighbours are curious. Lithuanians call the Germans Vòkietis and Germany Vokietìja, a word of obscure etymology. The Poles they call Lénkai, which also serves collectively as the designation of the country Poland, and is reminiscent of the old Russian name for the Poles 'Lyáhi'.

Passing from the Baltic to the cognate Slavonic group of languages, the question arises, in which order the latter are to be classified. It is now the established custom to arrange the Slavonic languages in three main divisions, the criteria for which are certain phonetic characteristics which need not here be closely considered. These three divisions are called, according to their respective geographical positions, the Western, Southern, and Eastern.

It is impossible now to determine to what extent the