Читать книгу The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe - Leon Dominian - Страница 6

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The site of populous cities and of trim little towns was once wild waste or sunless woodland. Our rude forefathers, wandering upon uninhabited tracts, converted them into fair fields and domains which their descendants rounded out eventually into nations. Humanity has prospered and today we often think of countries in terms of their characteristic landscape and scenery. But the thought naturally suggested by the name France or England is that of a nation whose people speak French or English. To separate the idea of language from that of nationality is rarely possible.

To say that a man’s accent betrays his nationality is another way of stating that every language has a home of its own upon the surface of the earth. A word or an accent will thrive or wither like a tree according to region. In the earliest forms of Aryan languages, words for fish or sea appear to be wanting—a want which points to inland origins. The natives of the scorching equatorial lowlands have no word for ice in their dialects. A further glimpse into the past is required for a proper estimate of these facts. Man’s conquest of a region is achieved in two distinct stages. The first settlers rarely accomplish more than a material hold. Their task is exclusively that of exacting sustenance from the soil. Intellectual possession is taken at a later stage. The land then becomes a source of inspiration to its dwellers. Having provided for his material wants, man is now able to cultivate ideals and give free rein to his artistic propensities. Instead of brooding in gloomy anxiety over future support or becoming desperate through sheer want he is able to bestow a leisure hour on a favorite recreation. In both of these stages, his thoughts and the words used for their utterance are in harmony with their surroundings.

We therefore turn to the land for intimate acquaintance with man and his culture. His very character is shaped in the mold of his habitual haunt. And language is little more than the expression of his character. The earnest Scotchman and the steadfast Swede, both hardened by the schooling of a vigorous climate, contrast strikingly with the impulsive Andalusian or the fitful Sicilian trained to laxity and carelessness in the midst of plenty. The revengeful Corsican is the native of an unblest island, while the Russian, bred in the vast and monotonous steppe, cannot avoid injecting a strain of melancholy into the literary treasures which he contributes to the human brotherhood.

The emotional ties which bind man to his country or to his mother tongue are the same because they are rooted in the past. A citizen of any country is conscious of his nationality whenever he realizes that he has a common origin with his compatriots. Language is merely the outward form of this feeling. But without its unifying influence national solidarity cannot be perfected.

The growth of modern European nations and the spread of their languages have been parallel developments. This parallelism is founded on the material ties no less than on the spiritual affinity which bind men to the earth. To furnish evidence of this relationship lies within the province of geography. Historical testimony is also at hand to show that political and linguistic frontiers have tended to coincide during the past two centuries, except where artificial measures have been brought into play. Broadly it may be submitted that the advance of civilization in most countries has been marked by the progress of nationality, while nationality itself has been consolidated by identity of speech.

Language areas, in common with many other facts of geography, have been largely determined by the character of the surface or climate. Occurrences such as the extension of Polish speech to the Carpathian barrier or the restriction of Flemish to the lowland of northwestern central Europe, are not the work of mere chance. An investigation of linguistic boundaries, therefore, implies recognition of the selective influence of surface features. But the influence of region upon expansion or confinement of language is far from absolute. The part played by economic factors will be shown in the following pages to have been of prime importance.

Considered as political boundaries, linguistic lines of cleavage have two-fold importance. They are sanctioned by national aspirations and they conform to a notable degree with physical features. Every linguistic area considered in these pages bears evidence of relation between language and its natural environment. A basis of delimitation is therefore provided by nature. Eastern extension of French to the Vosges, confinement of Czech to a plateau inclosed by mountains, uniformity of language in open plains and river basins, all are examples of the evidence provided by geography for statesmen engaged in the task of revising boundaries.

Europe may be aptly regarded as a vast field of settlement where the native element has, again and again, been swamped by successive flows of immigrants proceeding from every point of the compass. The wanderings of these invaders have been directed, in part, into channels provided by the main mountain ranges of Eurasia. Valleys or plains which favored expansion of nationality were, at the same time, the avenues through which languages spread. The barrier boundary of the Mediterranean basin contains a number of important breaches on the north[1] which facilitated the mingling of the Nordic race with Mediterranean men after it had mixed with Alpine peoples. Within historic times men of Celtic speech have been driven westward by Teutons, who also pressed Slavs in the opposite direction. The consequence is that few Frenchmen or Germans of our day can lay claim to racial purity. Northern France is perhaps more Teutonic than southern Germany, while eastern Germany is, in many places, more Slavic than Russia. To ascribe political significance to race is therefore as difficult today as it was when Roman citizenship meant infinitely more in comparison.

Nationality, however, an artificial product derived from racial raw material, confers distinctiveness based on history. It is the cultivated plant, blossoming on racial soil and fertilized by historical association. In the words of Ossian: “It is the voice of years that have gone; they roll before me with all their deeds.” Men alone cannot constitute nationality. A nation is the joint product of men and ideas. A heritage of ideals and traditions held in common and accumulated during centuries becomes, in time, the creation of the land to which it is confined.

Language, the medium in which is expressed successful achievement or hardship shared in common, acquires therefore cementing qualities. It is the bridge between the past and the present. Its value as the cohesive power of nationality is superseded, in rare instances, by ideals similarly based on community of tradition, hope, or in some cases religion. In speech or writing, words give life to the emotion which nationality stirs in the heart or to the reasoning which it awakens in the mind.

The distinction between the conceptions of race, language and nationality should, at the very outset, be clearly established. Race deals with man both as a physical creature and as a being endowed with spiritual qualities. Tall, blond men constitute a race distinct from their fellows who combine stockiness and brunetness. The basis of differentiation in this case is anatomical. Hence, to talk of an English or Persian race is erroneous. Every nation contains people endowed with widely different physiques, owing to the extensive intermingling of races which has taken place in the course of the million years during which the earth has been inhabited. To be precise, our conception of racial differences must conform to classifications recognized by modern anthropologists. We shall therefore consider the Mediterranean, Alpine and Nordic races—to mention only those composed of white men—and we shall find that they all blend in European nationalities.

Fig. 1—View of the “route d’Italie” or road to Italy at the extreme southeastern border of France and well inside the small area of Italian language lying within the French political boundary.

Take, as an example, the racial elements entering into the composition of French nationality. The dominating type, in northern France, belongs to the tall, narrow-headed Nordic race, with blue eyes and fair hair. Frenchmen with these characteristics are descendants of Franks and Gauls who settled in the northern plains of the Paris basin. In Brittany and the Massif Central, however, a round-headed and dark type, short and stockily built, is scattered over the two main piles of Archean mountains which still remain exposed to view. In the Aquitaine basin, as well as in the Lower Rhone valley, the narrow-headed Mediterranean race, with dark eyes and hair, is everywhere evident in the short, brunet inhabitants.

Ripley adheres to the racial segregation of European man in the three groups enumerated above. But a further reduction can be established on a purely geographical basis, with the result that Europeans may be classed primarily either as highlanders or lowlanders. Anthropological classification fits admirably in this dual distinction, since the inhabitants of European mountain lands belong to the round-head type while the dwellers of the depressions north and south of the central uplifts have long heads.

From the conception of race we attain that of people by considering the second as derived from the mingling of the first. Intercourse between the three great races of Europe has always existed as a result of migratory movements. The impulse to wander, however much it differed in each known instance, can usually be traced to a single determining cause, definable as the quest after comfort. This was the motive which led men of the Nordic race to abandon their uncomfortable habitat in the north. The same feeling was experienced by Alpine mountaineers as they descended towards attractive lowlands north and south of their rough mountain homes.

Nordics moving to the south and Alpines crowding toward the lowland converged upon one another. No meeting of human beings, in the entire history of mankind, has been fraught with consequences of wider reach than the contact between members of these, the two hardiest races which the world has produced. European nationalities and Aryan languages were born in those momentous meetings. The zone of contact extended from the northwestern, lowland fringe of continental Europe to the saucer-shaped land of Polesia. Along the depressed margin of western Europe a heavy flow of Mediterranean men, moving constantly northward, introduced a third element in the racial constituents of French and British populations. Each of the three races contributed a characteristic share of physical and moral traits to the spirit of nationality in Europe. The Nordics left the impress of their northern vigor wherever they passed. Their native restlessness, the joint product of cold weather and a hard life, became converted into a magnificent spirit of enterprise whenever it blended with Alpine hardiness or Mediterranean ambition. The Alpines, often considered as the intellectual type, also imparted the virility of highland physiques as they migrated to the lowland. Last, but not least, Mediterranean men contributed the softness of their native character as well as the fine qualities due to a keen artistic sense. The fusion of the three races was accompanied by the creation of the three great groups of European peoples, known as Celts, Teutons and Slavs. The differentiation of these peoples from the fused group occurred at an early period and was probably in full swing towards the close of the Neolithic.

We are thus led to picture the early home of Celtic dialects on territory now falling under French, Dutch and German rule. It is not unlikely that England and Ireland are areas of expansion of this language. Eastward, it is known that the Celtic territory extended at least as far as the Elbe. Beyond, in the same direction, an ever widening wedge of Teutonic area interposed itself between Celts and Slavs. The prehistoric home of the Teutons will be found in the region around the western extremity of the Baltic Sea. It comprised southern Sweden, Jutland, the German Baltic coast to the Oder and the Baltic islands as far as Gothland. The Slav’s original homeland had its site on an imperfectly drained lake-bed extending westward from the middle Dnieper valley to the Niemen and Priepet marshland.

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Fig. 2—Schwarzwald scenery. A region of transitional dialects between High and Low German.

From east to west on the Eurasian land mass the three main forms of language occupy strictly geographical settings. Monosyllabic Chinese lies rigid and lifeless within its barriers of high mountains and vast seas. The static condition of Chinese civilization is reflected in the changeless form of its language. A new idea requires a new word and a corresponding symbol. In the wild and wide-stretching steppes of Siberia, communication of thought or feeling is maintained through the medium of agglutinative forms of speech. Grammatically, this marks an improvement over the monosyllabic language. In the case considered here it expresses the restlessness and mobility of steppe life. At the same time inferiority of civilization is revealed by poverty of ideas and consequently of words. In the west, however, whether we consider western Asia or Europe, we deal with the world’s best nursery of civilization. In those regions are found the highly inflected and flexible languages of the Aryan and Semitic families. The grammar of these languages—a mere adaptation to superior requirements of order and method—renders them particularly responsive to the constant improvement in thought which characterizes western countries.

Aryan languages are spoken all the way from northern India to Europe’s westernmost confines. This territory comprises the western extension of the central belt of high Eurasian mountains together with its fringing lowlands. In its elevated portion it is the domain of the Alpine race and of the Nordic in its depressed northern border. On the other hand, that portion of the northern Eurasian grasslands which extends into Europe forms part of the area of Uralo-Altaic languages. It is sometimes contended that the original home of Aryan languages was situated in northern Europe, where full-blooded northerners now speak languages belonging to this family. But the weight of evidence in favor of a central European origin will seem almost decisive when we remember that culture and civilization have invariably proceeded from temperate regions. The Aryans issued at first from the contact of northern European lowlanders with the highlanders of central Europe, subsequently mingled with the inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin. As they migrated southward they must have changed continually in race. Every absorption of southern elements tended to modify their racial characteristics. A given type therefore corresponds to a definite period and place. The vagueness conveyed by the term Aryan, whether applied to language or people, is to be explained by the inherent instability of the subject.

A theoretical representation of the operation of this change may be offered by assuming that NA is the offspring of the first Nordic N having come in contact with an Alpine A. The tendency for NA is to migrate southwards. His offspring may be represented as NAA as the likelihood is that NA will have taken an Alpine wife to himself. This is the prelude to a long series of generations to each of which an A strain is added. At the same time the steadily maintained migration of Nordics in a southerly direction towards and beyond the territory occupied by the Alpines tends to bring new N strains to the mixed product. At a given stage contact with Mediterranean races becomes established and the process of obliterating Nordic traits is intensified.

We thus see that as the northern invaders pressed southward they became more or less absorbed in the indigenous populations. Their physique changed and their individuality vanished. However great the strength of the invaders, they could bring relatively few women in their train. This was especially true whenever they operated in a mountainous country. The passes through which their advance was made were open only to the more vigorous in the bands of fighting men or adventurers.

At the end of the Neolithic, about 5,000 years ago,[2] Europe was the home of a type of man physically similar to any average European of our day. This type is the product of long-continued contact between the original human product of Europe, Asia and Africa. The dawn of history finds him speaking Celtic in western central Europe. An immense variety of dialects must then have been spoken on the continent, since intercourse was slight. Their fusion into modern languages has been the work of centuries. Out of the linguistic sifting of the past two millenniums, three great groups of languages have emerged: the Romanic, Germanic and Slavic, distributed over Europe from west to east. In these three groups French, German and Russian occupy respectively the leading rank.

The distinction between the languages spoken in northern and southern France was highly marked in early medieval days. The langue d’oïl in use north of a line starting at the mouth of the Gironde River and passing through Angoulême, L’Isle-Jourdain and Roanne eventually acquired ascendancy over the langue d’oc spoken to the south.[3] The dialect of this northern language which prevailed in Ile-de-France was the precursor of modern French. It spread rapidly throughout the country after the acquisition of Aquitaine by French kings and the consolidation of France by the annexation of Burgundian lands. The French of Paris thus became a national language whose linguistic and literary prestige is still strongly felt over the rest of the country.

The Roman conquest of Gaul brought Latin to the country because the civilization of the south was superior. At the time of the coming of the Franks, the Latinized Gaulish language was taken up by the conquerors because it also was the symbol of superior intellectual development. The conversion of barbarian invaders to Christianity helped to maintain Latinized forms of speech. The Latin of the Romans was modified, however, by the different local dialects. Thus the patois of langue d’oc and of langue d’oïl acquired resemblance through the leavening influence of Latin.

Fig. 3—Sketch map of France showing mountain areas and basins.

As long as southern France exercised a preponderating influence in national affairs, the langue d’oc occupied the first place in the country. In the eleventh century it was spoken by the leading classes in the north, as well as by the masses in the south. Such, at least, is the testimony of manuscripts of this period. But with the passing of power into the hands of northern Frenchmen, the langue d’oïl came into wider use, until one of its patois gave rise to the French which was subsequently to become the medium of expression for the genius of Molière and the notable host of his literary countrymen.

Fig. 4—St. Seine l’Abbaye near Dijon lies in the area of langue d’oïl. The fair land of Burgundy, of which the view is typical, has been open to northern invasions on the northwest and the northeast.

Fig. 5—A farmhouse in the Black Forest, a typical habitation in districts in which High German is spoken.

Between the langue d’oc and the langue d’oïl the difference was that of north and south. The southern idioms expressed feeling and harmony, hence they were preferred by poets. The troubadours favored them exclusively during the Middle Ages. The “parlers” of the north, on the other hand, were endowed with the staying qualities of lucidity, order and precision. The beauty of modern French, as well as the attraction it exerts on cultivated minds, is due to its well-balanced blend of northern and southern elements. French of our day is the shrine in which the treasured remains of earlier centuries are still preserved. In it the sunshine of the south pierces with its warm rays the severity of northern earnestness. No other European language can boast of an equally happy composition. In this respect it is a true mirror of the French mind as well as of French nationality.

As spoken at present, French is derived in direct line from a sub-dialect of the Picard patois formerly spoken in Paris and Pontoise and which spread throughout all Ile-de-France. This province may be aptly described as the bottom of the bowl-shaped area of northern France. It owes its geographical distinctiveness to the convergence of a number of important valleys which empty the products of their fertility into the Paris basin lying in its very center. Five of these irregular furrows, the Seine, Loing, Yonne, Marne and Oise, radiate outwardly from the low-lying Paris center. The ebb and flow of national power and language sped its alternate course along their channels until, from being the heart, Paris, always inseparable from its language, became also the head of France.

Fig. 6—Part of France showing the contact between “langue d’oc” and “langue d’oïl” countries. The shaded area represents the “langue d’oïl” or northern language. “Langue d’oc” prevailed in the unruled area. Between these two regions a transitional zone, shown by broken ruling, intervened, in which a mixture of the two languages was spoken.

The Frankish dukedom founded on such a site grew naturally into a kingdom. And along with the establishment of a royal court, the language of the region acquired part of the kingly prestige. Herein we find the explanation of the derivation of the name French from that of Frankish as well as of the language from the local sub-dialect of the Picard patois. Already in the thirteenth century, from this magnificently situated base as a center, both language and nation had absorbed additional territory by a process of steady outward growth. It was French unity in the early making. As early as the twelfth century, no northern nobleman dared appear at the French court without having previously acquired familiarity with its language and manners. The precious literary monuments of this century show that this court language was already known as “François.” A hundred years later, about 1260, French had acquired so much polish and importance that we find Italian writers using it in preference to their own dialects. So in 1298, Marco Polo, a Venetian, gives out the first account of his eastern travels in French, while Brunetto Latini, who was Dante’s tutor, writes his Tesoreto in the same language, explaining his preference by remarking that French “est plus délitaubles languages et plus communs que moult d’autres.”[4]

German was to become the language of central Europe. Interposed between the territories of Romanic and Slavic languages, the area of German speech occupies a magnificently commanding position. Originally the language spoken west of the Elbe and Saale rivers, it had advanced considerably to the east in the first century of the Christian era. The imposition of Teutonic language on Slavic populations is one of the results of this ancient expansion of Germanic peoples. During the past thousand years very little change in the distribution of the main German dialects is believed to have taken place.

Modern German is generally divided into three sub-branches, Low, High and Middle German. Low German, Niederdeutsch or Plattdeutsch,[5] the language of the plain, is restricted to the extensive northern lowland. Dialects spoken in the northeastern corner of Rhenish Prussia, Holstein, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and Prussia enter into its composition. High German, Oberdeutsch or Hochdeutsch, is the German of the highland. It comprises the Bavarian, Swabian and Alemannic dialects of Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden. Its use as the literary language of all German-speaking people became well established in the Middle Ages. Luther’s translation of the Bible written in Saxonian dialect, a combination of High and Middle German, contributed no mean share to the diffusion of the language. Its use has been favored by Germany’s most noted writers since the seventeenth century. Schools and newspapers tend to convert it eventually into the only speech that will survive within German boundaries.

A fact of special importance can be traced among the causes leading to the supplanting of Low German, the language of the German plain, by High German as the national tongue. The superiority of the highland dialect is due to its greater assimilation of Celtic words. This civilizing influence of Celtic culture is by no means a modern development in Germany. In the proto-historic period it was mainly through contact with the Celts that the Teutons became civilized. This intellectual dependence of the Germans is revealed for the period about 300 B.C. by the then existing civilization, which was entirely Celtic. The history that spans the intervening years naturally brings to mind the influence which French language has always had in Germany. Voltaire’s sojourn at the Prussian court does not rank among forgotten episodes and it was not so long ago that Leibnitz had to resort to French or Latin as the medium of his written expression.

The transition from the northern plain of Germany to the high central regions is represented, on the surface, by a zone of intermediate uplands in Saxony, Lusatia and Silesia. This area is characterized linguistically by a transitional form of speech between Low and High German.[6] The similarity, however, of this midland German to High German is observable to the extent to which the rising land over which it is distributed presents analogy to the mountainous region towards which it trends. The transitional dialects include East, Middle and Rheno-Franconian, as well as Thuringian. They occur in the middle Rhineland, the banks of the Moselle, Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony.

A bird’s-eye view of the area of German speech shows that the language prevails wherever a well-defined type of dwelling is found. This representative habitation consists of a frame house with an entrance in the middle of one of its long sides. The hearth generally faces the threshold. Barns and outlying buildings do not connect with the main house, but form with it the sides of an open inner yard. German houses can furthermore be subdivided into three distinct sub-types which correspond to the linguistic divisions of Low, Middle and High German. The Saxon sub-type, which rarely rises above a single story, prevails in the northern lowlands, while the Bavarian sub-type dots the mountain districts which resound to High German. Between the two an intermediate sub-type of construction exists in the zone of Middle German.

Fig. 7—Sketch map showing relative position of the three main areas in which the dialects of German language are grouped.

Russian language while Slavic, and as such Indo-European, is at the same time the transition speech between the Indo-European and Uralo-Altaic groups. Its inflections connect it with the western group. But the dominant use of vowels bears impress of the strong influence exerted by Asia in the formation of the language. The very consonants in Russian are liquid and softened so as to shade insensibly into vowels. These are characteristics of Turkish and Finnish. The singular charm with which the melodious sounds of the Russian language greet a stranger’s ears is derived from this Asiatic strain. In spirit also the fundamental fatalism of Russians increases in the eastern sections of the country. The trait can hardly be characterized as Slavic. In the case of the Poles or Bohemians, it gives place to buoyant hopefulness which helps to color life and the world in roseate hues. The fatalism of the Russian is a relic of past habitat in the interminable steppes of central Eurasia. The Turks whose former roaming ground was the same are also imbued with this spirit. It is the sophism of the level land. No matter how far the horseman urged his mount, the same monotony met his gaze. No effort on his part could ever change the prospect.

As late as the twelfth century the peoples of the basin of the Volga spoke purely Tatar dialects. The wide and open steppes of Siberia, extending without break into eastern Europe, poured the overflow of their populations into the valleys of the Russian rivers which flow into the Black Sea. The great Russian cities of the borderland between Europe and Asia were either founded or Slavicized after the eleventh century. About that time the Slavic dialects of the Vistula and the Dnieper began to blend with the Asiatic languages of the Oka, Kliasma and Volga valleys. Modern Russian, a mixture of Slavic and Tatar or Mongolian words, was born of this blending. In a broader sense it is the expression of the union of Europe and Asia to create a Russian nation, for Russia is the product of the ancient Russ or Ruthenian principalities and the old Muscovite states. The former were Slav and lay in Europe. The latter were Tatar and belonged physically to Asia. As a nation the Russia of our time sprang into existence at the end of the seventeenth century. Prior to that period, its western section is known to history as the land of Russ or Ruthenia. Its eastern part was Muscovy. Through the union of the eastern and western sections the Russian Empire of modern times came into being. No literary monuments antedate the birth of its nationality.

In Russia the Slav who is free from Asiatic contamination is rarely met east of the 35th meridian. A line from Lake Ladoga to Lake Ilmen and along this meridian to the mouth of the Dnieper forms the divide between the Russians of Europe and of Asia. The parting of the waters belonging respectively to the Don and the Dnieper is, from a racial standpoint, the boundary between the two groups. The Tatar in the Russian appears east of this frontier. The Oriental customs which permeate Russian life, the Tatar words of the Russian language, all begin to assume intensity east of this dividing line, while to the west the spirit of the vast stretch of north Asiatic steppes disappears. Thus the commonly accepted Ural frontier of European and Asiatic Russia is unwarranted in the light of ethnic facts. The inhabitants of the Volga lands are essentially Asiatics among whom the numerically inferior Slav element has become dominant.

Fig. 8—This group of Russian officers conveys an idea of the excessive racial mingling in Russia. Alpine and Tatar features can be recognized as dominant.

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Fig. 9—The heart of Moscow with the buildings of the Kremlin in the background.

Asia’s linguistic contribution to Europe is the gift of its unwooded steppelands. The immense tract of monotonous country extending west of the Altai Mountains to Europe is the home of a family of languages known as the Uralo-Altaic. Among these the highly vocalic branch of Finno-Ugrian traveled west with the nomadic herdsmen who used it. In Europe it acquired the polish which brought it to the forms recognized respectively as Finnish or Suomi and Hungarian. Both enjoy the distinction of being the most cultivated of the great northern Asiatic family of languages. The case of Finnish is especially remarkable owing to its high development without loss of its original agglutinative character.

The picture of this linguistic evolution can be painted only with the colors of geography. The well-defined individuality of the Hungarian Puszta has its counterpart in the Siberian steppe region. The one is the reproduction of the other in small—a miniature. Both consist of undulating land, devoid of mountains or hills, and covered by deep sand. In Finland too a remarkably level stretch of granite land, marked by gentle swelling, lies under a sandy glacial mantle. The two European regions have only one advantage over their Asiatic type. They are better watered. The furthest penetration of Eurasian lowlands into Europe is obtained through them. The approach to Hungary is made without a break, through the valley of the Danube. To Finland access is equally easy once the Urals are crossed. That this range proved no obstacle to the westerly spread of central Asiatic peoples is indicated by their presence west of its axis and their settlement in the Volga valley prior to Slav inroads. But neither in lake-dotted Finnish lands nor within the limited and mountain-hedged area of Hungary could the Asiatic invaders find room for expansion or nomadism. From herdsmen they became farmers. The change is the dawn of their history as a European nation, and of the development of every manifestation of their culture. A more advanced language became the measure of the increasingly complex character of their needs—that is to say, of higher civilization. The whole story, traced from its origin, illustrates the superior civilizing power vested in European geography. In the sterile steppes of the northern half of Asia man led an easier life than in the cramped regions of diversified Europe. On the broad flatlands of the east he roamed with little thought of the morrow and without incentive to improve his condition. In the west he was spurred to activity by the very limitations of his homeland.

In our day about seventy different languages are spoken in Russia. In this fact is found a serious drawback to effective national unity. Fortunately the spread of the dialects belonging to the Slavic group of languages is steady. The thorough Slavicization of the peoples of the basin of the Volga is not yet ended, but Great Russian is gradually uprooting the native Uralo-Altaic tongues. It is also imposing itself upon Asiatic languages in Caucasia and Transcaspian territory. Wherever there has been a thorough blending of dialects into Russian, nationality has sprung into existence. Elsewhere unity is in process of formation. The problem before the governing class consists in hastening the assimilation of the different elements to the original Slavic nucleus. Not until this consummation has taken place will the country have developed its full strength. And the measure of progress will be indicated by the growing replacement of the numerous dialects by a single national language.

Looking back over the stormy centuries during which French, German and Russian nationalities were elaborated, we behold the formative influence of language everywhere. Aspirations which precede the period of free and unfettered national life give way to achievement when national hopes are crowned. This we shall find in greater detail in the succeeding chapters.

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Fig. 10—View of Nizhni-Novgorod and the Fair across the Oka River.

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Fig. 11—Plain of the Dnieper at Kiev.