grammarians do
not acknowledge this division of the verb itself; but put all its
variations under the conjugation of a single verb, as different
tenses,--a proceeding which contributes much to make the Slavic
grammar a horror to all foreigners.

If this short and meagre sketch is hardly sufficient to give the
reader an idea of the richness, precision, and general perfectibility
of the Slavic languages, it will be still more difficult to reconcile
his mind to their _sound_; against which the most decided prejudices
exist among all foreigners. The old Slavic alphabet has forty-six
letters; and from this variety it can justly be concluded, that the
language had originally at least nearly as many different sounds,
although a great part of them are no longer to be found in the modern
Slavic languages. It is true, that all the dialects are comparatively
poor in vowels, and, like the oriental languages; utterly deficient
in diphthongs.[17] They have neither the _oe_ nor _ue_, which the
Germans consider as the best sounds of their idiom: nor the
Greek,[Greek: ei], [Greek: ui], [Greek: au], [Greek: eu], and the
like; still less the variety of pronunciation of one and the same
vowel, peculiar to the English. The Poles, Russians, and Bohemians,
possess however a twofold _i_, [18] a finer and a coarser one; the
latter of which is not to be found in any other European language, and
is unpleasant to the ear of foreigners. The Poles, besides this, have
_nasal vowels_, as other languages have nasal consonants.[19]

It is a striking peculiarity, that Slavic words very seldom _begin_
with a pure _a_,[20] hardly ever with _e_.[21] There are in the whole
Russian language, only two words of Slavic origin, which have an
initial _e_, and about twenty foreign ones in which this letter has
been preserved in its purity; in all the rest the _e_ is introduced by
_y_; e.g. _Yelisaveta_, Elizabeth; _yest_', Lat. _est_, it is;
_Yepiscop, episcopus_, bishop; _yeress_, heresy, etc. The initial _a_
is more frequent, and is especially preserved in most foreign proper
names, e.g. Alexander, Anna; or in other foreign words, where they
omit the _H_, as _Ad_, Hades, Hell, _Alleluya_, Hallelujah. But the
natural tendency of the language is to introduce it likewise by _y_;
thus they say _yagnya_, in preference to _agnya_, Lat. _agnus_,
although this last also is to be found in the old church books:
_yasti_, to eat, _yakor_ anchor, _yavor_, maple, German _ah