n the
nature of the pronunciation, on the longer or shorter duration of the
vowel itself, and not on the grammatical accent. This latter may lie
just as well on syllables prosodically short, as on those which are
long."

From these introductory remarks, we turn again to the historical part
of our essay, referring the reader back to our division of the whole
Slavic race into Eastern and Western Stems. We have, first of all,
that most remarkable Old or Church Slavonic, the language of their
Bible, now no longer a living tongue, but still the inexhaustible
source of the sublimest and holiest expressions for its younger
sisters. Then follow the _four_ languages, perfectly distinct from
each other, spoken by the Eastern Slavic nations, viz. the Russian,
Illyrico-Servian, Vindish, and Bulgarian. Three of them possess a
literature of their own; and one of them, the Illyrico-Servian, even a
double literature; for political circumstances and the influence of
the early division of the oriental and occidental churches, having
unfortunately split the nation into two parts, caused them also to
adopt two different methods of writing one and the same language, as
we shall show in the sequel. And lastly, among the Slavic nations of
the Western stem, we find either _three_ or _four_ different
languages, according as we regard the Czekhish and Slovakian idioms as
essentially the same or distinct, viz. the Bohemian, [Slovakian,]
Polish, and Sorabic in Lusatia. Of these, the first and third have
each an extensive literature of its own.[25]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: See Schlegel's _Sprache und Weisheit der Indier_,
Heidelb. 1808. Von Hammer's _Fundgruben des Orients_, Vol. II. p. 459
sq. Murray's _History of the European Languages_, Edinb. 1823. F.G.
Eichhoff, _Histoire de la Langue et de la Literature des Slaves etc.
considerees dans leur origins Indienne, etc._ Paris, 1839.--Frenzel,
who wrote at the close of the seventeenth century, took the Slavi for
a Hebrew tribe and their language for Hebrew. Some modern German and
Italian historians derive the Slavic language from the Thracian, and
the Slavi immediately from Japhet; some consider the ancient Scythians
as Slavi. See Dobrovsky's _Slovanka_, VII. p. 94,]

[Footnote 2: _Krivitshi_. The Greek is _Krobuzoi_, Herodot 4. 49.
Comp. Strabo VII. p. 318, 319. Plin. H.N. IV. 12.]

[Footnote 3: The first writers, who mention the Slavi expressly, are
Jordan or Jornandes, after A.D. 552; P