the German soft _ch_ after _t_, as in _Staedtchen,
Huetchen_.]

[Footnote 16: They are to be compared with the Latin verbs
frequentative, as _factitare_ instead of _facere, cursitare_ instead
of _currere_, etc.]

[Footnote 17: With the exception of the Slovakish dialect.]

[Footnote 18: Pronounce the _i_ as in the word _machine_.]

[Footnote 19: To make, in writing, the different shades in the
pronunciation of the same letters in Polish, is absolutely impossible.
They must be caught with the ear; and, even then, cannot be imitated
by the tongue of a foreigner.]

[Footnote 20: The English _a_ in _father_.]

[Footnote 21: Like the English _e_ in _they_.]

[Footnote 22: Compare the smooth breathing of the Greeks, and the
Shemitish _Aleph_ or _Elif_.]

[Footnote 23: There is e.g. a single letter in Old Slavonic and
Russian for _shish_. The Pole writes _szez_.]

[Footnote 24: Schaffarik in his _Geschichte_, p. 40 sq.]

[Footnote 25: We abstain here from giving any historical references,
as it would swell the volume beyond all due proportion; and historical
notices, with the exception of those circumstances in immediate
connection with the _language_, cannot properly be expected. All
philological sources have been faithfully mentioned.]

* * * * *

PART 1.

HISTORY OF THE OLD OR CHURCH SLAVIC (COMMONLY CALLED SLAVONIC)
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

It can hardly be doubted that in very ancient times the whole Slavic
race spoke only one language. This seems however very early to have
been broken up into several dialects; and such indeed must have been
the natural result of the wide extension of the people. Eginhard, the
secretary and historian of Charlemagne, (ob. 839.) calls the Slavic
nations, whom his hero subjugated, Veletabae, Sorabae, Obotrites, and
Bohemians; and mentions expressly that they did not all speak the
same, but a very similar language. It would be difficult to decide
what portion of the still existing Slavic tongue has kept itself the
purest; the Old Slavic has its Graecisms, the Servian its Turcisms, the
Polish and Bohemian their Germanisms, the Russian its Tartarisms,
Germanisms, and Gallicisms. No language in the world will ever resist
the influence of the languages of its neighbours; and even the lofty
Chinese wall cannot protect the inhabitants of that vast empire from
corruptions in their language. It was formerly the general view, that
the ecclesia