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SLAVS . Judged by the See also:language test, and no other is readily available, the Slays are the most numerous See also:race in See also:Europe, amounting to some 140,000,000 souls. Outside Europe there are the Russians in See also:Siberia, a See also:mere See also:extension of the See also:main See also:body, and a large number of emigrants settled in See also:America, where, however, although most of the nationalities have their own See also:newspapers, the second See also:generation of immigrants tends to be assimilated. Divisions and See also:Distribution.—The Slays are divided geographically into three main See also:groups, Eastern, See also:North-Western and See also:Southern; linguistically also the same See also:division is convenient. The Russians stand by themselves as the Eastern See also:group. They hold all the See also:East See also:European See also:plain from the 27th See also:meridian to the Urals, the Finnish and Tatar tribes making up but a small proportion of the See also:population: beyond these limits to the east they stretch into central Siberia and thence in narrow bands along the See also:rivers all the way to the Pacific; on the See also:west the Ruthenians (q.v.) of See also:Galicia See also:form a See also:wedge between the Poles and the See also:Magyars and almost See also:touch the loth meridian. The Russians must number See also:ioo,000,000. The North-Western group includes the Poles, about 15,000,000, in the See also:basin of the See also:Vistula; the See also:Kashubes (q.v.), about 200,000, on the See also:coast north-west of See also:Danzig; the High and See also:Low See also:Sorbs (q.v.) or See also:Wends in See also:Lusatia, 180,000 Slays completely surrounded by Germans; the Cechs (See also:Czech, q.v.) in the square of Bohemia, making up with their eastern neighbours, the Moravians, a See also:people of 6,000,000 in See also:northern See also:Austria surrounded on three sides by Germans. In the north of See also:Hungary, connecting up Ruthenians, Poles and Moravians, but most closely akin to the latter, are 2,500,000 See also:Slovaks (q.v.). With the Sorbs, Poles and Kashubes are to be classed the now teutonized Slays of central See also:Germany, who once stretched as far to the north-west as See also:Rugen and See also:Holstein and to the See also:south-west to the See also:Saale. They are generally called See also:Polabs (q. v.), or Slays on the See also:Elbe, as their last survivors were found on that See also:river in the eastern corner of See also:Hanover. The Southern Slays, See also:Slovenes (q.v.), Serbo-Croats (see See also:SERVIA) and Bulgarians (see See also:BULGARIA), are cut off from the main body by the Germans of Austria proper and the Magyars, bothof whom occupy See also:soil once See also:Slavonic, and have absorbed much Slavonic See also:blood, and by the Rumanians of Transylvania and the See also:Lower See also:Danube, who represent the See also:original Dacians romanized. These Slays occupy the main See also:mass of the See also:Balkan See also:Peninsula downwards from the See also:Julian See also:Alps and the See also:line of the Muhr, See also:Drave and Danube. North of this all three races have consider-able settlements in southern Hungary. Their southern boundary is very See also:ill-defined, various nationalities being closely intermingled. To the south-west the Slays See also: Akin to the Slovenes were the old inhabitants of Austria and south-west Hungary before the intrusion of the Germans and Magyars.
See also:History—This distribution of the Slays can be accounted for historically. In spite of traditions (e.g. the first See also:Russian See also:chronicle of Pseudo-See also:Nestor) which bring them from the basin of the Danube, most See also:evidence goes to show that when they formed one people they were settled to the north-east of the Carpathians in the basins of the Vistula, Pripet and Upper Dnestr (See also:Dniester). To the N. they had their nearest relatives, the ancestors of the Baltic tribes, Prussians, See also:Lithuanians and Letts; to the E. Finns; to the S.E. the Iranian population of the See also:Steppes of See also:Scythia (q.v.); to the S.W., on the other See also:side of the Carpathians, various Thracian tribes; to the N.W. the Germans; between the Germans and Thracians they seem to have had some contact with the Celts, but this was not the first See also:state of things, as the Illyrians, Greeks and Italians probably came between. This location, arrived at by a comparison of the fragmentary accounts of Slavonic migrations and their distribution in historic See also:time, is confirmed by its agreement with the place taken by the Slavonic language among the other Indo-European See also:languages (see below), and by what we know of the place-names of eastern Europe, in that for this See also:area they seem exclusively Slavonic, outside it the See also:oldest names belong to other languages. The archaeological evidence is not yet cleared up, as, for the See also:period we have to consider, the See also:late See also:neolithic and See also:early See also:bronze See also:age, the region above defined is divided between three different cultures, represented by the See also:fields of urns in Lusatia and See also:Silesia, See also:cist See also:graves with See also:cremation in See also:Poland, and the poor and little-known graves of the Dn6pr
(See also:Dnieper) basin. This variety may to some extent be due to the various cultural influences to which the same race was exposed, the western division lying on the route between the Baltic and Mediterranean, the central being quite inaccessible, the eastern part in time showing in its graves the See also:influence of the See also:Steppe people and the See also:Greek colonies in Scythia. There is a See also:gradual transition to cemeteries with Roman See also:objects which shade off into such as are certainly Slavonic.
The See also:physical type of the Slays is not sufficiently clear to help in throwing See also:light upon the past of the race. Most of the See also:modern Slays are rather See also:short-headed, the Balkan Slays being tall and dark, those of central Europe dark and of See also:medium height, the Russians on the whole rather short though the See also: In its See also:present seats it must have assimilated See also:foreign elements, German and See also:Celtic in central Europe, Finnish and Turkish in See also:Great and Little See also:Russia, all these together with Thracian and Illyrian in the Balkans; but how much the See also:differences between the various Slavonic nations are due to admixture, how much to their new homes, has not been made clear. In spite of the vast area which the Slays have occupied in historic times there is no See also:reason to claim for them before the migrations a wider homeland than that above defined beyond the Carpathians; given favourable circumstances a nation multiplies so fast (e.g. the Anglo-See also:Saxons in the last See also:hundred and twenty years) that we can set no limits to the area that a comparatively small race could See also:cover in the course of four centuries. Therefoce the mere See also:necessity of providing them with >acncestors sufficiently numerous does not compel us to seek for the Slays among any of the populous nations of the ancient See also:world. Various investigators have seen Slays in Scythians, Sarmatians, Thracians, Illyrians, and in fact in almost all the barbarous tribes which have been mentioned in the east of Europe, but we can refer most of such tribes to their real See also:affinities much better than the ancients, and at any See also:rate we can be sure that none of these were Slays. There is no evidence that the Slays made any considerable See also:migration from their first See also:home until the 1st See also:century A.D. Their first Transcarpathian seat See also:lay singularly remote from the knowledge of the Mediterranean peoples. See also:Herodotus (iv. 17, 51, 105) does seem to mention the Slays under the name of See also:Neuri (q.v.), at least the Neuri on the upper See also:waters of the Dnestr are in the right place for Slays, and their See also:lycanthropy suggests modern Slavonic superstitions; so we are justified in equating Neuri and Slays, though we have no See also:direct statement of their identity. Other classical writers down to and including See also:Strabo tell us nothing of eastern Europe beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the Euxine. See also:Pliny (N.H. iv. 97) is the first to give the Slays a name which can leave us in no doubt. He speaks of the Venedi (cf. See also:Tacitus, Germania, 46, See also:Veneti); See also:Ptolemy (Geog. iii. 5. 7, 8) calls them Venedae and puts them along the Vistula and by the Venedic gulf, by which he seems to mean the Gulf of Danzig: he also speaks of the Venedic mountains to the south of the See also:sources of the Vistula, that is, probably the northern Carpathians. The name Venedae is clearly Wend, the name that the Germans have always applied to the Slays. Its meaning is unknown. It has been the cause of much confusion because of the Armorican Veneti, the Paphlagonian Enetae, and above all the Enetae-Venetae at the See also:head of the Adriatic. Enthusiasts have set all of these down as Slays, and the last with some show of reason, as nowadays we have Slovenes just north of See also:Venice. However, See also:inscriptions in the Venetian language are sufficient to prove that it was not Slavonic. Other names in Ptolemy which almost certainly denote Slavonic tribes are the Veltae on the Baltic,ancestors of the Wiltzi, a division of the Polabs (q.v.), the Sulani and the Saboci, whose name is a Slavonic See also:translation of the Transmontani of another source. Unless we are to conjecture Stlavani for Ptolemy's Stavani, or to insist on the resemblance of his Suobeni to Slovene, the name Slav first occurs in Pseudo-Caesarius (Dialogues, ii. sto; See also:Migne, P.G. xxxviii. 985, early 6th century), but the earliest definite See also:account of them under that name is given by Jordanes (Getica, V. 34, 35, c. 550 A.D.): See also:Dacia . . . ad coronae spec em arduis Alpibus emunita, iuxta See also:quorum sinistrum lalus, qui in aquilone vergit, ab ortu Vistulae fluminis per immensa spatia Venetharum populosa natio consedit. Quorum nomina licet nunc per varias familias et loca mulentur, principaliter 'See also:amen Sclaveni et Antes nominantur. Sclaveni a civitate Novietunense (Noviodunum, Isakca on the Danube See also:Delta) . . . usque ad Danastrum et in boream Viscla tenus commorantur . . . Antes vero, qui cunt eorum fortissimi, qua Ponticum See also:mare curvatur a Danastro extenduntur usque ad Danaprum; cf. See also:xxiii. 119, where these tribes are said to form part of the dominions of Hermanrich. Sclaveni, or something like it, has been the See also:regular name for the Slays from that See also:day to this. The native form is Slovene; in some cases, e.g. in modern Russian under foreign influence, we have an a instead of the o. The See also:combination sl was difficult to the Greeks and See also:Romans and they inserted 1, th or most commonly c, which continues to See also:crop up. So too in Arabic Sagaliba, Saqldb. The name has been derived from slovo, a word, or slava, See also:glory, either directly or through the -slay which forms the second See also:element in so many Slavonic proper names, but no explanation is satisfactory. The word " slave " and its cognates in most European languages date from the time when the Germans supplied the slave-markets of Europe with Slavonic captives. The name Antes we find applied to the Eastern Slays by Jordanes; it may be another form of Wend. See also:Antae is used by See also:Procopius (B.G. iii. 14). He likewise distinguishes them from the Sclaveni, but says that both spoke the same language and both were formerly called Spori, which has been identified with Serb, the racial name now surviving in Lusatia and Servia. Elsewhere he speaks of the measureless tribes of the Antae; this appellation is used by the Byzantines until the See also:middle of the 7th century. The sudden See also:appearance in the 6th-century writers of definite names for the Slays and their divisions means that by then the race had made itself See also:familiar to the Graeco-Roman world, that it had spread well beyond its original narrow limits, and had some time before come into contact with civilisation. This may have been going on since the 1st century A.D., and evidence of it has been seen in the southward See also:movement of the Costoboci into northern Dacia (Ptolemy) and of the See also:Carpi to the Danube (A.D. 200), but their Slavonic See also:character is not established. A few ancient names on the Danube, notably that of the river Tsierna (Cerna, See also:black), have a Slavonic look, but a coincidence is quite possible. The gradual spread of the Slays was masked by the wholesale migrations of the Goths, who for two centuries lorded it over the Slays, at first on the Vistula and then in south Russia. We hear more of their movements because they were more immediately threatening for the See also:Empire. In dealing with Ptolemy's location of the Goths and Slays we must regard the former as superimposed upon the latter and occupying the same territories. This domination of the Goths was of enormous importance in the development of the Slays. By this we may explain the presence of a large number of Germanic See also:loan words common to all the Slavonic languages, many of them words of cultural significance. " See also: 258) in his account of the See also:camp of See also:Attila mentions words which may be Slavonic, but have also been explained from German. After the fall of the Hunnish See also:power the Eastern Goths and Gepidae pressed southwards and westwards to the See also:conquest of the Empire, and the See also:Lombards and See also:Heruli followed in their tracks. When next we get a view of northern Germany we find it full of Slays, e.g. from Procopius (B.G. ii. 15) we know that they held the See also:Mark of See also:Brandenburg by 512; but this See also:settlement was effected without attracting the See also:attention of any contemporary writer. Modern historians seem to adopt their attitude to the See also:process according to their view of the Slays; German writers, in their contempt for the Slays, mostly deny the possibility of their having forced German tribes to leave their homes, and assume that the riches of southern Europe attracted the latter so that they willingly gave up their barren northern plains; most Slavonic authors have taken the same view in accordance with the idealistic picture of the peaceful, kindly, democratic .Slays who 'contrast so favourably with the See also:savage • Germans and their See also:war-lords; but of late they have realised that their ancestors were no more peaceful than any one else, and have wished to put down to warlike pressure from the Slays all the southward movements of the German tribes, to whom no choice was left but to try to break through the Roman defences. A reasonable view is that the expansion of the Eastern Germans in the last centuries B.C. was made at the expense of the Slays, who, while no more peaceful than the Germans, were less capable than they of combining for successful war, so that Goths and others were dwelling among them and lording it over them; that the mutual competitions of the Germans drove some of these against the Empire, and when this had become weakened, so that it invited attack, some tribes and parts of tribes moved forward without any pressure from behind; this took away the strength of the German element, and the Slays, not improbably under German organization, regained the upper hand in their own lands and could even spread westwards at the expense of the German remnant. Almost as uncertain is the exact time when the Southern Slays began to move towards the Balkans. If already at the time, of See also:Trajan's conquests there were Slays in Dacia, it would account for the See also:story in Ps. Nestor that certain Volchi or Vlachi, i.e. See also:Romance speakers, had conquered the Slays upon the Danube and driven them to the Vistula, for the place that the name of Trajan has in Slavonic tradition, and for the presence of an agricultural population, the See also:Sarmatae Limigantes subject to the See also:nomad Sarmatae (q.v.), on the See also:Theiss. In any See also:case, we cannot say that the Slays occupied any large parts of the Balkan Peninsula before the beginning of the 6th century, when they appear in See also:Byzantine history as a new terror; there seems to have been an invasion in the time of See also:Justin, and another followed in 527 (Procopius, B.G. iii. 40 and Hist. Arc. 18). At the same time as the Slays, the Huns, the Bulgars, and after 558 the See also:Avars, were also making invasions from the same direction. The first and last disappeared like all nomads, but the Bulgars, making them-selves lords of one See also:section of the Slays, gave it their own name. By 584 the Slays had overrun all Greece, and were the worst western neighbours of the Eastern Empire. Hence the directions how to See also:deal with Slays in the Strategicum of the See also:emperor See also:Maurice (c. 600) and the See also:Tactics of See also:Leo. By the end of the following century they were permanently settled throughout the whole of the Balkan Peninsula. (For their further history see SERVIA, BULGARIA, BOSNIA, DALMATIA, CROATIA-SLAVONIA.) These Southern Slays, though divided into nationalities, are closely akin to one another. There is n,o reason to think the Serbo-Croats. an intrusive wedge, although See also:Constantine Porphyrogenitus (De adm. See also:Imp. 30-33) speaks of their coming from the north in the time of See also:Heraclius—the middle of the 7th century. Their dialects shade into one another, and there is no trace of any influence of the North-Western group. Constantine was probably led astray by the occurrence of the same tribal names in different parts of the Slavonic world. Meanwhile the Southern Slays were cut off from the See also:rest of the race by the See also:foundation in the 6th century of the Avar kingdom in See also:Pannonia, and after its destruction in the 7th, by the spread of the Germans south-eastwards, and finally by the incursion ofanother See also:Asiatic See also:horde, that of the Magyars, who have maintained themselves in the midst of Slays for a thousand years. Their conquests were made chiefly at the expense of the Slovenes and the Slovaks, and from their languages they have borrowed many words in forms which have now disappeared. Of the history of the Eastern Slays, who were to become the Russian people, we know little before the coming of the See also:Swedish Rus, who gave them their name and organization; we have but the mention of Antae acting in See also:concert with the other Slays and the Avars in attacking the Empire on the lower Danube, and scattered accounts of Mussulman travellers, which show that they. had reached the See also:Don and See also:Volga and stretched up northward to See also:Lake Ilmen. The more southerly tribes were. tributary to the See also:Khazars. An exact See also:definition of the territory occupied by each Slavonic people, and a See also:sketch of its history from the time that it settled in its permanent See also:abode, will be found either under its own name or under that of its See also:country. .. Culture and Religion.--For all the See also:works treating of Slavonic antiquities we cannot draw a portrait of the race and show many distinguishing features. Savage nations as described by the Greeks and Romans are mostly very much alike, and the testimony of language is not very easy to use. The See also:general impression is one of a people which lived in small communistic groups, and was so impatient of authority that they scarcely combined for their own See also:defence, and in spite of individual bravery only became formidable to others when cemented together by some. See also:alien element: hence they all at one time or another See also:fell under an alien yoke; the last survivals of Slavonic See also:licence being the ve¢e of See also:Novgorod, and the See also:Polish See also:diet with its unpractical regard for any minority. The Slays were acquainted with the beginnings of the domestic arts, and were probably more given to See also:agriculture than the early Germans, though they practised it after a See also:fashion which did not long tie them to any particular See also:district-+-for all writers agree in telling of their errant nature. They were specially given to the See also:production of See also:honey, from which they brewed See also:mead. They also appear to have been -notable swimmers and to have been skilled in the See also:navigation of rivers, and even to have indulged in maritime piracy on the Aegean, the Dalmatian coast and most of all the Baltic, where the See also:island of Rugen was a menace to the Scandinavian and German See also:sea-power. The See also:Oriental sources also speak of some aptitude for See also:commerce: Their See also:talent for See also:music and singing was already noticeable. Of their religion it is strangely difficult to gain any real See also:information. The word Bogu, " See also:god," is reckoned a loan word from the Iranian Baga. The See also:chief deity was the Thunderer See also:Perim (cf. Lith. Perkunas),.with whom is identified Svarog, the god of See also:heaven; other chief gods were called sons of Svarog, Dazbog the See also:sun, Chors and Veles, the god of See also:cattle. The place of this latter was taken by St See also:Blasius. A hostile deity was Stribog, god of storms. There seem to have been no priests, temples or images among the early Slays. In Russia See also:Vladimir set up idols and pulled them down upon his See also:conversion to See also:Christianity; only the Polabs had a highly See also:developed cult with a See also:temple and statues and a definite priesthood. But this may have been in See also:imitation of Norse or even See also:Christian institutions. Their chief deity was called Triglav, or the three-headed; he was the same as Svetovit, apparently a See also:sky god in whose name the monks naturally recognized See also:Saint See also:Vitus. The goddesses are colourless personifications, such as Vesna, See also:spring, and Morana, the goddess of See also:death and See also:winter. The Slays also believed, and many still believe, in Vily and Rusalki, See also:nymphs of streams and woodlands; also in the Baba-Jaga, a.See also:kind of See also:man-eating See also:witch, and in Besy, evil See also:spirits, as well as in vampires and werewolves. They had a full belief in the See also:immortality of the soul, but no very dear ideas as to its See also:fate. It was mostly supposed to go a long See also:journey to a See also:paradise (raj) at the end of the world and had to be equipped for this. Also the See also:SOU' of the ancestor seems to have developed into the house or See also:hearth god (Domovoj, Kfet) who guarded the See also:family. The usual survivals of See also:pagan festivals at the solstices and equinoxes have continued under the form of See also: From the beginning of the 9th century See also:Merseburg, See also:Salzburg and See also:Passau were the centres for spreading the See also:Gospel among the Slavonic tribes on the south-eastern See also:marches of the Frankish empire, in Bohemia, See also:Moravia, Pannonia and Carinthia. Though we need not doubt the true zeal of these missionaries, it was still a fact that as Germans they belonged to a nation which was once more encroaching upon the Slays, and as Latins (though the Great See also:Schism had not yet taken place) they were not favourable to the use of their converts' native language. Still they were probably the first to reduce the Slavonic See also:tongues to writing, naturally using Latin letters and lacking the skill to adapt them satisfactorily. Traces of such attempts are rare; the best are the Freisingen fragments of Old Slovene now at See also:Munich.
In the eastern half of the Balkan Peninsula the Slays had already begun to turn to Christianity before their conquest by the Bulgars. These latter were hostile until Boris, under the influence of his See also:sister 'and of one See also:Methodius (certainly not the famous one), adopted the new faith and put to the See also:sword those that resisted conversion (A.D. 865). Though his Christianity came from See also:Byzantium, Boris seems to have feared the influence of 'the Greek See also:clergy and applied to the See also:Pope for teachers, submitting to him a whole See also:series of questions. The Pope sent clergy,.but would not See also: 861). The emperor See also:chose two See also:brothers, sons of a Thessalonian Greek, Methodius and Constantine (generally known as Cyril by the name he adopted upon becoming a See also: In Rome Constantine fell ill, took monastic vows and the name of Cyril, and died on the 14th of See also:February 869. Methodius was consecrated See also:archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia, about 87o, but Kocel could not help him much, and the German bishops had him tried and thrown into See also:prison; also in that very See also:year Rostislav was dethroned by Svatopluk, who, though he threw off the Frankish yoke, was not steadfast in supporting the Slavonic liturgy. In 873 Pope See also: From what has been said above it appears that Cyril invented a Slavonic alphabet, translated at any rate a Gospel lectionary, perhaps the Psalter and the chief service books, into a Slavonic See also:dialect, and it seems that Methodius translated the Epistles, some part of the Old Testament, a See also:manual of See also:canon See also:law and further liturgical See also:matter. Clement continued the task and turned many works of the Fathers into Slavonic, and is said to have made clearer the forms of letters. What was the alphabet which Cyril invented, where were the invention and the earliest translations made by him, and who were the speakers of the dialect he used, the language we See also:call Old Church Slavonic (O.S.)? As to the alphabet we have the further testimony of Chrabr, a Bulgarian monk of the next generation, who says that the Slays at first practised See also:divination by means of marks and cuts upon See also:wood; then after their See also:baptism they were compelled to write ' the Slavonic tongue with Greek and Latin letters without proper rules; finally, by God's See also:mercy Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, made them an alphabet of 38 letters. He gives the date as 855, six or seven years before the See also:request of Rostislay. If we take this to be exact Cyril must have been working at his translations before ever, he went to Moravia, and the language was presumably that with which he had been familiar at Thessalonica—that of southern Macedonia, and this is on the whole the most satisfactory view. s, ata At any rate the phonetic framework of the language is gu/gadan. more near to certain Bulgarian dialects than to any other, but the vocabulary seems to have been modified in Moravia by the inclusion of certain German and Latin words, especially those touching things of the Church. These would appear to have been already familiar to the Moravians through the work of the German missionaries. Some of them were superseded when O.S. became the language of Orthodox Slays. Kopitar and See also:Miklosich maintained that O.S. was Old Slovene as spoken by the subjects of Kocel, but in their decision much was due to racial patriotism. Something indeed was done to adapt the language of the Translations to the native Moravian; we have the See also:Kiev fragments, prayers after the Roman use in which occur Moravisms, notably c and z where O.S. has st and zd, and fragments at See also:Prague with Eastern See also:ritual but Cech peculiarities. Further, the Freisingen fragments, though their language is in the main Old Slovene and their alphabet Latin, have some connexion with the texts of an O.S. Euchologium from See also:Sinai. Alphabets.—Slavonic languages are written in three alphabets according to religious dependence; Latin adapted to See also:express Slavonic sounds either by diacritical marks or else by conventional combinations of letters among those who had Latin services; so-called Cyrillic, which is the Greek Liturgical Uncial of the 9th century enriched with special signs for Slavonic letters—this is used by all Orthodox Slays; and Glagolitic, in the " spectacled " form of which certain very early O.S. documents were written, and which in another, the " square," form has survived as a liturgical script in Dalmatia, where the Roman Church still allows the Slavonic liturgy In the dioceses of See also:Veglia, Spalato, See also:Zara and See also:Sebenico, and in Montenegro; the Croats now employ Latin letters for See also:civil purposes. The annexed table gives these alphabets—the Glagolitic in both forms with numerical values (columns 1-3); the Cyrillic in its fullest development (4, 5), with the modern version of it made for Russian (6) by See also:Peter the Great's orders; Bulgarian uses more or less all the Russian letters but the reversed e and the last two, while keeping more old Cyrillic letters, but its See also:orthography is in such a confused state that it is difficult to say which letters may be regarded as obsolete; Servian (7) was reformed by Karadiic (See also:Karajich (q.v.)) on the See also:model of Russian, with special letters and ligatures added and with unnecessary signs omitted. The old ways of writing Slavonic with Latin letters were so See also:con-fused and variable that none of them are given. The Cechs first attained to a satisfactory See also:system, using diacritical marks in-vented by Hus; their alphabet has served more or less as a model for all the other Slavonic languages which use Latin letters, and for that used in scientific grammars, not only of Slavonic but of Oriental languages. See also:Column 8 gives the system as applied to Croat, and corresponding_ exactly to Karadiic's reformed Cyrillic. Column 9 gives the Cech alphabet with the exception of the long vowels, which are marked by an See also:accent; in brackets are added further signs used in other Slavonic languages, e.g. Slovene and Sorb, or in strict transliterations of Cyrillic. Polish (to) still offers a See also:compromise between the old arbitrary combinations of letters and the Cech principle of diacritical marks. The last column shows a convenient system of transliterating Cyrillic into Latin letters for the use of See also:English readers without the use of diacritical marks; it is used in most of the See also:ion-linguistic articles in the See also:Encyclopaedia Britannica which deal with Slays. With regard to Glagolitic (derived from Glagel, a word) and Cyrillic, it is clear that they are closely connected. The language of the earliest Glagolitic See also:MSS. is earlier than that of the Cyrillic, though the earliest dated Slavonic writing surviving is .a Cyrillic inscription of See also:Tsar See also:Samuel of Bulgaria (A.D. 993). On the whole Glagolitic is likely to be the earlier, if only that no one would have made it who knew the simpler Cyrillic. It certainly bears the impress of a definite mind, which thought out very exactly the See also:phonetics of the dialect it was to express, but made its letters too uniformly complicated by a love for little circles. A sufficiently large number of the letters can be traced back to Greek See also:minuscules to make it probable that all of them derive thence, though agreement has not yet been reached as to the particular combinations which were modified to make each See also:letter. Of course the modern Greek phonetic values alone form the basis. The numerical values were set out according to the See also:order of the letters. Some subsequent improvement, especially in the pre-iotized vowels, can be traced in later documents. The presumption is that this is the alphabet invented by Cyril for the Slays who formerly used Greek and Latin letters without system. . When brought or brought back to Bulgaria by Clement and the other pupils of Methodius, Glagolitic took See also:root in the west, but in the east some one, probably at the See also:court of See also:Simeon, where everything Greek was in favour, had the See also:idea of taking the arrangement of the Glagolitic alphabet, but making the signs like those of the Uncial Greek then in use for liturgical books, using actual Greek letters as far as they would serve, and for specifically Slavonic sounds the Glagolitic signs simplified and made to match the rest. Where this was impossible in the case of the complicated signs for the vowels, he seems to have made See also:variations on the letters A and B. With the See also:uncials he took the Greek numerical values, though his alphabet kept the Glagolitic order. Probably the Glagolitic letters for .f and st have exchanged places, and the value Boo belonged to s, as the order in Cyrillic is w, y, w, W. Who invented Cyrillic we know not; Clement has been said to have made letters clearer, but only in a secondary source and he seems to have been particularly devoted to the tradition of Methodius, and he was See also:bishop of Ochrida, just where Glagolitic survived longest. 3 Z Z Z hard Z z' Z soft
i 1
1 j j j j y consonantal Io I i
( Serbian) 1) b dj,Ild. d' d in endue
K 20 See also:Kit K x k k k k A .?1 A .11 A 1 I(o'I) 1 hard i labialised
.1lir lj. (1) 1 sort 1 ...See also:sole Mu Mu m m m m
HH Hu Il II n hard n
IhHb I1j,6 ll li soft Span.B
• 70 00 Oo o 0 0 0
IIR IIn ft U for older a.
SO
P p p p
See also:loo Pp Pp r r r r
(r~
f TZ between r&£
200 CC CC S S S hard S (s)s soft
T 300 TT TT t t t hard t T. soft
u U u f f f
ch ch kh' Germ.ch
h h h or gh
o Gr. w
wr gt it sht
(Sc) SZCZ 'shch in Ashchurch'
U u c c C hard is
ilh (C) C soft between c&t.t in
p u g,di (di) de Eog.j creaturef
q c. c cz ch in church
IIIw i sz sh
(i1) U in but
(jc) je ten in Fr. elen
(ja) ja i 1n in Fr. See also:action
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