[Footnote 25: We abstain here from giving any historical references,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, Veletabæ, Sorabæ, 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 Græcisms, 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