Oxford eagle. (Oxford, Lafayette Co., Miss.) 1876-current, 1914-08-06

Before fass and religions men knew
friend from foe BY the language test
More than half Of the wars OF Eu
rope have been fought BY parties mu.
tually unintelligible.
Broadly speaking. all European Ian
guases belong to the Aryan group.
The most important exception 10 the
Magyar. . dialect OF the same Ian
guage spoken BY Turks and Firms
How Divided by Language.
OF the Aryan tongue there are three
great general divisions In Europe-Ro-
nance. Teutonic. Slavic. We are in
terested only In the latter two. And
Of the Teutonic German is spoken by
10000. 900. Of which 100000 are in
Austria and 100000 In Hungary.
There arc l<o.0oo.0oo Slavs in Eu-
rope.
From this II appears that the pres
ent political boundaries are not eoter-
minous with linguistic groups.
Right here In this fact we have the
seed Of present and future trouble
and a clue to the cause OF most OF
the wars In eastern Europe through
1000 years.
sisv Situation In Europe.
To get before Us the full signlr-
canoe OF tho fact suggested by the
map let Us consider the linguistic com
plexiou Of these countries.
Russia is q veritahle hodgepodge OF
tongues. but Of her slAv population
alons Ne have n least too distinct
slsmsnts todHx- hAaAs.sy ,~uu...A =
EACH otner. vfh tho Possibility. II no
the probability. OF q third. which vii
seek recognition
As against Russians proVer Their
are over 10000 900 Poles. and of th'
remaining slavs there are 5000. .00I
Ruthenians. or Little OF White Rus
SLAMS. As they are sometimes called
OF the general Polish situation shal
speak later.
In Germany there are over 5000. .00'
Siavs. chiefly Polish.
OF Austria's 30.o00.0o0 population
only about a third is German. the re
mainder being Slav, Of which there ar
over 5000. 900 Czechs or Bohemians
100000 Poles. 3.5oo.oOo Ruthenians
and a million and q quarter Slovenes
Many Tongues In Hungary.
Hungary is even more diversified
in tongue The Magyar elemen
10000. .000) Is equaled by the non
Magyar made up roughly Of 1000. .O0e
Germans. 2.000. 900 Siovaks. one-hall
. million Ruthenians. 100000 Serbo
Creates. all OF the Slavonic tongue
and about 100000 Roumanians who
do not speak Slav at all. but q Ro
nance language
We need not here consider the lin
guistic afiinities Of the Balkan states
| II 10 enough to say that Servia 10 pure
| ly Servian and siav. Bulgaria Is Bul
gar and Slav Though the basis OF
blood Of Bulgars IL. like that OF the
Magyar. Asiatic).
The population OF Montenegro. about
half . million. are SlAvs OF the Ser
Wan branch Roumanians are OF
mixed origin. but the Roumanisn
tOnkut 10 tpVeSa w A~s~NNsN~N f@~f~>s
of which 1--WE and q half million are
in Roumania ts2 per cent OF its total
I populationl. the remaining millions
are found in the Duel Monarchy. Ser
via. Bulgaria and Russia
People Develop Languages
Millions OF people today speak POI
ish whose ancestors few generations
ago weren't conscious Of the fact that
they spoke any language at all. To
day there is q Slavonic literature:
so years ago no one even thought OF
such a thing. The millions OF Bohe-
mians had become almost entirely Ger
mans. and never before have they
been SO thoroughly Slavonic as today.
Bohemian hostility to Germany has
been called passion. II was not so
very long ago that the language OF
the Hungarian parliament was Latin /:
Magyar was held fit only for peasant
talk. Today the bitterness between