Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 25 



inhabited by the Celtic Boii, who were succeeded by the German Mar- 

 coraanni, as were the latter by the Slavonians. The Slavonians occupied 

 Bohemia about the middle of the sixth century, after the destruction of the 

 Thuriugian kingdom, in whicli Bohemia was probably included. 



Tiie Moravians are nearly akin to the Tschechi, or Bohemians. Their 

 dialects are said to be merely varieties of the Bohemian language. The 

 Moravians take their name from the river Moravaj they give to their idiom 

 the term of Morawsky gazyk, and decline that of Czechy gazyk, or the 

 Bohemian speech. 



Tlie Slavonian inhabitants of Moravia are in three divisions, and have 

 three dialects. The first, or Hannaks, taking their name from the river 

 Hanna, are the agricultural peasantry of the province. The Wallachii are 

 pastoral people of the boundary between Moravia and Hungary. The 

 Slovaks, or Slavaks, are the Slavonian people who inhabit the eastern 

 frontier of Moravia, and some of the upper districts of Hungary. 



2. The Poles. 

 The proper national appellation of the Poles, is Lechs or Lechi: the 

 name of Poles was originally that of a single tribe. The history of the 

 Poles is more enveloped in fable and obscurity than that of any other 

 Slavonian people, because they were the latest in obtaining national 

 writers. The Slavonic tribes who form the Polish nation, probably oc- 

 cupied their country on the departure of the Goths towards the couth. 

 They formerly extended over Silesia, in several districts of which the 

 Polish language is still spoken. Among the popular dialects of the Polish 

 language, Adelung distinguishes that of the Masurians, the descendants of 

 a particular tribe, and the idiom of the Kassubians in Pomerania, Lunen- 

 burg and West Prussia. The Poles • vere converted to Christianity, and 

 adopted the forms of the Latin church in the year 9C5. The ecclesiastics 

 made use of the Latin language for all purposes of religion and literary 

 composition, and the Polish language remained little known and unim- 

 proved ; it was long regarded as the speech of the vulgar and uncivilized. 



3. The Sorabians. 



The Sorabians, or the Scrbi, as, according to Adelung, they are properly 

 termed, arc a numerous people of the western Slavonian race, who 

 formerly inhabited the country between tlie Saale and the Oder, and of 

 whom the Siavi in both the Lusatias are the remains. Tlie Slaves in Lower 

 Lusatia call themselves Ssemhe, tliose of Upper Lusatia Srbie. The 

 country which these Sorabians occupy, was inhabited before them by the 

 Hermundurians, or Thuringians. On the destruction of the Thuringian 

 power by the Franks and Saxons in 528, the Sorabians came in and re- 

 duced the German inhabitants to slavery. Tliey had some chiefs, and 

 even kings of their own. They possessed the present Osterland, Meissen, 

 - both the Lusatias, the territory of Anhalt, the Electoral Circle, and the 



No. 1.— Vol. L ■* 



