432 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1915. 



features. The lines of linguistic parting can not be emphasized and 

 are apt to be unstable. This circumstance detracts from their politi- 

 cal value. 



10. THE AREAS OF BOHEMIAN AND SLOVAKIAN SPEECH. 



The Bohemians, who with the Moravians constitute Slavdom's 

 European vanguard, occupy the mountain-girt plateau of Bohemia 

 in the very heart of Europe. Here the steady advance of Teutons 

 has prevented expansion of these Slavs along the valleys providing 

 them with lines of easy communication with the rest of the continent. 

 Bohemians and Moravians thus found themselves bottled up inside 

 the mountainous rim of their land by the Germans of Germany and 

 of Austria. 



The German ring surrounding Bohemia is composed of sections 

 representing various types of the Teutonic family. The south- 

 Avestern element represents the Bavarian settlers from which it is 

 descended. Farmers and woodsmen were introduced into the 

 Bohmerwald as an inevitable phase of the exploitation of the moun- 

 tainous area by religious communities of the 13th century. The end 

 of the Thirty Years' War was marked by a new influx of Germans 

 needed to rej^opulate the sorely devastated Bohemian districts. The 

 Bavarian element, however, never reached the foot of the eastern 

 slopes. Modern Bohemian resistance to its spread toward the pla- 

 teau persists unflinchingly. 



The Erzgebirge uplift is a German ethnographic conquest. For 

 centuries its mineral wealth has attracted artisans from Franconia, 

 Thuringia and Saxony. The mountain slopes resound to-day to 

 the sound of the dialects of these ancient countries. The Saxon 

 element prevails particularly among the inhabitants of the Elbe 

 valley. 



Farther east, descendants of natives of Lusatia and Silesia still 

 use the vernacular of their ancestors in the upland formed by the 

 Iser and Eiesen ranges. The vallej^^s of these mountains yield a 

 steady stream of German-speaking inhabitants who wend their way 

 toward the industrial towns of the southern plain. The German 

 workingman's competition with his Bohemian fellow-laborer is keen, 

 however, in this district and has not been marked by notable ad- 

 vance of the Teutonic idiom. 



Linguistically the Bohemians and Moravians form a unit hemmed 

 in by Germans on all sides except the east, where they abut against 

 their Slovak kinsmen. Community of national aspirations is gen- 

 erally ascribed to these three Slavic groups, in which the Bohemian is 

 the leading element. The union has been fostered by the lack of a 

 literary language among Moravians with the consequent adoption 



