40 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



V. Slavonic Nations. 1. Polish. 2. Slovakian or Bohemian. 3. Bulgarian. 

 4. Russian. 5. Lithuanian. 



Among the nations of Slavonic lineage the method of designating kindred is, in 

 some respects, original and distinctive. There appears to be a foreign element in 

 their system of consanguinity which finds no counterpart in those of the remaining 

 Aryan nations. The same ideas, both of classification and of description, run 

 through all the forms heretofore presented in a manner so obvious as to leave no 

 doubt that they sprang from a common original. But a new element is found in 

 the Slavonic which is unexplainable by the hypothesis that it has departed, like the 

 Roman, from an original form in all respects common. The schedules in the Table 

 are neither sufficiently numerous nor perfect to illustrate the system fully in its stages 

 of growth ; but enough may be gathered from a comparison of them to encourage 

 belief that a full knowledge of the system, in its several forms, would tend to 

 explain the order of the separation of the Slavonic nations from each other, as well 

 as their relative position in the Aryan family. It would also demonstrate a non- 

 Aryan source of a portion of the Slavonic blood. 



1. Polish. The Polish system has an opulent and expressive nomenclature, 

 inferior only to the Roman ; and in the fulness of its development it stands at the 

 head of the several Slavonic forms. 



There are two terms for nephew applied to a brother's son, bratanec and synowicc, 

 with their feminine forms for niece ; also a separate term siostrzenca for nephew 

 applied to a sister's son, with its feminine for niece. The opulence of the nomen- 

 clature is still further shown by the presence of special terms, evolved from the 

 foregoing, for the husbands and wives of these nieces and nephews : namely, 

 bratancowa and siostrzencmva, for the two former ; and synowice and siostrzenin, for 

 the two latter. In the first collateral line, male, we have for the scries : brother, 

 nepJtew, son of nepliew, and grand-son of nephew. In so far there is nothing 

 peculiar in the Polish system. 



There are separate terms for uncle on the father's and on the mother's side, and 

 a common term for aunt. The members of the second collateral line are thus 

 indicated: stryj, paternal uncle, stryjecznybrat, "brother through paternal uncle;" 

 and stryjecznywnulc, " grandson through paternal uncle." That is to say ; my 

 father's brother's son is not my cousin, for there is no term in the Slavonic 



5. All Sanskrit dictionaries hitherto published, whether Indian or European, are very defective ; 

 and the Pundits of the present day are, ordinarily, most indifferent scholars. For some of the words 

 I have given, I am indebted to neither of these sources. My own reading has furnished them to me; 

 and I dare say I might, at a future time, fill up a number of the many blanks which the paper still 

 exhibits. Among words indicative of kin which I have met with in Hindu law-books, but which 

 you do not require, are atydryas'was'ura, "paternal great-grandfather of a woman's husband;" 

 atydryavriddhaprapitamaha, "paternal great-grandfather's paternal great-grandfather;" &c. &c. 



6. The remarriage of widows not having been current in old times in India, a number of words 

 expressive of relationship that might be counted on, do not exist in the Sanskrit. 



7. Should any further information be required in connection with the accompanying table, I would 

 refer you to Prof. W. D. Whitney, of Yale College. Mr. Whitney's knowledge of the Sanskrit 

 is acknowledged, by the best of living Sanskrits, to entitle him to rank fully on a level with them- 

 selves. 



