THE FRONTIERS OF LANGUAGE AND
NATIONALITY IN EUROPE
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDATIONS
Table of Contents The site of populous cities and of trim little towns was once wild waste or sunless woodland. Our rude forefathers, wandering upon uninhabited tracts, converted them into fair fields and domains which their descendants rounded out eventually into nations. Humanity has prospered and today we often think of countries in terms of their characteristic landscape and scenery. But the thought naturally suggested by the name France or England is that of a nation whose people speak French or English. To separate the idea of language from that of nationality is rarely possible.
To say that a man's accent betrays his nationality is another way of stating that every language has a home of its own upon the surface of the earth. A word or an accent will thrive or wither like a tree according to region. In the earliest forms of Aryan languages, words for fish or sea appear to be wanting-a want which points to inland origins. The natives of the scorching equatorial lowlands have no word for ice in their dialects. A further glimpse into the past is required for a proper estimate of these facts. Man's conquest of a region is achieved in two distinct stages. The first settlers rarely accomplish more than a material hold. Their task is exclusively that of exacting sustenance from the soil. Intellectual possession is taken at a later stage. The land then becomes a source of inspiration to its dwellers. Having provided for his material wants, man is now able to cultivate ideals and give free rein to his artistic propensities. Instead of brooding in gloomy anxiety over future support or becoming desperate through sheer want he is able to bestow a leisure hour on a favorite recreation. In both of these stages, his thoughts and the words used for their utterance are in harmony with their surroundings.
We therefore turn to the land for intimate acquaintance with man and his culture. His very character is shaped in the mold of his habitual haunt. And language is little more than the expression of his character. The earnest Scotchman and the steadfast Swede, both hardened by the schooling of a vigorous climate, contrast strikingly with the impulsive Andalusian or the fitful Sicilian trained to laxity and carelessness in the midst of plenty. The revengeful Corsican is the native of an unblest island, while the Russian, bred in the vast and monotonous steppe, cannot avoid injecting a strain of melancholy into the literary treasures which he contributes to the human brotherhood.
The emotional ties which bind man to his country or to his mother tongue are the same because they are rooted in the past. A citizen of any country is conscious of his nationality whenever he realizes that he has a common origin with his compatriots. Language is merely the outward form of this feeling. But without its unifying influence national solidarity cannot be perfected.
The growth of modern European nations and the spread of their languages have been parallel developments. This parallelism is founded on the material ties no less than on the spiritual affinity which bind men to the earth. To furnish evidence of this relationship lies within the province of geography. Historical testimony is also at hand to show that political and linguistic frontiers have tended to coincide during the past two centuries, except where artificial measures have been brought into play. Broadly it may be submitted that the advance of civilization in most countries has been marked by the progress of nationality, while nationality itself has been consolidated by identity of speech.
Language areas, in common with many other facts of geography, have been largely determined by the character of the surface or climate. Occurrences such as the extension of Polish speech to the Carpathian barrier or the restriction of Flemish to the lowland of northwestern central Europe, are not the work of mere chance. An investigation of linguistic boundaries, therefore, implies recognition of the selective influence of surface features. But the influence of region upon expansion or confinement of language is far from absolute. The part played by economic factors will be shown in the following pages to have been of prime importance.
Considered as political boundaries, linguistic lines of cleavage have two-fold importance. They are sanctioned by national aspirations and they conform to a notable degree with physical features. Every linguistic area considered in these pages bears evidence of relation between language and its natural environment. A basis of delimitation is therefore provided by nature. Eastern extension of French to the Vosges, confinement of Czech to a plateau inclosed by mountains, uniformity of language in open plains and river basins, all are examples of the evidence provided by geography for statesmen engaged in the task of revising boundaries.
Europe may be aptly regarded as a vast field of settlement where the native element has, again and again, been swamped by successive flows of immigrants proceeding from every point of the compass. The wanderings of these invaders have been directed, in part, into channels provided by the main mountain ranges of Eurasia. Valleys or plains which favored expansion of nationality were, at the same time, the avenues through which languages spread. The barrier boundary of the Mediterranean basin contains a number of important breaches on the north[1] which facilitated the mingling of the Nordic race with Mediterranean men after it had mixed with Alpine peoples. Within historic times men of Celtic speech have been driven westward by Teutons, who also pressed Slavs in the opposite direction. The consequence is that few Frenchmen or Germans of our day can lay claim to racial purity. Northern France is perhaps more Teutonic than southern Germany, while eastern Germany is, in many places, more Slavic than Russia. To ascribe political significance to race is therefore as difficult today as it was when Roman citizenship meant infinitely more in comparison.
Nationality, however, an artificial product derived from racial raw material, confers distinctiveness based on history. It is the cultivated plant, blossoming on racial soil and fertilized by historical association. In the words of Ossian: "It is the voice of years that have gone; they roll before me with all their deeds." Men alone cannot constitute nationality. A nation is the joint product of men and ideas. A heritage of ideals and traditions held in common and accumulated during centuries becomes, in time, the creation of the land to which it is confined.
Language, the medium in which is expressed successful achievement or hardship shared in common, acquires therefore cementing qualities. It is the bridge between the past and the present. Its value as the cohesive power of nationality is superseded, in rare instances, by ideals similarly based on community of tradition, hope, or in some cases religion. In speech or writing, words give life to the emotion which nationality stirs in the heart or to the reasoning which it awakens in the mind.
The distinction between the conceptions of race, language and nationality should, at the very outset, be clearly established. Race deals with man both as a physical creature and as a being endowed with spiritual qualities. Tall, blond men constitute a race distinct from their fellows who combine stockiness and brunetness. The basis of differentiation in this case is anatomical. Hence, to talk of an English or Persian race is erroneous. Every nation contains people endowed with widely different physiques, owing to the extensive intermingling of races which has taken place in the course of the million years during which the earth has been inhabited. To be precise, our conception of racial differences must conform to classifications recognized by modern anthropologists. We shall therefore consider the Mediterranean, Alpine and Nordic races-to mention only those composed of white men-and we shall find that they all blend in European nationalities.
Fig. 1-View of the "route d'Italie" or road to Italy at the extreme southeastern border of France and well inside the small area of Italian language lying within the French political boundary.
Take, as an example, the racial elements entering into the composition of French nationality. The dominating type, in northern France, belongs to the tall, narrow-headed Nordic race, with blue eyes and fair hair. Frenchmen with these characteristics are descendants of Franks and Gauls who settled in the northern plains of the Paris basin. In Brittany and the Massif Central, however, a round-headed and dark type, short and stockily built, is scattered over the two main piles of Archean mountains which still remain exposed to view. In the Aquitaine basin, as well as in the Lower Rhone valley, the narrow-headed Mediterranean race, with dark eyes and hair, is everywhere evident in the short, brunet inhabitants.
Ripley adheres to the racial segregation of European man in the three groups enumerated above. But a further reduction can be established on a purely geographical basis, with the result that Europeans may be classed primarily either as highlanders or lowlanders. Anthropological classification fits admirably in this dual distinction, since the inhabitants of European mountain lands belong to the round-head type while the dwellers of the depressions north and south of the central uplifts have long heads.
From the conception of race we attain that of people by considering the second as derived from the mingling of the first. Intercourse...
