: The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe by Dominian Leon - Nationalism; Europe Languages

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INTRODUCTION xiii

INDEX 367

LIST OF PLATES

INTRODUCTION

BY MADISON GRANT

Mr. Dominian's book on "The Frontiers of Language and Nationality" is the logical outcome of the articles written by him in 1915 in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society under the titles of "Linguistic Areas in Europe: Their Boundaries and Political Significance" and "The Peoples of Northern and Central Asiatic Turkey." In the present work the problems arising from the distribution of main European languages and from their relation to political boundaries are discussed with clearness and brilliancy. The text embodies a vast collection of facts and data laboriously collected by the author, who has applied to the subject his familiarity with Eastern languages, as well as an impartial vision which is hard to find in these days when our judgments are so warped by the tragedy of the Great War.

The difficulty of depicting conditions geographically in colors or with symbols is of necessity very great. The peasants who form the majority of the population of most European states often speak a different language or dialect from that of the educated upper classes, and such lines of linguistic cleavage frequently represent lines of race distinction as well. For example, in Transylvania the language of about sixty per cent of the inhabitants is Rumanian, while the literary, military and land-owning classes speak either Magyar or German, and these Hungarians and Saxons, in addition to forming everywhere the ruling class, are gathered together in many places in compact communities. A similar condition of affairs exists along the eastern boundary of the German Empire, except that here the speech of the peasants is Polish and that of the dominant classes German.

The preparation of the maps which accompany this volume has been a task of peculiar difficulty. It is an easy matter to show by colors the language spoken by actual majorities, but such a delineation frequently fails to indicate the true literary language of the nation. Mr. Dominian's solution of these difficulties has been a very successful one, and the resultant maps are really of great value, especially where they deal with little-known frontiers and obscure lines of demarcation, such as the eastern and western frontiers of the German Empire.

In spite of exceptions, language gives us the best lines for the boundaries of political units whenever those frontiers conform to marked topographical features such as mountain systems. In many cases where the boundaries of language and nationality coincide they are found to lie along the crest of mountains or a well-defined watershed, often along the base of plateaus or elevated districts, and very seldom along rivers. But the boundaries of nationality and of language, when they do coincide, seldom correspond with those of race, and political boundaries are more transitory and shifting than those of either language or race.

There are a few nations in Europe, chiefly small states, which are composed of sharply contrasted languages and races, such as Belgium, where the lowlands are inhabited by Flemish-speaking Teutons, and the uplands by French-speaking Alpines. Belgium is an artificial political unit of modern creation, and consequently highly unstable. The Belgian upper classes are bilingual, a condition which precedes a change of language, and unless Flanders becomes united to Holland or Germany it is more than probable that French speech will ultimately predominate there also.

Among the Celtic-speaking peoples, we have in the highlands of Scotland, in the mountains of Wales, in western Ireland and in the interior of Brittany, remnants of two distinct forms of Celtic speech. These diverse populations have, in common, only their Celtic speech, and are not related, one to the other, by race. As a matter of fact, the Scotch, the Welsh and the Bretons are excellent representatives of the three most divergent races of Europe. The Armorican-speaking Bretons are Alpine by race, the Cymric-speaking Welshmen are Mediterranean, while the Gaelic-speaking Scots are Nordic. In short, there is today neither a Celtic race nor any recognizable remnant of it. If one of these three peoples be Celtic in bodily characters, the other two must of necessity not be Celtic, and furthermore, if we designate any one of the three as Celtic by race, we must include in that term other distant populations which by no stretch of the imagination can be so regarded.

The literary revival of some Celtic dialects may be interesting, but it will only serve to keep the Celtic-speaking populations still more out of touch with the march of modern progress. In the long run the fate of Erse, Gaelic, Cymric and Armorican is certain. They will be engulfed by the French language on the continent, and by the English speech in the British Isles, just as Cornish and Manx have become extinct within a century.

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