SLA'VI0 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, The term Slavic, as applied to language or race, is a generic name (like Celtic or Teutonic) for a group of kindred languages and peoples belonging to the great Indo-Germanic or Aryan family. In its roots and struc ture the Slavic language exhibits a remarkable similarity to Sanskrit, but has become European, so to speak, in the course of a long literary development, begun before that of any of the other European families. Its peculiarities are quite marked. The leading characteristics of the Slavic tongues are the completeness of their system of declensions, the want of articles, the absence of pronouns in the conjugation of the verb, pure vowel endings, the fixed quantity of the syllables, the free construction of sentences, and the richness of their vocabulary. The earliest dialect of Slavic that received a literary cul ture was the "old Bulgarian," better known as the "church Slavic," which, however, failed to become the literary vehicle for all the Slavic peoples, inasmuch as the special dialect of each gradually acquired a literature of its own. Altogether, writers reckon
eight distinct extant dialects of Slavic-1. The "new Bulgarian ;" 2. The Russian; 3. The Servian or Illyrian; 4. The Polish; 5. The 6. The Slovak; 7. The Wendic; 8. The Polabic. Such of these as merit special treatment have received it.
—See BOHEMIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, POLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, SERVIAN LANGUAGE AND regard to Slavic literature, considering the articles just mentioned, it is only necessary to state that at present the Russian branch of the Slavic is the richest in the number of its published works; but, as regards literary merit, the Polish ranks firdt, having cultivated with success almost all sorts of `literature, and possessing in particular a very exquisite poetry. The Bohemian and Servian literatures both contain many fine and distinctively original productions, worthy of being more widely known than they are. —See Schafarik's History of the Slavic Language and Literature (1816); and Miclosich's Vergl. Grammatik der Slaw. Spracken (Vienna, 1852-71).