The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe. Leon Dominian
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 Its value as the cohesive power of nationality is superseded, in rare instances, by ideals similarly based on community of tradition, hope, or in some cases religion.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 between the three great races of Europe has always existed as a result of migratory movements. The impulse to wander, however much it differed in each known instance, can usually be traced to a single determining cause, definable as the quest after comfort. This was the motive which led men of the Nordic race to abandon their uncomfortable habitat in the north. The same feeling was experienced by Alpine mountaineers as they descended towards attractive lowlands north and south of their rough mountain homes.
Nordics moving to the south and Alpines crowding toward the lowland converged upon one another. No meeting of human beings, in the entire history of mankind, has been fraught with consequences of wider reach than the contact between members of these, the two hardiest races which the world has produced. European nationalities and Aryan languages were born in those momentous meetings. The zone of contact extended from the northwestern, lowland fringe of continental Europe to the saucer-shaped land of Polesia. Along the depressed margin of western Europe a heavy flow of Mediterranean men, moving constantly northward, introduced a third element in the racial constituents of French and British populations. Each of the three races contributed a characteristic share of physical and moral traits to the spirit of nationality in Europe. The Nordics left the impress of their northern vigor wherever they passed. Their native restlessness, the joint product of cold weather and a hard life, became converted into a magnificent spirit of enterprise whenever it blended with Alpine hardiness or Mediterranean ambition. The Alpines, often considered as the intellectual type, also imparted the virility of highland physiques as they migrated to the lowland. Last, but not least, Mediterranean men contributed the softness of their native character as well as the fine qualities due to a keen artistic sense. The fusion of the three races was accompanied by the creation of the three great groups of European peoples, known as Celts, Teutons and Slavs. The differentiation of these peoples from the fused group occurred at an early period and was probably in full swing towards the close of the Neolithic.
We are thus led to picture the early home of Celtic dialects on territory now falling under French, Dutch and German rule. It is not unlikely that England and Ireland are areas of expansion of this language. Eastward, it is known that the Celtic territory extended at least as far as the Elbe. Beyond, in the same direction, an ever widening wedge of Teutonic area interposed itself between Celts and Slavs. The prehistoric home of the Teutons will be found in the region around the western extremity of the Baltic Sea. It comprised southern Sweden, Jutland, the German Baltic coast to the Oder and the Baltic islands as far as Gothland. The Slav’s original homeland had its site on an imperfectly drained lake-bed extending westward from the middle Dnieper valley to the Niemen and Priepet marshland.
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Fig. 2—Schwarzwald scenery. A region of transitional dialects between High and Low German.
From east to west on the Eurasian land mass the three main forms of language occupy strictly geographical settings. Monosyllabic Chinese lies rigid and lifeless within its barriers of high mountains and vast seas. The static condition of Chinese civilization is reflected in the changeless form of its language. A new idea requires a new word and a corresponding symbol. In the wild and wide-stretching steppes of Siberia, communication of thought or feeling is maintained through the medium of agglutinative forms of speech. Grammatically, this marks an improvement over the monosyllabic language. In the case considered here it expresses the restlessness and mobility of steppe life. At the same time inferiority of civilization is revealed by poverty of ideas and consequently of words. In the west, however, whether we consider western Asia or Europe, we deal with the world’s best nursery of civilization. In those regions are found the highly inflected and flexible languages of the Aryan and Semitic families. The grammar of these languages—a mere adaptation to superior requirements of order and method—renders them particularly responsive to the constant improvement in thought which characterizes western countries.
Aryan languages are spoken all the way from northern India to Europe’s westernmost confines. This territory comprises the western extension of the central belt of high Eurasian mountains together with its fringing lowlands. In its elevated portion it is the domain of the Alpine race and of the Nordic in its depressed northern border. On the other hand, that portion of the northern Eurasian grasslands which extends into Europe forms part of the area of Uralo-Altaic languages. It is sometimes contended that the original home of Aryan languages was situated in northern Europe, where full-blooded northerners now speak languages belonging to this family. But the weight of evidence in favor of a central European origin will seem almost decisive when we remember that culture and civilization have invariably proceeded from temperate regions. The Aryans issued at first from the contact of northern European lowlanders with the highlanders of central Europe, subsequently mingled with the inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin. As they migrated southward they must