-as the
Polish, Bohemian, Malo-Russian, Servian, and Vindish--is more broken
up into different dialects than perhaps any living tongue. In its
original elements it is very nearly related to the Old Slavic
language;[54] a fact which is easy to be explained, when we consider
that the development of this language must have been the result of the
primitive cultivation of the Slavi; and that the region about the
Carpathian mountains, the seat of the ancient as well as of the
present Slovaks, was the cradle of all the Slavic nations which are
now spread over the whole of eastern Europe. Of all living Slavic
tongues, the Bohemian is the nearest related to the Slovakish,
especially as it appears in the oldest Bohemian writers; a
circumstance which induced Dobrovsky at first to consider both
languages as essentially the same; or rather to maintain, that the
Slovakish was nothing more than Old Bohemian. But after entering more
deeply into the subject, he found reason to regard the Slovakish idiom
as a separate dialect, which forms the link of connection between
the Bohemian and Croatian-Vindish dialects, or between the two
principal divisions, the Eastern and Western stems, of the great
Slavic family.[55]

To enumerate the features by which the Slovakish dialects are
distinguished from the other Slavic languages, would oblige us to
enter more into detail than would be acceptable to persons not
acquainted with any of them; as we may suppose to be the case with
most of our readers. Besides, most of the peculiarities which could be
alleged as _general_ characteristics, are contradicted by so many
single cases, that all general rules would be in danger of being
rendered void by a plurality of exceptions. The only thing which
belongs to the Slovaks alone, and is not common to any of the other
Slavic tongues, is a variety of diphthongs where all the rest have
simple vowels; e.g. _kuon_, horse, for _kon; lieucz_, light, for
_lucz_, etc. In the counties situated on the frontiers of Galicia, the
Slovakish language participates in many of the peculiarities of the
Polish tongue; on the frontier of Moravia, the dialect of the people
approaches nearer to the vernacular idiom of that province, and
consequently to the Bohemian; which has been adopted as their own
literary language. On the Slovaks who live more in the interior of the
country, the influence of the Magyars, or of the Transylvanian-Germans,
or of the Russniaks, or of the Servians