The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of EuropeBénézet, Louis Paul
History
The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of Europe
Bénézet, Louis Paul
Europe -- History; World War, 1914-1918 -- Causes
The Germanic languages (sometimes called Teutonic) are found in
three parts of Europe today. The Scandinavian languages, Danish,
Norwegian, and Swedish, belong to this family. Western Austria
and Germany form, with Holland and Western Belgium, a second
group of German-speaking nations. (The people of eastern Belgium
are Celts and talk a kind of French.) The third part of Europe
which uses a Germanic language is England.
In an earlier chapter we learned how the Celts in France, Spain,
and Portugal gave up their own languages and used the Latin.
Latin languages today are found also in the southern and western
parts of Switzerland, all over Italy, and in Roumania.
We learned also about the Slavs who lived to the eastward of the
Germanic tribes. When the Germans moved west, these Slavs
followed them and occupied the lands which had just been left
vacant. In this way, we find Slavic peoples talking Slavic
(sometimes called Slavonic) languages in the parts of Europe to
the east and south of the Germans. More than half of the
inhabitants of Austria-Hungary are Slavs, although the Austrians
proper are a Germanic people, and the Hungarians do not belong to
the Indo-European family at all. The Serbians and Montenegrins
are Slavs. The Poles and Russians are Slavs. The Bulgarians speak
a Slavic language and have some Slavic blood in them, although,
as will be pointed out later, originally they did not belong to
the Slavic family.
[Illustration: Map: Distribution Of Peoples According to Relationship]
The Greeks and Albanians belong to the great Indo-European family
of tribes, but their languages are not closely related to any of
the four great branches.
[Illustration: Distribution Of Languages]
The two maps on pages 65 and 66 are very much alike and yet in
some respects very different. The first shows how Europe is
largely inhabited by peoples of the great Indo-European family.
Those who are descended from the Celts are marked Celtic even
though today they have given up their Celtic language, as have
the Cornish in England and the inhabitants of Spain, France,
eastern Belgium, and the greater part of Ireland. The Bulgarians
are marked as not belonging to the great family, although they
speak a Slavic language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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