Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories Rendered into English. Anonymous

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СКАЧАТЬ comparative philology briefly sketched above. The analogy is so complete that it is almost unnecessary to elaborate it in detail. It is obvious that safety and scholarship lie in the following line of investigation. A European group of folk-lore must first be established, and the dependence on an earlier common stock demonstrated. But the historical connection stands foremost, and the fixing, more or less definitely, of the time of its appearance in the form in which it now exists. In adopting this line of investigation, it will then become unscientific to postulate early survivals for elements that may date from a comparatively recent period, and for which an explanation can be found by this historical and comparative study. And just as it has happened in the case of the study of comparative philology, so it will happen that we shall be in a much better position to separate and to appreciate the individual character of the folk-lore of each nation, the form which the common stock assumes under the psychical and cultural conditions which characterise its spiritual life. This method will give us also the key to the ethno-psychology, the ultimate aim and goal of folk-lore studies. No doubt some higher unity may possibly emerge out of this historical investigation, for which again the study of comparative philology offers us the best parallel. Separate groups may be formed of European and Asiatic folk-lore. The artificial geographical division need not form the separating barrier either in folk-lore, or, as has been proved, in the study of language. But to continue the method of haphazard parallelism and indiscriminate comparison between old and new will be indefensible. It will be found that even in the so-called immutable East continual changes have taken place which do not allow us to assume favourable conditions of continuity and “survivals.” Still less is this the case with the peoples who concern us more directly, the inhabitants of the south-eastern part of Europe. One has only to cast a glance at the medley of nationalities inhabiting the Balkan Peninsula and the neighbourhood to realise the profound differences of faith, origin and language of Greeks and Albanians, Slavs and Rumanians, Hungarians and Saxons, and one is forced to the conclusion that whatever these may possess in common is not a survival from olden times, but must have come to them at a time when they were all living together in that part of Europe, subject to one common influence strong enough to leave an indelible impression on their imagination.

      This result is unavoidable if we remember also the past history of these countries. They have been swept over by nations, one more barbarous than another, one more ruthless than another, and none remaining there long enough to become a decisive factor in the formation of the existing nationalities. Dacians and Pelasgians, Romans and Goths, Petchenegs and Cumans, Alans and Huns, Tartars and Hungarians, Bulgars, Slavs and Turks have succeeded one another with great rapidity, not to mention the numerous colonies of Armenians, Syrians and Gipsies planted in the heart of the Byzantine Empire by the foreign rulers on the throne of Byzantium. It would be a sheer miracle if anything of ancient times could have survived. Assuming even the theoretical possibility of such a miracle—and those who hold strongly to such a theory of unqualified survivals evidently do believe in such miracles—even then it will remain to be shown, with whom these ancient beliefs and tales originated and survived. The romantic legend may have, and practically has, been forgotten in its entirety. Out of one of the episodes have grown the popular Rumanian poems of the Wanderer.

      If folk-lore is to become an exact science I venture to think that the problem of survivals will have to undergo a serious re-examination. We shall have to revise our views and try to define more precisely the method according to which we ought to label certain practices, customs and tales as survivals, and also to determine the period to which such survivals may be ascribed. A primary condition consists in establishing historical continuity and ethnical unity.

      If nations of diverse origin and of different ages possess the same tales and practices, it follows that this common property cannot be a survival, but each must have received all these at a certain fixed date simultaneously, quite independent of their own ethnical or historical and local past. All of them must have been standing under one and the same levelling influence. This new influence may have brought with it some older elements belonging to different traditions and to a different past, and introduced them among these nations, as in the case of the Barlaam legend or that of the legend of St. George and the Dragon; but though locally accepted and assimilated they are not original constituent elements of the local folk-lore of these nations. These were only adopted and assimilated materials brought from elsewhere. They are not local survivals.

      The analogy between the study of folk-lore and that of comparative philology can be pursued profitably much further. It may prove of decisive importance. It is not an indifferent question as to whether language and ethnic character are interchangeable terms. Russified Tartars, Magyarised Rumanians, Anglicised Hindoos will speak Russian, Hungarian or English as the case may be, but this will not change their ethnical character. They will remain what they were: Tartars, Rumanians or Hindoos. Thus also nothing can be proved for the specific origins of folk-lore if found among any one of these nations; it may be just as much Tartar as Russian, Rumanian or Hungarian, etc., for it can easily have been taken over with the language.

      The fact that these tales are found in Rumania and are told by Rumanian peasants is in itself not yet sufficient proof of their indigenous origin. We are taken out of the region of hypothetical speculation into that of concrete facts by modern philology. In the first place, it is put on record, on the irrefutable evidence of the modern languages themselves, that there is no nation in Europe which speaks a language of its own so pure as to be free from admixture with foreign elements. All owe their very origin, in fact, to this clash of languages, which was the determining factor in their creation and form. English is typical in that respect in the west, and Rumanian in the east of Europe. Both languages have been born through the combined forces of at least two different languages. In England, through the violent Norman conquest, French was superimposed upon Anglo-Saxon. In Rumania, through peaceful penetration and religious influence, Slavonic became part of the Rumanian language.

      If, then, we should examine each of the European languages to find the various elements of which they are composed, we should be able to trace the origin of much that is also the spiritual property of these nations. Every word borrowed from another language represents a new idea, a fresh notion taken from elsewhere and embodied. We can study the history of nations from their vocabulary. We can trace the migrations of the Gipsies by the foreign words now in their language. The proportion of these alien elements helps us to determine the period which elapsed since they went from one nation to another. The large number of Rumanian words in the Gipsy language shows that the Gipsies must have lived a long time peaceably among the Rumanians, and the Rumanian words in all the dialects of the Gipsy, from Spain to Siberia, are conclusive evidence for the fact that Rumania was a centre of diffusion for the European Gipsy. And yet step by step one can follow up a modification; small at the confines of the Balkans, it grows greater the further it is carried westwards.

      The conclusion is obvious. In Rumanian, the language is preponderantly of a Latin origin, but other tongues come in to make up its present character. A comparatively large proportion of the popular language—which alone is of importance—is Slavonic; then follow in decreasing proportions Hungarian, modern Greek, Turkish and Albanian elements, but scarcely any trace of a more ancient local language. In the Hungarian language there is a large proportion of Slavonic, then of Rumanian and German elements. The other languages of the Balkans show a similar mixture of heterogeneous influences. So thorough has been this process of assimilation that the original Tartarian language of the Bulgars, who hailed from the Volga—hence their name—has entirely disappeared. The same has happened with the Cumans in Hungary. If there is anything tenacious it is undoubtedly the human language, the means of satisfying one’s daily wants. And yet there is constant change and assimilation going on all the time, one nation borrows freely from its neighbour and enriches its own treasury with the possessions of the others. How easily, then, could a philologist of the eighteenth century, who wanted to compare these languages among themselves, by collecting similar words haphazard prove that Rumanian was Turkish, that Hungarian was Slavonic and that Bulgarian was Greek, or on finding some Albanian words in Rumanian and Bulgarian how easily could he declare these languages to be survivals of the ancient mythical Pelasgians with whom the Albanians were connected. Thanks to our modern comparative СКАЧАТЬ