We thus distinguish among the nations of the Slavic race two great families, the connection of whose members among each other is entirely independent of their present geographical situation; and this division rests upon a marked distinction in the Slavic language.  To specify the marks, by which the philologist recognizes to which of these families each nation belongs, seems to be here out of place.  The reader, without knowing the language itself, would hardly be able to comprehend them sufficiently; and he who understands it, will find better sources of information in philological works.  All that concerns us here, is the general character, the genius of the language.  For this purpose we will try to give in a few words a general outline of its grammar; exhibiting principally those features, which, as being common to all or most of its different dialects, seem to be the best adapted to express its general character.

The analogy between the Slavic and the Sanscrit languages consists indeed only in the similar sound of a great many words; the construction of the former is purely European, and it has in this respect a nearer relation to the Greek, Latin, and German; with which idioms it has evidently been derived from the same source.[13] The Slavic has three genders.  Like the Latin, it knows no article; at least not the genuine Slavic; for those dialects which have lost their national character, like the Bulgarian, or those which have been corrupted by the influence of the German,[14] employ the demonstrative pronoun as an article; and the Bulgarian has borrowed the Albanian mode of suffixing one to the noun.  For this very reason the declensions are more perfect in Slavic than in German and Greek; for the different cases, as in Latin, are distinguished by suffixed syllables or endings.  The Singular has seven cases; the Plural only six, the vocative having always the form of the nominative.  As for the Dual, a form which the Slavic languages do not all possess, the nominative and accusative, the genitive and local; the dative and instrumental cases, are always alike.

For the declensions of adjectives the Slavic has two principal forms, according as they are definite or indefinite.  The Old or Church Slavonic knows only two degrees of comparison, the positive and comparative; it has no superlative, or rather it has the same form for the comparative and superlative.  This is regularly made by the suffix ii. mostly united with one of those numerous sibilants, for which the English language has hardly letters or signs, sh, tsh, sht, shtsh, etc.  In the more modern dialects this deficiency has been supplied; in most of them a superlative form is made by prefixing the particle nai; e.g. in Servian, mudar, wise, mudrii wiser, naimudrii, the wisest.  The Russian, besides this and several other superlative forms, has one that is more perfect, as proceeding from the adjective itself:  doroghii dear,