Abstract
As an exponent of human geography, Dr. Vaughan Cornish is always stimulating. In the present study, he deals with the debatable borderlands of Europe. As the result of an examination of linguistic frontiers, in which he has traced their history backward, he has in almost every instance been able to arrive at a definite date of origin for such borderlands. This he finds falls within the period when the district under investigation was situated On the frontiers of Christendom. In the west, these linguistic boundaries perpetuate conditions in the political geography of Europe at the time of the collapse of the Western Empire. Thus, for example, the line of demarcation between French and German near Belfort follows the line of the political frontier between Christian Burgundians and heathen Alamannians in the fifth and sixth centuries ; while an even more striking instance of the politico-religious frontier is to be seen in the German-speaking population of the Italian province of Alto Adige, who are the survivors of heathen Bavarians who crossed Rhaetia and retained their pagan customs in the mountains until 730. The like argument is applied to the linguistic frontiers of eastern Europe. For these studies the author stresses the importance of the ecclesiastical map of medieval Europe, which is brought out most clearly in his examination of conditions in Bosnia, as a borderland of nationality and race, where peoples of the same language joined different churches.
Borderlands of Language in Europe:
and their Relation to the Historic Frontier of Christendom. By Vaughan Cornish. Pp. x + 105. (London: Sifton Praed and Co., Ltd., 1936.) 6s. net.
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Borderlands of Language in Europe:. Nature 140, 994 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/140994b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/140994b0