Judging from geographical names, as we find them on the common maps, Courland, as compared with Liefland, seems the more Germanized country of the two.
Courland and Liefland are the areas of the Lett, or Lettonian division of the Lithuanic stock; Vilna and Grodno are Proper Lithuanian--Lithuanian Proper and Samogitian. The later intrusions are from Poland. The Russian elements, too, of Vilna and Grodno have been Polonized; unless we prefer to say that the Pole elements have been Russianized. This means that when the language of Lithuania is neither the true Polish nor the true Lithuanic, it is what is called _White_ Russian, a Poloniform dialect of the Russ. The geographical names in Vilna are easily distinguished from the Muscovite. The derivatives in -_skaja_, so common in St. Petersburg and Novogorod, are replaced by forms in -_ichki_.
The Lithuanian nations of the Jaczwingi and Pollexiani extended, at the beginning of the historical period, as far south as the Marsh of Pinsk, at the head-waters of the Pripecz, so that the northern part of Minsk was Lithuanic in the tenth century. All prolongations beyond this are ethnological rather than historical, _i.e._, they rest on inference rather than testimony.
The eastern part of Minsk, on the strength of the word Narym[15] is considered to have been Ugrian. The whole government is at present Russian, with (as is supposed) a Lithuanic and Ugrian basis; the Neuri, whether Ugrians, Lithuanians, or Ugro-Lithuanians having formed a portion of its oldest population.
Volhynia is considered to have been originally Lithuanic, for two reasons--the necessity of bringing down the early Lithuanic area as far in one direction as Gallicia, and as far in another as the Lower Don.
Podolia is Maloruss, or Russniak, its present population having been an extension of the Gallician Russniaks. It is considered to have been originally Lithuanic, from the necessity of bringing that area towards the Lower Don.
Kherson and Ekaterinoslav are eminently heterogeneous. Ugrian, perhaps, at first: they then became Lithuanic, then Skolotic, Hun, Avar, Alan, Khazar, Mongol, and Russian, not to mention recent colonies of Germans and Armenians. The extent to which the heterogeneous population of these parts differs from that of the more Slavonic governments of Russia, and approaches that of the true Turk areas is shown by the name _Little Tartary_, and _New Russia_, by which they are often designated.