The present distribution of the Lithuanian populations, is second only in importance to that of the Ugrians. Livonia is the most convenient starting-point. Here it is spoken at present; though not aboriginal to the province. The Polish, German, and Russian languages have encroached on the Lithuanian, the Lithuanian on the Ugrian. It is the Lett branch of the Lithuanian which is spoken by the Letts of Livonia (Liefland) _but not by the Liefs_. The same is the case in Courland. East Prussia lies beyond the Russian empire, but it is not unnecessary to state that, as late as the sixteenth century, a Lithuanian tongue was spoken there. Vilna, Grodno, and Vitepsk are the proper Lithuanian provinces. There, the original proper Lithuanic tongue still survives; uncultivated, and day by day suffering from the encroachment of the Russian, but, withal, in the eyes of the ethnologist, the most important language in Europe.
The _Tartar_ provinces come next, or, to speak more correctly, the _Turk_. _Tartar_, however, is the usual term, and as _Tartary_ is the recognised name of the country to the east of the Caspian, it is not likely to be got rid of; nor yet to be changed into the more correct form _Tahtah_. The stock, however, is that to which the Ottoman Turks of Turkey, along with numerous other powerful and important populations, belong. Kasan, Oremberg, and Astrakhan are the chief Turk provinces. A portion, too, of New Russia is Turk. The date of their introduction is the thirteenth century; the empire to which they belonged being that of the successors of Zengis Khan.
The peculiarities of the distribution of the Turks of Russia is explained by their history. Of Southern Russia, as well as of the south-eastern provinces, they were once the exclusive masters. This makes the Russian population of Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, the Don Kosak country, and the greater part of Taurida, of recent origin; indeed, it is not only recent but mixed, and it is called _New_ Russian.
Podolia, Kiev, Pultava, Kharkhov, are what is called Malorussian, or _Little_ Russian. The dialect differs notably from that of the Muscovite of the central governments, and has its affinities in a different direction, since it very closely resembles the Russniak of Gallicia. And in Gallicia it probably originated. At the same time the three dialects, the Russniak, the Maloruss, and the Muscovite (or Great Russian) are mutually intelligible. Between these two branches of the Russian family a strong national antipathy exists.