before the permanent settlement there of the Czechs. Julius Cæsar in his “Commentaries on the Gallic Wars” speaks frequently of the “Boji” and “Marcomanni.” The word “Boii” was in the Latinized form, “Bojohemum,” applied to the country of those early Celts who had occupied the country and eventually the name “Bojohemum” was changed to “Bohemia.” In the later days, the Slav inhabitants became known as “Bohemians” to the outside races unfamiliar with the correct term “Čech” which to facilitate pronunciation by non-Slavs is written “Czech.” The “Cz” is pronounced like “Ch” in “child,” the “e” like in “net,” and the final “ch” is pronounced like “h” sounded gutturally.
When the Magyars or Hungarians, a Mongolian tribe, invaded Hungary, they spelled disaster to Slavic unity for, linguistically and racially, they were so different from the Czechs and Slovaks that they have ever been a scourge and a menace to those two Slavic peoples.
The Slovaks, most nearly allied in language and customs to the Czechs, occupy the fields and Carpathian mountains of northern Hungary. A splendid and ancient history is theirs though in latter centuries it has become one continuous record of bitter oppression suffered first at the hands of the Tatar invaders and then from the cruel Magyars of Hungary and of the always privileged Germans of the Hapsburg domain. Slovakia suffered the misfortune of being incorporated with Hungary in the tenth century and Magyarization has gone on relentlessly as a result. The Slovak language has been wonderfully developed since the time of Anton Bernolák but every means, every fiendish device has been used by the Magyars to utterly exterminate the
