They should not permit this, but should whip them and beat them—I will not say slay them, though this holy man beheaded them; for in later times Christ the merciful king would not allow the adultress to be immediately sentenced to death. Thus also should we behave that the Bohemian language perish not. If a Bohemian marries a German, the children must immediately learn Bohemian and not divide their speech in two (speak partly Bohemian, partly German). For this division causes but jealousy, dissension, anger, and quarrels. Therefore did the Emperor Charles, King of Bohemia, of holy memory, order the citizens of Prague to teach their children Bohemian, to speak it, and to plead at law in Bohemian in the town hall, which the Germans call ‘Rothaus.’ And just as Nehemiah, when he heard Jewish children speaking partly in the speech of Ashdod, and not knowing Hebrew (well), whipped them and beat them, thus would those citizens of Prague deserve a whipping, as well as those other Bohemians whose speech is half Bohemian and half German—men who use such German words as Hantuch, Knedlik, Shorz, Hauszknecht.[1] And who can describe how greatly they have confused (rendered unintelligible) the Bohemian language? Therefore a true Bohemian who listens to them, and hears them speak, understands not what they say. Thence spring ill-will, envy, dissensions, quarrels, and dishonour to Bohemia.”
This curious passage shows how strongly developed the feeling of racial antipathy between Bohemians and Germans was at the beginning of the fifteenth century. How fully Hus felt with his countrymen is proved by the fact that so pious and kind-hearted a man did not hesitate, following the example of the Hebrew prophet, to place the marrying of a foreign wife
- ↑ I have preserved Hus’s spelling of the one or two German words given above. The Bohemian language is so little known in England that it would be useless to translate this passage in full. Hus gives a list of Bohemian words, and adds the corrupted word derived from the German which had taken its place in popular parlance.
