TSAR, CZAR AND SAR.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume X, Issue 88, 7 February 1907, Page 2

TSAR, CZAR AND SAR.

Though we occasionally read in the newspapers of the Czar, referring to Nicholas 11., he is almost universally designated as the Tsar. Though many learned etymologists have said that the national title of the Russian Sovereign is a corruption of the word Caesar, like tire German Kaiser this is a mistake. The cause of the error is that at the beginning of the eighteenth century we know the Russians only through the Poles, with whom we had long international intercourse before we became acquainted with the Muscovites. The word "Czar” is the , Polish form of the word "Tsar” with the slight difference in the pronunciation which distinguishes the two words derived from the Slavonic language. The Russians, like all the Slavs, belong to the Greek Church, using the Cyrillic alphabet, containing 38 signs still employed in the sacred language, but reduced to 31 in the common language. Tho Catholic Slavs, like the Poles, having kept the Latin alphabet of 24 signs, were compelled to resort to the combination of double letters to take the place of the sibillant consonants which are found in the Cyrillic alphabet. The “cz” forms one of these combinations ; hence the Polish orthography, which vras adopted at first by soma illustrious writers like Voltaire and Saint-Simon. The same rule applies to the derivatives of the word "Tsar”— I Tsarine, Tsarevna, Tsarevitch. Those words are even spelled Cesarin, Cesarevna, and Csarevitoh, as a.tribute to their imaginary origin. But the word "Tsar” has no Latin etymology, and is not a translation of the word Caesar.