Eastern Minor Literatures

Abstract

Colonization by various European countries — the Netherlands, Great Britain and France among them — has meant that most Eastern countries have produced little more than embryos of indigenous literatures. The native languages themselves — let alone their scripts — have had little opportunity to develop. Those that have been insubstantially productive (e.g. Buryat literature), and have shown no true development, have only been briefly discussed, although (as in the case of Malta) sometimes individual writers have been mentioned. (Eastern literatures of countries within the USSR have been assigned to Western Minor Literatures.)