Rusyn language

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Rusyn /ˈruːsɨn/ (Rusyn: русиньска бесїда or русиньскый язык), also known in English as Ruthene UK /rʊˈθiːn/US /ruːˈθiːn/ (sometimes Ruthenian), is an East Slavic language variety spoken by the Rusyns of Eastern Europe. Some linguists treat it as a distinct language and it has its own ISO 639-3 code; some Ukrainian scholars treat it as a dialect of Ukrainian. Each categorisation has controversial political implications.

Rusyn
русиньский язык, русиньска бесїдаrusyn’skyj jazyk, rusyn’ska besjida
Region	Vojvodina Minority language: Croatia Poland Romania Serbia Slovakia
Native speakers	620,000 (2000–2006) Census population: 70,000. These are numbers from national official bureaus for statistics: Slovakia – 33,482 Serbia – 15,626 Ukraine – 6,725 Poland – 10,000 Croatia – 2,337 Hungary – 1,113 Czech Republic – 777
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Rusyn
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rue
Glottolog	rusy1239
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ec < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eca to 53-AAA-ecc)
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols.Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead of Unicode characters.

Geographical distribution

Ethnic map of Austria-Hungary; Ukrainians (“Ruthenians”) are light green, in the upper right corner.

Official usage of Pannonian Rusyn language in Vojvodina, Serbia.

Rusyn, or, specifically, Carpatho-Rusyn, is a vernacular spoken in the Transcarpathian Region of Ukraine; northeastern Slovakia; inVojvodina, Serbia; southeastern Poland, where the Rusyn dialect is generally known as Łemkowski, after the characteristic word лем/lem (meaning “only”, “but” and “like”); Hungary (where the people and language are called Ruszin) and; northern Maramureș,Romania, where the people are called Ruteni and the language Ruteană.

Classification

The classification and identification of the Rusyn language is historically and politically problematic. Prior to World War I, Rusyns were recognized as the Ruthenes of Galicia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand had planned to recognize them as one of the ten states of a planned United States of Greater Austria before his assassination. After the war, Austria-Hungary was partitioned, and Ruthenia was appended to the new Czechoslovak state as its easternmost province. With the advent of World War II, Ruthenia declared its independence, lasting one day, until its annexation by Hungary. After the war, the Ruthenes of Czechoslovakia, occupied by Hungary, were annexed by Ukraine, which proceeded with an anti-ethnic assimilation program. Poland did the same, using internal exile to move all Rusyns from the southern homelands to western areas conquered from Germany, and immersed in Polish.

Scholars with the former Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies in Moscow (now the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences) formally re-acknowledged Rusyn as a separate language in 1992, and trained specialists to study the language. These studies were financially supported by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Ukrainian politicians do not recognise Rusyns as a separate ethnicity, regardless of Rusyn self-identification. Ukraine officially considers Rusyn a dialect of Ukrainian, related to the Hutsul dialect of Ukrainian. However, many Hutsuls also identify as ethnic Rusyns.

Attempts to standardise variants of Rusyn have been unsuccessful. Rusyns live in four countries, and efforts are hampered because Rusyns living outside the traditional home region often do not speak the language fluently. Different orthographies have been developed (in most cases using variants of the Cyrillic script), and a number of different grammatical standards exist, based on regional dialects.

It is not possible to estimate accurately the number of fluent speakers of Rusyn; however, their number is estimated at almost a million, primarily living in Ukraine and Slovakia.

Serbia has recognized Rusyn, more precisely Pannonian Rusyn in Vojvodina, Serbia as an official minority language. Since 1995, Rusyn has been recognized as a minority language inSlovakia, enjoying the status of an official language in municipalities where more than 20 percent of the inhabitants speak Rusyn.

Rusyn is listed as a protected language by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia and Romania.

Grammars and codification

The Rusyn dialect was codified as a language in Vojvodina region of Yugoslavia in 1923 and in Slovakia in 1995. Early grammars include Dmytrij Vyslockij’s (Дмитрий Вислоцкий) Карпаторусский букварь (Karpatorusskij bukvar’) Vanja Hunjanky (1931) and Metodyj Trochanovskij’s Буквар. Перша книжечка для народных школ. (Bukvar. Perša knyžečka dlja narodnŷch škol.) (1935).

Dialects

The Carpatho Rusyn language can be divided as follows:

Boiko, Hutsul, Lemko and Dolinian are identified (and for the same speakers) as Ukrainian dialects since most of their speakers identify themselves as Ukrainians.^{[citation needed]}

Alphabet

Until World War II, the letter Ѣ ѣ (їть) was used, and was pronounced /ji/ or /i/.

Newspapers

• Karpatska Rus’
• Русинська бесіда
• Народны новинкы
• Podkarpatská Rus – Подкарпатська Русь (“”)
• Amerikansky Russky Viestnik †
• Lemko (Philadelphia, USA) †
• Руснаци у Швеце – Rusnaci u Svece

Published - August 2014

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