Rusyn language

Not to be confused with Ruthenian language.
Rusyn
русиньский язык, русиньска бесїда rusyn’skyj jazyk, rusyn’ska besjida
Pronunciation /ˈruːsɨn/
Ethnicity Rusyns
Native speakers

62,000 (2000–2006)[1]
Census population: 70,000. These are numbers from national official bureaus for statistics:
Slovakia – 33,482[2]
Serbia – 15,626[3]
Ukraine – 6,725[4]
Poland – 10,000[5]
Croatia – 2,337[6]
Hungary – 1,113[7]

Czech Republic – 777[8]
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-3 rue
Glottolog rusy1239[10]
Linguasphere 53-AAA-ec < 53-AAA-e
(varieties: 53-AAA-eca to 53-AAA-ecc)
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Rusyn /ˈruːsᵻn/[11] (Rusyn: русиньска бесїда or русиньскый язык),[12] also known in English as Ruthene UK /rʊˈθiːn/[13] US /ruːˈθiːn/[13] (sometimes Ruthenian), is a Carpathian Ukrainian language version spoken by the Rusyns of Eastern Europe.

There are controversial political implications about the nature of Rusyn as a language or dialect. Some linguists treat it as a distinct language[14] (with its own ISO 639-3 code), whereas some Ukrainian scholars of Slavic languages treat it as a dialect of Ukrainian.[15]

Geographical distribution

Ethnic map of Austria-Hungary; 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; in Vojvodina, 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 Ukrainians 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 Carpathian Ukraine was appended to the new Czechoslovak state as its easternmost province. With the advent of World War II, Carpathian Ukraine declared its independence, lasting one day, until its annexation by Hungary. After the war, the Ukrainian carpathians of Czechoslovakia, occupied by Hungary, were annexed by the Soviet Union as part of the Ukrainian SSR, 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.[16] 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.

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.[17]

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

Serbia has recognized Rusyn, more precisely Pannonian Rusyn in Vojvodina, Serbia as an official minority language.[18] Since 1995, Rusyn has been recognized as a minority language in Slovakia, enjoying the status of an official language in municipalities where more than 20 percent of the inhabitants speak Rusyn.[19]

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.[20] Early grammars include Dmytrij Vyslockij's (Дмитрий Вислоцкий) Карпаторусский букварь (Karpatorusskij bukvar') Vanja Hunjanky (1931)[21] and Metodyj Trochanovskij's Буквар. Перша книжечка для народных школ. (Bukvar. Perša knyžečka dlja narodnıx škol.) (1935).[22][23]

Dialects

The Carpatho-Rusyn language can be divided as follows:

Name Language area Annotation
Hutsul In the mountainous part of Suceava County and Maramureș County in Romania and the extreme southern parts of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (province) of Ukraine (as well as in parts of the Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian Oblasts), and on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains.
Boyko Northern side of the Carpathian Mountains in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts of Ukraine. It can also be heard across the border in the Subcarpathian Voivodship (province) of Poland
Lemko Outside Ukraine in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the southern side of the Carpathian Mountains. It was formerly spoken on the northern side of the same mountains, in what is now southeastern Poland, prior to Operation Vistula – now used in several diaspora communities scattered in northern Poland Being revived; in Poland it has the status of an ethnic minority language. A newspaper, Karpatska Rus', has been published in this dialect since 1939.
Dolynian Rusyn Transcarpathian Oblast of Ukraine.
Subcarpathian Rusyn
Priashiv Rusyn The Prešov Region (in Rusyn: „Пряшів“ Priashiv) of Slovakia, as well as by some émigré communities, primarily in the United States of America.
Pannonian Rusyn Northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia One of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.
Bačka

Boiko, Hutsul, Lemko and Dolynian Rusyn are (most often) identified as Ukrainian dialects since most of their speakers identify themselves as Ukrainians (or in the case of the Lemkos of Poland, only as Lemkos).

Alphabet

Letters and symbols of the Carpatho-Rusyn alphabet
Capital Small Name Translit. Pronunciation Notes
А а a a /a/
Б б бэ b /b/
В в вэ v /v/
Г г гэ h /ɦ/
Ґ ґ ґэ g /a/
Д д дэ d /d/
Е е e e /e/
Є є є je /je/
Ё ё ё jo /jo/ not present in Pannonian Rusyn
Ж ж жы ž /ʒ/
З з зы z /z/
И и и y /ɪ/
І і i i /i/ not present in Pannonian Rusyn
Ы ы ы y, ı /ɨ/
Ї ї ї ji /ji/
Й й йы j /ɪ/
К к кы k /k/
Л л лы l /l/
М м мы m /m/
Н н ны n /n/
О о o o /o/
П п пы p /p/
Р р ры r /r/
С с сы s /s/
Т т ты t /t/
У у у u /u/
Ф ф фы f /ɦ/
Х х хы x, ch, h /x/
Ц ц цы c /t͡s/
Ч ч чы č /t͡ʃ/
Ш ш шы š /ʃ/
Щ щ щы šč /ʃt͡ʃ/
Ю ю ю ju /ju/
Я я я ja /ja/
Ь ь мнягкый знак (ірь) ’ /ʲ/ marks preceding consonant's palatalization
Ъ ъ твердый знак (ір) ” not present in Pannonian Rusyn

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

Newspapers

See also

Rusyn edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

References

  1. ↑ Rusyn at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. "Population and Housing Census 2011: Table 11. Resident population by nationality – 2011, 2001, 1991" (PDF). Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. Retrieved 22 March 2012.
  3. ↑ Republic of Serbia, Republic Statistical Office (24 December 2002). "Final results of the census 2002" (PDF). Retrieved 16 December 2010.
  4. ↑ State Statistics Committee of Ukraine. "About number and composition population of UKRAINE by data All-Ukrainian population census 2001 data". Retrieved 16 December 2010.
  5. ↑ "Home" (PDF). Central Statistical Office of Poland. Retrieved 22 March 2012.
  6. ↑ "Republic of Croatia – Central Bureau of Statistics". Crostat. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
  7. ↑ "1.28 Population by mother tongue, nationality and sex, 1900–2001". Hungarian Central Statistical Office. 2001. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
  8. ↑ "Obyvatelstvo podle věku, mateřského jazyka a pohlaví". Retrieved 2 November 2012.
  9. ↑ "The Statue of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Serbia". Skupstinavojvodine.gov.rs. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
  10. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Rusyn". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  11. ↑ "Rusyn, n. and adj. : Oxford English Dictionary".
  12. ↑ Alternative names are used in different Ruthenian areas, like руска бешеда, rusinščina or even język łemkowski (in southeastern Poland etc. None of them are more academic than another, due to non-recognition of the language.
  13. 1 2 "Ruthene, n. and adj. : Oxford English Dictionary".
  14. ↑ Bernard Comrie, "Slavic Languages," International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (1992, Oxford, Vol 3, pp. 452–456.
    Ethnologue, 16th edition
  15. ↑ George Y. Shevelov, "Ukrainian," The Slavonic Languages (1993, Routledge, pp. 947–998.
  16. ↑ Іван Гвать. "Україна в лещатах російських спецслужб". Radiosvoboda.org. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
  17. ↑ Rusyn grammar rules – Ябур, Василь – Плїшкова, Анна: Русиньскый язык в зеркалї новых правил про основны і середнї школы з навчанём русиньского языка. Пряшів : Русин і Народны новинкы, 2005, 128 s.
  18. ↑ "Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina". Skupstinavojvodine.gov.rs. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
  19. ↑ Slovenskej Republiky, Národná Rada (1999). "Zákon 184/1999 Z. z. o používaní jazykov národnostných menšín" (in Slovak). Zbierka zákonov. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  20. ↑ http://www.taraskuzio.net/Nation%20and%20State%20Building_files/national-rusyns.pdf
  21. ↑ Vyslockyj, Dmytryj (1931). Карпаторусский букварь [Karpatorusskij bukvar'] (in Rusyn). Cleveland.
  22. ↑ Trochanovskij, Metodyj (1935). Буквар. Перша книжечка для народных школ. [Bukvar. Perša knyžečka dlja narodnıx škol.] (in Rusyn). Lviv.
  23. ↑ Bogdan Horbal (2005). Custer, Richard D., ed. "The Rusyn Movement among the Galician Lemkos" (PDF). Rusyn-American Almanac of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society. Pittsburgh (10th Anniversary 2004-2005).
  24. ↑ "Rusnaci u svece". Rusmagazin2.brinkster.net. Retrieved 2012-08-07.

Further reading

Rusyn edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rusyn test of Wiktionary at Wikimedia Incubator
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rusyn language.
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