Rusyn language

Rusyn
русиньскый язык, русинська бесіда rusyn'skyj yazyk, rusyn'ska besida
Spoken in	Ukraine Slovakia Poland Hungary Romania Serbia Croatia Czech Republic
Native speakers	Estimated: At least 600,000. Census population: 50,000. These are numbers from national official bureaus for statistics: Slovakia - 24,201 Serbia - 15,626 Ukraine - > 6,725 Poland - 5,800 Croatia - 2,337 Hungary - 1,113 Czech Republic - 1,106  (date missing)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Rusyn
Official status
Official language in	Vojvodina Minority language: Croatia Romania Serbia Slovenia Ukraine
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rue
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ec < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eca to 53-AAA-ecc)

Ethnographic map of the Slavic peoples prepared by Czech ethnographer Lubor Niederle showing territorial boundaries of Slavic languages in Eastern Europe in the mid 1920's

Official usage of Pannonian Rusyn language in Vojvodina, Serbia

Rusyn (Rusyn: русинська бесіда or русиньскый язык), also known in English as Ruthene (sometimes Ruthenian), is an East Slavic language variety spoken by the Rusyns of Central Europe. Some linguists treat it as a distinct language and it has its own ISO 639-3 code; others treat it as a dialect of Ukrainian. Each categorisation has controversial political implications.

Geographical distribution

Rusyn (and more specifically Carpatho-Rusyn) is the vernacular spoken in the Transcarpathian Region of Ukraine, in northeastern Slovakia, southeastern Poland (where it is often described as łemkowski 'Lemko', from their characteristic word лем / lem 'only', or Lyshak) and Hungary (where the people and language are called Ruthene).

Classification

The first scholars to recognize the existence of Rusyn as a separate language falls to the former Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies of the USSR in Moscow in 1992 (now the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences) which also prepared the first scholars to study this phenomenon. These studies were financially supported by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Ukrainian scholars and politicians do not recognise Rusyns as a separate ethnicity, despite the fact that some Rusyn speakers prefer to consider themselves as ethnically distinct from Ukrainians. Ukrainian linguists consider Rusyn a dialect of Ukrainian, related to the Hutsul dialect in the neighbouring Carpathian region of Ukraine.

Attempts to standardise the various 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 make an accurate estimate of 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, as an official minority language. Since 1995, Rusyn has been recognized as a minority language in Slovakia, enjoying the status of official language in municipalities where more than 20 percent of the inhabitants speak Rusyn.

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

Grammars and codification

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).

The Rusyn language is one of the newest Slavic literary languages, and was codified in Slovakia in 1995.

Newspapers

• Karpatska Rus'
• Русинська бесіда
• Нанродны новинкы
• Podkarpatská Rus - Подкарпатська Русь
• Amerikansky Russky Viestnik †
• Lemko †

Dialects

The Carpatho Rusyn language can be divided as follows:

Name	Language area	Annotation
Hutsul	In the mountainous part of Suceava County and Maramures 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.
Dolinian Rusyn	Transcarpathian Oblast of Ukraine.
Subcarpathian Rusyn
Pryashiv Rusyn	The Prešov Region (in Rusyn: "Пряшів" Pryashiv) 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 Dolinian are identified (and for the same speakers) as Ukrainian dialects since most of their speakers identify themselves as Ukrainians.

Alphabet

Letters and symbols of the Carpatho-Rusyn alphabet

Capital	Small	Name	Translit.	Pronunciation	Notes
А	а	a	a	/a/
Б	б	бы	b	/b/
В	в	вы	v	/v/
Г	г	гы	h	/ɦ/
Ґ	ґ	ґы	g	/ɡ/
Д	д	ды	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	/ɨ/
Ї	ї	ї	ji	/ji/
Й	й	йы	j	/j/
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	/f/
Х	х	хы	x, ch	/x/
Ц	ц	цы	c	/ts/
Ч	ч	чы	č	/t͡ʃ/
Ш	ш	шы	š	/ʃ/
Щ	щ	щы	šč	/ʃt͡ʃ/
Ѣ	ѣ	їть		/ji/, /i/	Used before World War II
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

See also

• Besida
• Alexander Duchnovič's Theatre
• Old Ruthenian
• Pannonian Rusyns
• Rusyns
• Metodyj Trochanovskij, Lemko Grammarian
• Petro Trochanowski, contemporary Rusyn poet.
• Zatkovich, Gregory. The Rusin Question in a Nutshell. OCLC 22065508. 

Further reading

• A new Slavic language is born. The Rusyn literary language in Slovakia. Ed. Paul Robert Magocsi. New York 1996.
• Magocsi, Paul Robert. Let's speak Rusyn. Бісідуйме по-руськы. Englewood 1976.
• Aleksandr Dmitrievich Dulichenko. Jugoslavo-Ruthenica. Роботи з рускей филолоґиї. Нови Сад 1995.
• Taras Kuzio, "The Rusyn question in Ukraine: sorting out fact from fiction", Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, XXXII (2005)
• Elaine Rusinko, "Rusinski/Ruski pisni" selected by Nataliia Dudash; "Muza spid Karpat (Zbornik poezii Rusiniv na Sloven'sku)" assembled by Anna Plishkova. Books review. "The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2. (Summer, 1998), pp. 348-350. JSTOR archive
• Плішкова, Анна [Anna Plishkova] (ed.): Муза спід Карпат (Зборник поезії Русинів на Словеньску). [Muza spid Karpat (Zbornik poezii Rusiniv na Sloven'sku)] Пряшів: Русиньска оброда, 1996. on-line
• Marta Harasowska. "Morphophonemic Variability, Productivity, and Change: The Case of Rusyn", Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1999, ISBN 3110157616.
  • Book review by Edward J. Vajda, Language, Vol. 76, No. 3. (Sep., 2000), pp. 728–729
• I. I. Pop, Paul Robert Magocsi, Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, University of Toronto Press, 2002, ISBN 0802035663
• Plišková, Anna: Rusínsky jazyk na Slovensku: náčrt vývoja a súčasné problémy. Prešov : Metodicko-pedagogické centrum, 2007, 116 s. Slovak Rusyn

External links

• Rusyn language at the World Academy of Rusyn Culture
• Ethnologue report for Rusyn
• Rusyn Greco Catholic Church in Novi Sad (Vojvodina-Serbia)
• Rusyn-Ukrainian On-Line Dictionary