Talk:Great Russian language

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Hmmm, this article is a funny mixture of 19th century propaganda (Malorossiya anyone?) with linguistic terms and some crazed history with 12 centuries compressed to two or three sentences. IMO it needs serious NPOVing. Halibutt 01:40, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

It's funny that this time my edits were called russophobic, while some other editors accused me for other edits in Russian Imperialism. I guess, it is better to be accused in both than in one, perhaps it mean that I am neither. Anyway, I am restoring my edits. If they are reverted again, I will not persist for now, but please care to explain what is russophobic there, or if not, what's wrong. And better yet, please be a little more polite. Thanks! -Irpen June 28, 2005 21:08 (UTC)

Ups, right after writing the above, I found that someone else already restored my text. An it was a Pole! :). Well, anyway, if Poles agree with my edits, I am afraid they may have been Russophobic indeed :).

P.S. Hallibutt and others, this above about Poles was a joke. Just thought I better say clearly it's a joke just in case. Ghirlandajo, I really respect your knowledge and appreciate your contributions. Seriously. Please have a little tolerance. Let's not exchange with silly barbs and work on articles instead.-Irpen June 28, 2005 21:16 (UTC)

No offence taken (I didn't even smell any here, to be sincere). What I disliked about this article 8 months ago (and still do, despite Ghirlandajo's reverts) is that it mentions the god-given truths of 19th century Russian scholars as the only possible version of history, while it's not necessarily so. I reworded a bit, let's see if Ghirlandajo reverts instantly - or joins the discussion... The most important thing is that these views are currently not shared by barely anyone, not only Ukrainian scholars. Also, apparently Russian and Ukrainian are closely related, but not mutually intelligible, or not more than Polish and Ukrainian. Halibutt June 28, 2005 21:24 (UTC)

Halibutt, maybe my version was not the best way to say it, but the version you made needs changes, I think. In the 19-th century not only Russian, but many other historians accepted the version of 3 dialects, see 1911 Britannica for example. The influence of Russian scholarship in the East Slavic historical thought was and remains very significant. That what I meant by the phrase "...under the influence of the scholarship most accepted in the Imperial Russia, many scholars didn't distinguish between...". I will not restore my text for now. I would like to see what others say first. However, the claim that even in the 19-th century Ukrainian and Russian were indeed, rather than claimed to be, mutually intelligible is very questionable, I think. -Irpen June 28, 2005 21:42 (UTC)

And right when I was saying the above, Ghirlandajo said the same thing in the article's edit history. Yes, it was not only Russian historians. That's correct. Please explain in this page what was wrong with my version. I would appreciate if you retract the "Irpen's edit russophobic" remark. But I guess I would have to live with it if you still feel so. Please, no flames -Irpen June 28, 2005 21:48 (UTC)

Dear Irpen, it is very doubtful that there were an anti-Ukrainian conspiracy in the 19th-century scholarly world. I don't think that any modern linguist knows how to say whether the dialects are separate languages or not. There is no distinct border at all. If you ask the question on sci.lang or some other such forum, you are sure to be answered that it is nationhood that makes a dialect to be recognized as a separate language. Mutual intelligibility is not a criterion. There are two unintelligible languages in Norway, and yet they classify them as one. The same with Rusin language - is it separate from Ukrainian or no? The same with Bulgarian and Macedonian, Serban and Croatian, Moldovan and Rumanian, &c, &c. --Ghirlandajo 28 June 2005 21:49 (UTC)

The notion of "Ukraine" barely existed in the 19-th century. If there was some kind of conspiracy in Russian scholarship, if you like to use such word, it was not anti-Ukrainian or anti-anything else. It was pro single Rus' "united and indivisible". Not all scholars had views along those lines, but that certainly was a dominant line of thought. The question about the definition of a dialect vs a language is not a trivial one. There are many today's and historical examples like you gave above that can be used by either side of this debate. Mutual intelligibility is an important criterion, but now a single one of course. The issue of whether Little Russian in 19-th century was a dialect or a language is a matter of debate and different sides view that differently. 19-th century scholarship tended to see it more as a dialect (and Russian state tend to actively discourage it, but that's a separate matter). That's fine if we mention that there was such a view at that time. It is also correct to point out the source. Peace! -Irpen June 28, 2005 22:09 (UTC)

Irpen, as to your comments, I fully agree. I didn't think of it that way when I prepared my version. My problem was that I did not encounter any 19th century works on "Ruthenian" (as it was called back then, at least in Poland and France) from the outside, only works by Russians (who apparently accepted the "Little Russia" thesis) and Poles and Ukrainians themselves. But apparently B1911 is a decent proof. On the other hand, I have yet to see a modern study that would support the idea of modern Ukrainian being a dialect of Russian.

As to mutual intelligibility, perhaps the south-eastern dialects of Ukrainian (used, for instance, by Shevchenko) had more to do with Russian. However, in 19th century and early 20th century the modern Ukrainian was formed under heavy influence from western dialects (Volhynia, Podolia...), used for instance by Ivan Franko. The latter dialects were under heavy influence from Polish and Slovakian (mostly lexical and syntactical, but also semantical) and I doubt an average Russian would understand much of it (be it written or spoken language).

All in all, I believe that modern notions should be also expressed in this article and the way Ghirlandajo suggests it should be done (This view is currently rejected by those scientists who say that language is a dialect with its own army and fleet. remark seems ridiculous) is not the best, IMO. By presenting only the 19th century Russian POV this article seriously lacks balance. Preferably, we should prepare a short list of scholars who supported the idea and a list of those who didn't. Also, I wonder if Ghirlandajo could present us with a serious modern publication claiming that Ukrainian still is considered a dialect of Russian. Finally, I wonder why doesn't this article mention the Vistulan Russian - that is Polish :) Halibutt June 29, 2005 06:27 (UTC)

All this discussion is quite irrelevant to the subject of this article. The language/dialect of modern Russia was called Velikorussian, because it was spoken in Velikorossiya. The language/dialect of modern Ukraine was called Malorussian, because the country it was spoken in was called Malorossiya. Whether these were different languages or just dialects of one language, should be discussed elsewhere, in the article on Ukrainian language, for example. --Ghirlandajo 29 June 2005 07:38 (UTC)

No, you missed the point here. The problem is that your version was simply false and led to misinformation. According to version you reverted to:

1. most scholars didn't distinguish between Eastern Slavic languages - was there some kind of poll taken? Or perhaps you've counted all the works on Eastern Slavic and 50% + 1 supported the thesis?
2. were considered mutually intelligible - if we say that they were considered mutually intelligible (although it is hardly accepted nowadays and in 19th century the situation was no different), then we should also mention the other view on the topic (and the one that prevails nowadays would be quite NPOV, I guess).
3. It was accepted that within the Russian language there are three main dialects - Great Russian, Little Russian (i.e., Ukrainian), and White Russian (e.g., Belarusian). - no Vistulan Russian here? Strange ;)

Anyway, it's not about Russophobia, though I see you're a tad touchy on this matter. It's about factual accuracy. For instance, from your version of this article, an uninformed reader might draw a conclusion that the article on Eastern Slavic languages is either fals or obsolete and uses wrong terms. Also, I'm not sure if it's the same in Russia, but in Poland and Spain the whole Great Russia thingie is in most cases mentioned together with 19th century tsarist propaganda, russification and the debate. If we mention only the propaganda and fail to mention the debate, this article will never be NPOV. Halibutt June 29, 2005 08:09 (UTC)

Ghirlandajo, I think you have a point when you say that the dialect vs language issue should be discussed in a different article. However, in this case this topic should not be discussed here at all rather than present only one side of the debate. Even more radically, we can have this page simply a redirect to Great Russia, the article I created myself some time ago together with Little Russia (to which I redirected Little Russian created at the same time). There are two aspects with the term Great Russian (language). One is etymological and historical and both belong to Great Russia article. The other is the thing, that often goes with those who use this terminology nowadays about a dialect, etc. If we keep the dialect debate in Russian/Ukraine language articles and keep etymology within Great/Little Russia articles, it will be a fine thing to simply redirect this article to Great Russia. I will not mind if someone blanks this entire article into a redirect -Irpen June 30, 2005 02:09 (UTC)

• Russian Emperial Chovinistic propaganda. --89.218.0.173 06:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

There are absolutely no references here. I think that with the history of this article, they are desperately needed. I looked, but have not been able to find any. Thanks, Horlo (talk) 07:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)