Talk:Pannonian Rusyn language

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[edit] Classification

  • it is not considered a dialect of Slovak by Ethnologue - it is not mentioned because it is not a language ("language" has a certain meaning)

I think you are wrong. I have an previous Ethnologue edition (from 2000), and here is the quotation: "Ethnic Rusyns in Yugoslavia are reported to speak Eastern Slovak, Sarish dialect, not Rusyn".

Second, here is the Ethnologue entry for Serbia and Montenegro from the current edition:

They do not mention Rusyn language, but they put the number of Slovak speakers at 80,000 (According to 2002 census in Vojvodina live 56,637 Slovaks and 15,626 Rusyns, together their number is 72,263 or "almost" 80,000).

Here is also the entry for the Rusyn language in Ukraine:

They do not mention that Rusyn language is spoken in Serbia and Montenegro.

The conclusions? The Ethnologue simply do not consider the language of Rusyns in Vojvodina to be a dialect of Rusyn, but the dialect of Slovak. User:PANONIAN

Ah, OK I did not realize those numbers. That, combined with the view that they speak a Slovak dialect, is a valid view of course. But BTW don't you see a big problem in the sentence "Ethnic Rusyns in Yugoslavia are reported to speak Eastern Slovak.." - what are "ethnic Rusyns" then??? all Greek Catholics except Ukrainians or what?? Juro 19:32, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Another question: was the number of Slovaks in Voyvodina 63941 in 1991? I am checking whether the Slovak Academy of Sciences (that's her number) separates them...Juro 19:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

1991 census results can be seen here:

"According to the last census from 1991, Vojvodina has 2,013,889 inhabitants, which is slightly more than 20% of the total population of Serbia. With a population of 1,143,723, the Serbs make the absolute majority in the province. Then come the Hungarians - 339,491, Croats - 74,808, Slovaks - 63,545, Montenegrins - 44,838, Rumanians - 38,809, Romanies - 24,366, Ruthenians - 17,652, Macedonians - 17,472 and other smaller ethnic groups like the Ukrainians, Albanians, Slovenians and others (a total of 26 nations and national and ethnic groups) while 174,225 inhabitants declare themselves as Yugoslavs"

The number of Slovaks and Rusyns together in 1991 was 81,197.

Now, see this again:

"Slovak [slk] 80,000 in Serbia and Montenegro (1996 W. Brown)"

Perfect matching of numbers, dont you agree?

As for the question is the Rusin language a separate language or a dialect of Slovak, the difference between "dialects" and "languages" is not very clear. For example, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are often treated as a separate languages, but they are not only one same language, but also one same dialect. All Serbo-Croatian speeches are divided into 4 main dialects:

  • Shtokavian
  • Kaykavian
  • Chakavian
  • Eastern Shtokavian (not same with Shtokavian)

The Shtokavian dialect is further divided into 3 subdialects:

  • Ekavian
  • Ijekavian
  • Ikavian

Now, see this:

  • Official Croatian language is based on Ijekavian subdialekt
  • Official Bosnian language is based on Ijekavian subdialekt
  • Official Serbian language is based on both: Ekavian and Ijekavian subdialekts (And just to note that the difference between these two subdialects is very small).

Even if we have these facts in our mind, we know that Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are treated as 3 "separate" languages. Even if Rusin is same with Sarish dialect of Slovak, this still do not mean that Rusin is not a language. Both Rusin and Slovak are official languages in Vojvodina, and the difference between them is larger than the difference between Serbian and Croatian for example (And both, Serbian and Croatian are also official in Vojvodina). User:PANONIAN

I know these Croatian-Bosnian-Serbian problem quite well. Again, former Yugoslavia is actually a big exception from the rule, normally - internationally - there is a difference between a language and a dialect, both are clearly defined (but of course there are many disputes nevertheless). And there are still many linguists speaking of a Serbo-Croatian language and distinguishing them only for reasons of political corectness. So the point is - the circumstances in former Yugoslavia might be a reference point for the region, but not for the world-wide point of view, which should be applied here.
As for the number of Slovaks, then it still holds that the Rusyns in Serbia are strictly distinguished from the Slovaks in Slovakia without any exception. I just wanted to be sure...

As for your question what are the ethnic Rusyns. In Vojvodina ethnic Rusyns are those people who declare themselves as such in census. Also, the Ukrainians in Vojvodina do not speak the same language as Rusyns. For example TV Novi Sad broadcasting TV program in both languages: Rusyn and Ukrainian (This is also writen in the article). User:PANONIAN

That's the problem...Ethnicity, which is a very complicated issue, cannot be defined only by what the people themselves say...That would be no science. But otherwise I understand what you are trying to say. Juro 00:41, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mykola Kochish

I believe that the spelling in english of Mykola Kochish is wrong because if he is ukrainian then the "u" letter in "MukoΛa" should be translitered at as "y."

[edit] Classification again

Ok Juro, I see that we still have a dispute about classification of this language, so, I will quote here my sources, which claim that it is a Western Slavic language. Also, I like that you quote your sources too, but only those which speak about Pannonian Rusyn language, not about Rusyn language in general. So, here are some of my sources.

  • 1. A Ethnologue edition from 2000, which consider this language a "Eastern Slovak, Sarish dialect".
  • 2. Ranko Bugarski, Jezici, Novi Sad, 1996. A very good book about languages of the World, and especially languages of former Yugoslavia. Pannonian Rusyn is classified here as western Slavic language.
  • 3. Stevan Konstantinović, Priče o Rusinima, Šid, 1995. Here is the quote about Pannonian Rusyn language from this book: "It is closer to western Slavic languages, but it also contains some elements of eastern Slavic languages, as well as linguistic influences from Hungarian, German and Serbian."
  • 4. Vladimir Kirda Bolhorves. Na debelom ledu, Beograd, 1996. The author of this book is a Pannonian Rusyn himself. He do not say here is Pannonian Rusyn western or eastern Slavic language, but he say that it is different from both, northern Rusyn and Ukrainian, and that Pannonian Rusyns do not understand very well these two languages.

Now, please cite your sources which claim that Pannonian Rusyn is eastern Slavic. PANONIAN (talk) 18:06, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I did founded this one:

Quote: "According to the opinion of one side (F.Pastrnek J.Pata and others) our language is west Slovenian (Slavic) and belongs to Czechoslovak group of speech; and according to the opinion of the other side (V.Hnatjuk, H.Kosteljnik) our language is Ukrainian dialect."

So, the two opinions do exist here, but both of them cannot be correct, dont you agree? I would not trust to Ukrainian authors regarding this question, because their political goal of assimilation of Rusyns into Ukrainians is too obvious. The problem with Pannonian Rusyn language is that it was not much studied outside Serbia, and since authors in Serbia were most close to this language and have more opportunity to study it, then I think that their opinion is more relevant than the opinion of Ukrainian authors. PANONIAN (talk) 18:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The answer is very simple (and I have explained this to you already, just like - I do not remember the name anymore - the user that has answered to you on the Slavs page): both the Serbian and the Carpathian Ruthenians (who are the same people by all reasonable criteria, but take it as my POV if you want) speak a language standing between Slovak and Ukrainian, the Serbian Rusyns being also slightly influenced by Serbian (just like Serbian Slovaks, by the way). That is the only fact here. Everything else is POV : Some people prefer "western", other people prefer "Ukrainian" and that's how their "arguments" look like then - each group defines another part of the language as being "superposed" (which is a scientific "jargon" for the nationalist equivalent "only secondarily influenced, not original") onto the other part.

I have also explained to you somewhere, that the Slavic languages from Czechia to Russia form a continuum and that terms like "West Slavic languages" or "Eastern Slavic languages" are no objective facts, they are just a-posteriori descriptions of common features of languages situated on predefined territories (actually they are auxialiary terms). The only objective facts are the languages Slovak, Ukrainian and Serbian, and their dialects. I also agree with you that Ukrainian opinions are not a-priori trustworthy in this field, but the Serbian Rusyn language is also normally considered an "Eastern" Slavic language in Slovakia or Czechia (as far as I know) and these countries have no reason to advocate either of the opinions. That's why I have changed the wording into one that is always correct. Juro 21:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Capital Ь

Yes, just as in most other languages written with Cyrillic letters, the letter ь does not occur word-initially, so consequently there is no need for a capital Ь in normal sentences. But whenever a word containing ь is written completely with capitals, Ь is used, of course (e.g. ВEЛЬКА НOЦ). In contrast to this, there are letters really occurring only as small letters, like German ß, which should be capitalized as SS (e.g. weiß - WEISS; although you can nowadays often read WEIß, which is wrong, however). Therefore I think this note about ь occurring only as a small letter is not quite correct and too irrelevant anyway. (By the way, the same applies to Ы/ы, too.) --Daniel Bunčić 05:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ukrainian or Slovak dialect?

I'm sure, Pannonian Rusyn is basically Ukrainian dialect. The Transcarpathian dialect ("Rusyn language") is a dialect of transition between Ukrainian and Slovak. Serbs in Vojvodina cannot know this problem, so the Pannonians can be written there as Slovaks or Ukrainians. It's a pity. But I think, it's aberation to proclaim Pannonian Rusyn an independent language. Serbian Ukrainians are Greek-Catholics, they write in Cyrillic, the difference between their dialect and literary Ukrainian is not so big. I read many sites of Pannonians on net (in "Pannonian Rusyn") and can give you a large grammatical and lexical description of this dialect. It's very easy. I'm sure, the Pannonians, even educated as "independent Rusyns", understand literary Ukrainian very well and see their dialect is a part of it. On the other hand, Slovak and Ukrainian are very simily, - many slavists think, the Slavic classification (Eastern, Western and Southern) is pure geografical. So, many grammatical and lexical processes are the same. And the last. To PANNONIAN: What political interest do Ukraine have in Serbia to name "Rusyns" as Ukrainians?! To occupy Vojvodina? :))) I don't think, it's an argument. Ukraine has no interests in Serbia, but it's normal, when Ukrainians are named Ukrainians, not "Rusyns", "Lemkos", "Boikos" and so on. I think, it's political game of some politicians inerested in a dissolvation of Ukrainian nation and separatism in Transcarpathia. That's why separatists write their language would be Slovak, not Ukrainian, their orthography would be with -ский not -ський - to create an artificial difference with Ukrainian. Здається, комусь це дуже подобається :((Ilubianov 08:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

First, this is not article about (northern) Rusyn language spoken in Ukraine and Slovakia but about completelly separate different language spoken only in former Yugoslavia and nowhere else. The only thing that this language share with northern Rusyn is a name and therefore the classification of northern Rzsyn language is simply not relevant for this article. In Vojvodina also live ethnic Ukrainians who speak Ukrainian, which is different from Pannonian Rusyn (both languages are used in local media), and in all clasiffications that I saw so far Pannonian Rusyn is classified as western Slavic because most of its features are western Slavic. It also have some eastern and southern Slavic features and it is called "Slavic Esperanto" by some linguists. So please, do not mix Pannonian Rusyn with northern Rusyn. PANONIAN (talk) 21:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Prohibiiton in Ukraine

When was Rusyn prohibited in Ukraine in the past? Are there any scholarly sources for this statement? I do know that literary Ukrainian, i.e. the use of Contemporary Ukrainian orthography was not allowed by the Trans-Carpathian administration in the period between the wars, but have never come across any evidence of Risyn being prohibited in Ukraine. 21:27, 23 September 2007 (UTC)