Talk:Rusyn language

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The following was entered under Ruthenian language:
Ruthenian language, also known (less precisely) as Russian, is a Slavic language spoken in Ruthenia (Rus) in Middle Ages. From Ruthenian evolved Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. Sometimes Carpatho-Ruthenian (Rusyn) is added into this list, however most Slavic linguists do not recognize Ruthenian as a distinct language and consider Carpatho-Ruthenian dialects as regional versions of Ukrainian.

The oldest known texts in Ruthenian were written in the 10th century.

Is any of this of value here? What and where are the oldest written texts in Rusyn (not to be confused with Russian of course)? That information should be entered. Wetman 18:35, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Rusyn pronunciation?

How do you pronounce 'Rusyn'? How is the word different from 'Russian'? Seabhcán 17:51, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

'Rusyn' is pronounced like roo-sinn.  Natively, however, the language is named Ruski (roo-skee), i. e. 'Russian'.  The names 'Rusyn' and 'Ruthenian' were introduced with the sole purpose of distingushing it from the Russian language. — Monedula 06:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Not true. Rusyn and Russian are by far not the same language. I doubt any speaker of Russian would understand a spoken Rusyn. For relatij between Rusyn and Russian see Etymology of Rus and derivatives --Compay 15:15, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
You misunderstood the point. It's not that Russian and Rusyn are the same language, it's that they share the same name, Ruski. So the names "Rusyn" and "Ruthenian" have been introduced, in order to avoid confusion. — Monedula 07:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

They do not share the same name. "Ruski" is Russian and "Rusinsky" is Rusyn/Ruthenian. (Read that twice if you dont understand)

Ruthenian is a Polonized/Latinized version of Rusyn, the one who is the citizen of Kyivan Rus. Russians came into existance much later when Petro I remaned Moscovy as the Russian empire, considering the Germanized version of Rusyn. The Germans call Rus with spelling of so called "sharfes s" (I studied German for 10 years). That letter is equivalent to double s. The fact that the Muscovy was renamed is true, the reason it was renamed as such is something of my thought. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 03:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Status of Rusin as a separate language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rusyn_language&oldid=21096461

That version of this page clearly says, although incorrectly, that "Rusyn" is in fact the name of two distinct languages. Juro, why didn't you contest that, then?

I do not understand the question. What is your point and why should the above article (version) be relevant for anything? If the question is why I have not changed this article, the answer is that I had not read it at that time.Juro 18:01, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rusin vs Rusyn

This page seems confused -- it talks about Carpathian Rusyn, and then it includes information about Panonian Rusin without mentioning that it is from a different variety. It makes no sense that we have the page Pannonian Rusyn language which talks only about Rusin, and then the page Rusyn language, which talks about both languages, but no Carpatho-Rusyn language page. No matter how much you may want to enforce a unity on people who don't want it, it does not exist here. When Rusyn organisations speak of the "Rusyn community", they are by default excluding the Pannonian Rusins, and they have been excluding ever since they left Carpathia. There are two separately codified literary languages. When we speak of Sorbian, nobody tries to pretend that there is only one language, most people speak of two languages which are closely related. Before the codification though, most people considered it a single language. So, now, that there are two separate literary languages, Rusyn and Rusin, why do people perpetuate the falsehood that these are the same language, as if they are spoken by the same people? They have different sounds, different words, their alphabets are even different!

[edit] Number of speakers

The text of the article says that the number of speakers is hard to tell, and gives an estimate of "almost a million", yet the infobox gives a ridiculously exact figure. I don't really know anything about this language, or else I'd change it myself, but the number in the infobox very much needs to be changed. Kairos 19:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Ethnologue says it's only 50,000. That's the only source I see. AEuSoes1 07:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

According to the Carpatho-Rusyn societies there are about 1.5 million rusyns in Europe (it sound more true than 55 000, because lots of rusyns live in Ukraine (about 800 000 ) wher they aren't recognised...Rusyn

Anon, I'm pretty sure your source gives the number of Rusyn-speakers in Ukraine only. The infobox says "Total speakers", not "Total speakers in Ukraine". Khoikhoi 19:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
The majority of Rusyn speakers apparently are in Ukraine (Ethnologue says that), but since Ukraine apparently considers Rusyn to be just a dialect of Ukrainian, perhaps those figures are for only one dialect of Rusyn itself that Ukraine considers different enough to count as non-Ukrainian? Either way, I don't think the government of Ukraine, which is likely somewhat anti-Rusyn in its outlook (because anti-Rusyn is pro-one Ukrainian identity) should be considered a very reliable source for the numbers. Lexicon (talk) 21:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Ukrainian sources are probably going to be biased when it comes to subjects such as the Rusyans and the Rusyn language. Ukraine wants to count them as a subgroup of Ukrainians (a disparagingly small one too). Khoikhoi 22:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The majority of RUSYNS are in Ukraine because the USSR annexed Carpathian-Rus after WW2. Previously, the majority of Rusyns lived in Slovakia...

Or possibly Ukrainian sources are not biased. Maybe Rusyns are really Ukrainians who speak a Western dialect of Ukrainian? Bandurist (talk) 01:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
If Rusyns think they're Rusyns and not Ukrainians, then they're Rusyns and not Ukrainians. Peoples get to define themselves. Lexicon (talk) 02:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough, but Ukrainians also refered to themselves as Rusyns up to WWI. It is still used in folk song texts:

Ой на горі огірочки, Під горою гречка Ой не сватай Русин Польку Буде суперечкач

Біда Польку закусило Пішла заміж за Русина Русин каже їдмо в поле Полька каже колька коле. etc. Bandurist (talk) 02:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Italics in Cyrillics

A guideline on whether or not to italicize Cyrillics (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pannonian Rusyn language

This language is described in this article (formerly using a different name, but I'm almost certain it is Pannonian Rusyn, so I changed the terms), but the article on Pannonian Rusyn says it is a West Slavic language with East Slavic influences (not an East Slavic language with West Slavic influences). If this is true, then Pannonian Rusyn is not a dialect of Rusyn, and should not be mentioned in the list of dialects. Lexicon (talk) 12:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 60,000 vs 600,000

It exists 60,000 people, who claim that they are Rusyns. These are numbers from national official bureaus for statistics:

Slovakia - 24,201
( http://www.statistics.sk/webdata/english/census2001/tab/tab3a.htm )
Serbia - 15,626
( http://www.statserb.sr.gov.yu/zip/esn31.pdf )
Ukraine - 10,100
( http://ukrcensus.gov.ua/results/general/nationality/zakarpatia/ )
Croatia - 2,337
( http://www.dzs.hr/default_e.htm )
Poland - 5,800
( http://www.stat.gov.pl/english/ )
Hungary - 1,098
( http://www.nepszamlalas.hu/eng/volumes/18/tables/load1_28.html )
Czech Republic - 1,106
( http://www.czso.cz/csu/2005edicniplan.nsf/t/D6002FD8F5/$File/kap_I_05.pdf ).

From Rusyns--133.41.84.206 16:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

And since Ukraine pretends that Rusyns don't really exist (and that the Rusyn language doesn't exist—you may want to think about the fact that language and ethnicity don't always coincide), the Ukrainian figures are highly unreliable. Lexicon (talk) 17:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Youre wrong. Look at the officail document of Ukraine. The Rusyns and Ukrainians are divided (bottom of the page). Pretending Ukriane exist only in your mind. --Alex Kov 17:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

There are a hell of a lot more than 10,000 Rusyns in Ukraine. Since it was not a choice, people didn't choose it. And, one more time nationality/ethnicity does not equal language (so these numbers simply cannot even be carried over to this article). Lexicon (talk) 17:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Calm down and be civil. 1) According to the official documents there was a choice. As a result 10,100 recognized themseves as Rusyns. Read the documents once more. 2)Those people who recognized themselves Rusyn probably speak Rusyn language. But for the rest there are no valubale sources. No research has been held about the number of Rusyn speakers in 2000-s. Thus you cant push POVish 600,000, because it is based on sources of unknown validity. If you prove your statement by official statistics or the results of Rusyn speakers calculations, thats would be fine and we place your number in the article. But now I see no evidence to paste your data.--Alex Kov 18:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I see no evidence for your data. As stated here and on your talk page, ethnicity does not equal language. It's like apples and oranges. Until you provide sources on language you might just as well change the number of Rusyn speakers to the number of cats in my house. Undoubtedly, those who claim to be Rusyns speak Rusyn, but just as undoubtedly, many people who claim to be Ukrainian also speak Rusyn. Lexicon (talk) 18:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Estimates by a reputable source are far in excess of your pathetic POV-riddled "official" number. Lexicon (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, official numbers arent POV. The official statistics is ussaly used in the reaserch work by linguists. Secondly, the difference between official 60,000 and your POV-ish 600,000 is too striking. Rusyn language is not English or German to be spoken by so many people beyound the Rusyn ethnic comunity. So something is wrong with your calculations. Thirdly, you have no evidence that all Ukrainians from Zakarpatia undoubtedly speak Rusyn. Its just your assumption. Fourthly, the number 60,000 is also exaggerated, because so called 'Polish Rusins' recognize themselves as Lemkos but not Rusyn. Their number is about 6,000. So I put 60,000 as an 'optimistic' number.--133.41.84.206 05:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


Alex Kov, the Ukrainian Census statistics you site is specifically about the ethnic composition data. There is nothing there to deduce the language composition. "Those people who recognized themselves Rusyn probably speak Rusyn language." is your own speculation. The according to Ukrainian census, btw, there are no speakers of Rusyn in Ukraine.[1] So if you want to use the census data, you should use the latter ref where Rusyn is not even mentioned. At the same time, the ethnologue is a valid ref. And, besides, you should seize revert warring and logging off reverting from IP's. --Irpen 16:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, it depends on my wish to logg in or no not. Ethnologue doesnt give information where did they get the number 600, 000. This number looks unrealisticly if we comare it to official statistics of Rusyns population by countries.--133.41.4.46 04:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned several times now, the numbers from "official statistics" is about ethnicity, not language. Language exists independent of ethnicity. In addition, if you don't think this issue is polarized to the extreme in Ukraine so that whatever numbers are arrived at through the Ukrainian census are unreliable, then you're really fooling yourself. Ethnologue is generally considered to be reliable, and there are ample other sources to back up a number that is at the very least 600,000 and probably over a million. For instance, the Central Europe Review article already mentioned. Lexicon (talk) 15:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
P.S. - The Poland link doesn't work--someone might want to find one that does. Lexicon (talk) 15:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Text

Can someone include a sample text or common phrases or something? icelandic hurricane #12(talk) 14:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute: official recognition by a country

On the Austria-Hungary page, it lists names of the empire in all its officially recognized languages. Rusyn is one. Anyone who knows more about its history want to chime in? --Adamrush 21:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Somewhat dubious claims

I think citations should be brought about Rusyn being written in Cyrillic in Poland or Hungary. I'd say they either write it in western alphabet or it is a rarely written language, but I could be totally wrong. Also, as cultural centers, I think it is risky to say the least to mention Budapest, being the capital of Hungay, as the most active Rusyn center in Hungary. Also, references about Legnica in Poland should be brought, because it is not consistent with the text of the article itself. • Mountolive J'espère que tu t'es lavé les mains avant de me toucher 19:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, first of all, Rusyn language (if so it may be called) is a derivation of the Old Slavonic language, therefore it should be written in Cyrillic as the rest of the Slavic languages. Also do not discard the fact that Rusyn language is not rcognized as a language. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 01:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Name of Uzhhorod

What is the correct name of Uzhhorod in Rusyn?

See Talk:Uzhhorod.

Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Zakarpattia

OK, just making it clear. The official name of the territory is not Transcarpathia, but rather the Zakarpattia Oblast that can be translated as such. Officially, and geographicly speaking, Transcarpathia does not exclusively consists of the Zakarpattia Oblast rather the Oblast is a part of the region under such name. Claiming the Oblast under such name similiar to territorial claims against the state of Ukraine, in my opinion. The other thing, Ukraine is a unitary state, and the only official language recognized in that country by law is the Ukrainian (not even the Russian). I do not know who and why gives bias claims on that issue. If you have an official document stating that, please, be so kind to point me to it. Also, please, consider the fact that I do not deny the historical relationship between the region in overall and the Rusyn language (if so it may be called). Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 02:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)