Rusin language

Rusin (meaning literally Ruthenian) is a Slavic language or dialect spoken in north-western Serbia and eastern Croatia (therefore also called Yugoslavo-Ruthenian, Vojvodina-Ruthenian or Ba?ka-Ruthenian). It is closer to West Slavic languages, to Slovak in particular. Rusin is one of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.

Related Topics:
Slavic language - Dialect - Serbia - Croatia - Yugoslavo - Vojvodina - Ba?ka - West Slavic languages - Slovak

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While it is classified as a microlanguage by Serbian authors, it is considered a Ukrainian dialect in Ukraine (which does not recognize Rusyns as a nation) and simply a Ruthenian dialect by Slovaks and (northern) Ruthenians. Ethnologue consideres it a Slovak dialect.

Related Topics:
Microlanguage - Ukrainian - Ukraine - Ethnologue

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Like the Rusyn language, it constitutes a mixture of some Eastern Slovak dialects and East Slavic features (namely, Russian Church Slavonic, Russian and Ruthenian). This mixture is due to the fact that these Rusins emigrated to Ba?ka from Eastern Slovakia around the middle of the 18th century. Like most modern Ruthenians, they are Greek Catholics and therefore have closer ties with Ukraine. The language also has some southern Slavic features, and it is sometimes called "a Slavic Esperanto".

Related Topics:
Rusyn language - East Slavic - Russian Church Slavonic - Russian - [Old] Ruthenian - 18th century - Greek Catholics

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Since the Rusyn language was officially not recognized/prohibited in the Ukraine and in Czechoslovakia in the past (Ukrainian was prescribed for Rusyns), the Rusins in Yugoslavia, where the language was recognized, had to create their own language codification: The language has been codified by Mikola Ko?i? (?????? ?????) in ???????? ??????? ????? ('Orthography of Rusin', 1971) and ????????? ??????? ????? ('Grammar of Rusin', 1974) and is written with Cyrillic letters.

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Rusins themselves call their language (??????????) ????? ?????? or (??????????) ????? ????. Their cultural centre is Ruski Kerestur (????? ????????, Serbian: ????? ?????? Ruski Krstur). Although the number of Rusins (Pannonian Ruthenians) is much lower than that of the Rusyns (Transcarpathian Ruthenians) — just 23,286 according to the Yugoslavian census of 1981 — they were lucky to live in a multinational state that granted them certain minority rights as early as the 1970s, so that there is a Rusin-medium grade school in Ruski Kerestur (with some 250 schoolbooks printed so far for this school and elementary schools), a professorial chair for Rusin studies at Novi Sad University. There are regular television and radio programmes in Rusin, including the multilingual radio station Radio Novi Sad, which serves all of Vojvodina. The breakdown of minutes of Novi Sad original broadcasting by language in 2001 was: 23,5% Serbian, 23,5% Hungarian, 5,7% Slovak, 5,7% Romanian, 3,8% Rusin, 2,2% Romany, and 0,2% Ukrainian.

Related Topics:
Ruski Kerestur - Serbian - Multinational state - Novi Sad - Radio Novi Sad - Hungarian - Slovak - Romanian - Romany - Ukrainian

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