Ruthenian

Ruthenian language
Halycka mowa
Pronunciation	[/ˈɦɑ.lɪt͡s.kɑː. ˈmɔː.wɑ/]
Created by	Raistas
Setting	parallel Earth
Native speakers	3 186 000 (2001 census)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Ruthenian language
Early forms	Old East Slavic Old Ruthenian
Official status
Official language in	Ukraine
Recognised minority language in	Poland
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rue

Ruthenian /ruːˈθiːniən/ (native names: ruteńska mowa/рутеньска мова, halycka mowa/галицка мова) is an East Slavic language spoken by Ukrainians and Poles in the Halicia Region, where it is the co-official language (along with Ukrainian and Polish) and is the native language for more than 3 million people. Ruthenian is considered digraphic, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, though the Latin alphabet is more commonly used, while the Cyrillic alphabet is used in the Orthodox practice, road signes and in the North-Eastern part of Halicia, where Ukrainian is dominant.

The Ruthenian language is a descendant of Old East Slavic, spoken in the early medieval state of Kievan Rus'. After the fall of the Kievan Rus' as well as the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, the language developed into a form called the Old Ruthenian language - a common ancestor of modern Ruthenian, Rusyn, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages. Unlike its closest relatives, Ruthenian has always maintained a sufficient base in Halicia, where the language was never banned, in its folklore songs and then in early literature. The modern Ruthenian language retains a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Rusyn, Belarusian and Ukrainian, but is also close to Polish and Slovak.

Classification

The Ruthenian language belongs to the East Slavic group of the Indo-European language family. According to the doctor of philology Kostiantyn Tyszczenko Ruthenian (as well as Ukrainian and Belarusian) has more common features with West Slavic languages, like Polish and Slovak, than with Russian, thereby the East Slavic is likely a geographic grouping.

The classification and identification of Ruthenian is historically and politically problematic. The Ruthenian language is closely related to Ukrainian and Rusyn. Before World War I, Rusyns or Ruthenians were recognized as Halician Ukrainians within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the XXth century, the question of whether Ruthenian and Ukrainian languages are dialects of a single language or two separate languages was actively discussed, with the debate affected by linguistic and political factor. The matter of whether or not Ruthenian is indeed a separate language continued to be speculated until 1961, when Halicia became a part of the Ukrainian SSR by a referendum. These two languages still share a large degree of a mutual intelligibility.

The boundary between Ruthenian and Rusyn languages is still a question of debate, since rusyńska mowa (the Rusyn language) was the native name of the Ruthenian language until 1961 and there is no unified Rusyn language, but a group of various dialects which are not fully mutually intelligible. Ukraine officially considers Rusyn and Ruthenian the same with the exception of the Pannonian Rusyn spoken in Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. Even Ruthenian speakers called themselves rusyny rather than ruteny. Since 1995, Rusyn has been recognized as a minority language in Slovakia, having the status of an official language in municipalities where more than 20 percent of the inhabitants speak Rusyn. Meanwhile Rusyn dialects in Transcarpathia are officially considered dialects of the Ruthenian language.

History

External history

Having been a kid, i often wondered, why is the way people of my region speak so differently from those who speak on television. Well, after entering school I found out, that "television people" spoke standard Ukrainian (or Polish, or Russian, depending on a TV channel), while I was speaking a western dialect. So I just thought it would be a great idea to standardize my own dialect (combining with its direct neighbours) into a separate language (and why not, Rusyn has almost done just the same thing). Now I can say, that I am a Ruthenian (or Halician) native speaker. So it's not just "another Slavic conlang" to me, it is trully personal.

Internal history

The Ruthenian language developed from Old Ruthenian, which itself is a descendant of Old East Slavic. Old Ruthenian is seen as a predecessor of modern Belarusian, Ruthenian and Ukrainian (In modern texts, the language is sometimes called "Old Ukrainian" or "Old Belarusian"). It was the group of East Slavic dialects spoken in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. During this period many loanwords from Polish and other languages entered Ruthenian and influenced the phonology, like the adoption of /f/ and /g/ sounds, absent in the language earlier. After the rule of the Austrian Empire and formation of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria German and Yiddish words began entering the language. For much of the 19th century the Austrian authorities demonstrated some preference for Polish culture, but the Ruthenians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in Halicia and Bukowyna, where Ruthenian was widely used in education and official documents, unlike in Ukraine, where the Ukrainian language was banned from schools, publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures were prohibited.

For most of its history Ruthenian was written in the Cyrillic script and occasionally in the Latin one. In 1834 Josyp Łozynśkyj, a Ukrainian scholar and priest from Lwiw, introduce a new Latin script based on the Polish alphabet. The use of the Latin script for Ruthenian was promoted by authorities in Halicia under the Austrian Habsburg Empire, but it was not standardized until 1956.

By the time of the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, Ruthenians were ready to openly develop a body of national literature and form an independent state (West Ukrainian People's Republic), however the period of independence was brief (from 1918 to 1921) after which Halicia became a part Poland. Unlike Belarus and Ukraine, this territory did not become a subject of extermination in the Soviet Union, e.g. during Holodomor and Great Purge. In 1961 Halicia became an autonomous region of the Ukrainian SSR via a non-legitimate referendum. Many Poles moved from this territory due to political reasons, but more than a half remained living there with the largest population in the city of Lwiw, which gained a special status within the region. Ruthenian language became recognized as a commonly spoken language. It became co-official language along with Ukrainian and Polish in 1990.

The use of the Ruthenian language is mostly stagnant with a bit of decline. Although there are 4 million ethnic Ukrainians in the territory, the Ruthenian language is prevalent only in western and southern Halicia. In Lwiw, Ukrainian, Polish and Ruthenian are spoken, a notable shift from the recent past when the city was primarily Polish-speaking. The shift is believed to be caused by a population influx and migrants from other regions of Ukraine. In rural areas Ukrainians also gradually shift from Ruthenian to Ukrainian.

Dialects

The map represents languages spoken by a majority of the population in the region.

  Ruthenian (halycka mowa/галицка мова)

  Polish (język polski)

  Ukrainian (українська мова)

  Rusyn (русиньска мова)

1. Dolinian Ruthenian is spoken in the Transcarpathian Oblasť. It is notable for the retention of a distinct phoneme /ɤ/, /a/ in places of /e/ or /i/ in the standard and a phoneme /y/ in some places of a regular /i/ in the standard.
2. Upper Dnistrian (Kresowy) is considered to be the main Halician Ruthenian dialect, spoken in the Lwiw, Ternopiľ, and Iwano-Frankiwsk and the standard is mostly based on this dialect. Its distinguishing characteristics are the influence of Polish and the German vocabulary, which is reminiscent of the Austro-Hungarian rule.
3. Pokuttia is spoken in the Czerniwci and Ternopiľ Oblasť of Ukraine. This dialect has some distinct phonetic and lexical features, most notable of which is a shift of /ɛ/ into /æ/ in certain positions and /ɔ/ instead of /ɛ/ after some postalveolar fricatives (like in standard Ukrainian).
4. Hutsul is spoken by the Hucul people on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, in the extreme southern parts of the Iwano-Frankiwsk Oblasť and Transcarpathian Oblasťs. It also preserves the /ɨ~ɤ/ sound and have /d͡ʐ/ reduced to /ʒ/.

Orthography

Ruthenian has two alphabets: Latin and Cyrillic. The Cyrillic alphabet consists of 32 letters and an apostrophe, which is almost identical to the Ukrainian one. The standardized variant, used nowadays, was proposed by Євген Желехівски (Jewhen Želechiwsky). The letter "Ё" (and "ё") was introduced in 1961 to mark the vowel /ɛ/ which is pronounced /ɔ/ and /jɔ/ in the Pokuttia dialect, but it was excluded in 1990 together with the letter "Щ" (and its lowercase "щ"). The letter "ѕ" which looks the same as a Latin "s" and "џ" were occasionally used to represent /d͡z/ and /d͡ʐ/ sounds respectively, but they were substituted with digraphs. The apostrophe acts like a letter in Ruthenian and marks the /j/ sound after consonants.

The Cyrillic Ruthenian alphabet

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Ґ ґ	Д д	Е е	Є є	Ж ж	З з	И и
І і	Ї ї	Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Р р	С с
Т т	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Ь ь	Ю ю	Я я	’

The Latin script had occasionally been used since the XVIIth century, but it was not widespread until 1834, when Josyp Lozyńsky proposed an alphabet based closely on the Polish orthography after writing an article "O wprowadzeniu abecadła polskiego do piśmiennictwa ruskiego" ("About the implementation of Polish abecadło into Ruthenian writing"). This alphabet was also called abecadło.

Abecadło

A a	B b	C c	Ć ć	Cz cz	Ch ch	D d	Ď ď	E e	é	F f	G g
H h	I i	J j	K k	L l	Ł ł	M m	N n	O o	ó/ü	P p
R r	S s	Ś ś	Sz sz	T t	Ť ť	U u	W w	Y y	Z z	Ź ź	Ż ż

It has not gained a widespread recognition, despite having represented Ruthenian phonology much better than a Church Slavonic Cyrillic writing system. But with the spread of the Greek and Roman Catholic churches Latin alphabet got more popularity. So in 1859 a new project was proposed by a Czech slavist Jozef Jireček. According to the author's plan, latinization would promote a formation of a new standard Ruthenian and/or Ukrainian language (at those times they were still considered the same) free from the Old Church Slavonic and Russian influence. It was mostly based on a Czech orthography with some additional Polish letters. This writing system would eventually evolve into a modern Ruthenian alphabet, but it still had additional letters, for example: /ʂ/, /t͡ʂ/, /ʐ/ and /d͡ʐ/ were written as "š", "č", "ž" and "dž" from which the last two entered new alphabet; "ě" was used instead of earlier "é" (now written as "y") and "ü" instead of earlier "ó" (this letter represented the /y/ sound which had merged /i/ by the end of the XIXth century in most dialects). Finally, the letter "ł", used for writing [w], that originated from *l, was substituted by "w" in 1990.

Latin Ruthenian script

A a	B b	C c	Ć ć	Cz cz	D d	Ď ď	Dz dz	Dź dź	Dž dž	E e	F f
G g	H h	I i	J j	K k	L l	Ľ ľ	M m	N n	Ń ń	O o	P p
R r	S s	Ś ś	Sz sz	T t	Ť ť	U u	W w	Y y	Z z	Ź ź	Ž ž

Example

The table's caption

Modern Latin	Abecadło	Cyrillic	English translation
W tynkim fliuiďi myhoťiń Kupajut siy zemja i more Rozczyniuje žytie i smyrť I rode siy dobro ta hore.	W tynkóm fluiďi myhoťiń Kupajut sé zemia i more Rożczyniuje żytie i smyrť I rode sé dobro ta hore.	В тинкім флюїдї миготїнь Купают сьи зем’я і море, Розчинює житє і смирть І роде сьи добро та горе.	In a thin fluid of glares The land and the sea are bathing, Life and death are deliquescing And blessing and grief will be born.

Phonology

Vowels

Standard Ruthenian has six vowel phonemes:

	Front	Back
Close	i /i/	u /u/
Close-mid	y /e~ɪ/
Open-mid	e /ɛ/	o /ɔ/
Open		a /ɑ/

/ɪ/ may be classified as a close-mid front vowel, transcribed in the IPA as [e]. /ɔ/ is usually somewhat rounded [ɔ̜], but sometimes, it is pronounced with neutral lips [ʌ], while the lack of rounding is compensated for by a stronger retraction of the tongue. Unstressed /ɛ/ can be raised to [ɛ̝] near [e].

Despite Ruthenian having long vowels, the distinction between them and short vowels is not phonemic. Long vowels originated from the acute accent in Old East Slavic and from the shortening of endings. They are no longer distinguished in spelling, but in linguistic papers they are marked with an acute or a macron above a vowel. Unstressed vowels are somewhat reduced in time and, as a result, in quality. The vowels written "i" and "u" after other vowels are not creating diphthongs. Instead they are regarded as non-syllabic vowels when not followed by another vowel. For example, krai "land, state" [krɑi̯], autor "author" [ˈɑu̯.tɔr].

The table below represents all major allophones of the standard:

	Front		Back
	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː	u	uː
Close-mid	ɪ, e	eː, ɪ̯e
Open-mid	ɛ, ɛ̝	ɛ̝ː	ɔ̜, o	ɔ̝ː
Open			ɑ, ä	äː

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ń /ɲ/
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		ť /c/	k
	voiced	b	d		ď /ɟ/	ɡ
Affricate	voiceless		c /ts/	cz /t͡ʂ/	ć /t͡ɕ~t͡sʲ/
	voiced		dz /d͡z/	dž /d͡ʐ/	dź /d͡ʑ~d͡zʲ/
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	sz /ʂ/	ś /ɕ~sʲ/	ch /x/
	voiced		z	ž /ʐ/	ź /ʑ~zʲ/		h /ɦ/
Approximant		w /w~ʋ/	l /l̪/		ľ /ʎ/, j
Trill			r

The palato-alveolar fricatives and affricates are pronounced in a range between alveolar palatalized (like Ukrainian /sʲ/ and /t͡sʲ/) and trully palato-alveolar (like Polish /ɕ/ and /t͡ɕ/) depending on a speaker. Unlike Ukrainian palatalized consonants, Ruthenian ones are trully palatal. Phoneme written "w" is pronounced [ʋ] before front vowels and [w] elsewhere. The friction of /x/ is weaker than in Ukrainian and intervocally is closer to English /h/. Velar plosives /k/ and /g/ are palatalized to /kʲ/ and /gʲ/ before a front vowel. /x/ can also be palatalized in the northern parts of Ruthenian-speaking territory. /f/ may often be pronounced as /xʷ/ or /ʍ/

Alterations

Ruthenian has non-syllabic [ɪ̯] and [ʊ̯], as an allophone of /j/ and /w/ respectively. These semivowels are used in syllable codas: after a vowel and before a consonant, either within a word or between words:

win ide / він іде /ˈwin iˈdɛ/ ("he is going")

wona jde / вона йде /wɔˈnɑ ɪ̯ˈdɛ/ ("she is going")

piduczyty / підучити /piduˈt͡ʂɪtɪ/ ("to learn more")

wywczyty / вивчити /wɪʊ̯ˈt͡ʂɪtɪ/ ("to have learnt")

That feature is shared with Belarusian and Ukrainian, two closely related languages with many cognates.

Unlike Ukrainian, in Ruthenian final devoicing can occure for stops, for example, in ďid/дїд "grandfather", which can be pronounced either [ˈɟiːd] or [ˈɟiːt]. Word-medially this fenomenon occures very often: bereza/береза "birch" [bɛ.ˈrɛ.z̪ɑ] - berezka/берêзка "small birch" [bɛ̝.ˈrɛ̝ːs̪.kɑ]. Voiceless obstruents are voiced when preceding voiced ones: choc [xɔt͡s] ("though") choc by [ˈxɔd͡z bɪ] ("at least")

When two or more consonants occur word-finally, a vowel is epenthesized under the following conditions: Given a consonantal grouping C1(V)C2, C being any consonant. The vowel is inserted between the two consonants. A vowel is not inserted unless C2 is either /k/, /w/, or /ts/. Then:

• If C1 is /w/, /ɦ/, /k/, or /x/, the epenthisized vowel is always /ɔ/
• No vowel is epenthesized if the /w/ is derived from a Common Slavic vocalic *l, for example, /wɔʊ̯k/ (see below)
• If C2 is /l/, /m/, /r/, or /ts/, then the vowel is /ɛ/.
• The combination /-stw/ is not broken up. Instead the final /w/ is devoiced to /ʍ/ or a schwa is inserted between /t/ and /w/ - [stəʊ̯].

Historical development

Early Old Ruthenian

1. The metathesis and pleophony were two similar changes that had occured by the beginning of the Xth century. The outcome of metathesis, which happened only word-initially, was dependent upon the Common Slavic accent: in acuted syllables, the output was *a (*őrdlo "plough" became *rā́dlo), but on circumflexed syllables, the metathesized vowel did not lengthen (*ôrzumъ "mind, intelect" became *ròzum). Pleophony occured between consonants and the stress position depended on the pitch accent (*mȏltъ "hammer" became mòlot, *bérza "bich" became beréza).
2. The Common Slavic *ǫ raised to *ų, which later denasalized to *u or *ū depending on the pitch accent: *zǫ̑bъ → zùb ("tooth"), but *lǫ́ky → lū́ky ("meadow"). The new *ū then has become the allophone of the short *u in all dialects.
3. The Common Slavic *ę lowered and denasalized to *ä [æ]. This vowel gradually rose to [e] by the end of the XVth century in Western Ruthenian dialects, but merged with [ɑ] in Northern (Belarusian) and Southern (Ukrainian) ones. For example, *pętь became *pjäť ("five"), *telę became *teľä ("calf").
4. The weak yers disappeared, giving the vowel lengthening: *sȏlь "salt" became *sṑľ. The strong yers developed into full vowels in these positions: *vь̑lkъ "wolf" became *wòłk with a short vowel /o/. The strong front yer "ь" developed into *y in all positions, except before *l where it has given *o: *vь̃rxъ "top" became *wyrch /wɨrx/, while in Ukrainian and Belarusian it is верх/werch.
5. The *jь cluster became *ie and later merged *i (after the /ɪ/ sound appeared). However it disappeared instead if *jь was unstressed: *jьglà "needle" became hlà.
6. Early Ruthenian inherited the velar *g from Common Slavic. But by the end of the XIIth century it started changing into a fricative [ɣ]. The original *g has been preserved in the *zg consonant cluster, i.e. rṑzga. This partial preservation of *g probably allowed Late Ruthenian to adopt g in later loanwords: ґудзь/gudź or gùdz "knot".
7. The Common Slavic *ě turned into a diphthong *ie and later merged with *ē by the XIVth century (*sě̑no "hay" became *sḕno).
8. The long ending -ā in nominative plural of neutral grammatical gender became short -a like in genitive singular.

Late Old Ruthenian

This is the time, when Ruthenian became distinct from Ukrainian and Belarusian, developing its unique features.

1. The contraction happened at the end of words. Sequences of VjV, where V is a vowel, merged into one long vowel, i.e. *dòbroje → dòbrē "good", *žitije → žyťē "life", *maje "s/he has" → mā. This process was similar to the one in West Slavic languages, but it happened much later (around the XVIth century) and did not spread on all such sequences, but just the word-final ones.
2. The merge between *y and *i, which both became pronounced [ɪ] (*rỳba "fish" and *šîdlo "awl" became rỳba and szỳdlo. The *dl cluster typically preserved in Ruthenian, but simplified in both Belarusian and Ukrainian - szyla and szylo respectively). This process did not occure in the Hucul and Dolynian dialects, instead *i simply became /ɪ/ while *y remained distinct (either as [ɨ] or [ɤ]).
3. The debuccalization of /ɣ/ to /ɦ/ had occured by the XVIIth century. Its voiceless counterpart [x] did not loose its frication completely, but later allophonically changed into /h/ before voiceless plosives.
   • š, *č, *ž and *dž lost their palatalization by the XVIIth century. In the XIXth and XXth centuries these sounds became retroflexed in the Upper Dnistrian dialect and thus in the standard language.
4. Since the old /i/ sound disappeared, new [i] developed from long /e/. This change did not involve [e] from *ä in most Ruthenian dialects.
5. Prothesis ocurred before vowels word-initially. The protetic consonant was either *w or *j depending on the vowel quality: *īsty "to eat" became jisty, *ōkno "window" became *wokno. The process usually applied to long vowels.
6. The rising and fronting of *ō to *ü: *wōkno "window" → *wükno. The changed was attested in the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries writings. The new phoneme *ü also developed from earlier *ie after *r: *striecza "meeting" → strücza, which is still pronounced this way in Dolinian Ruthenian dialects. In other dialects *ü became pronounced /i/: *nücz "night" → nicz.

Modern Ruthenian

1. The /rʲ/ sound depalatalized to a plain /r/ in most dialects. In western dialects it gave a /rj/ sequence while in Hucul dialect it remained /rʲ/ before front vowels and became /r/ elsewhere.
2. The vowel /e/ began merging with /ɪ/ in most Ruthenian dialects: *teľě → *teľy. However it became /i/ after postalveolar (or retroflexed already) consonants: *szczěsťē → szczisťē.
3. Word-final palato-alveolar fricatives and affricates depalatalize to denti-alveolar ones. This process is still ongoing and irregular in most dialects except westernmost ones, where all consonants depalatalize word-finally.

Morphology

Nouns

The nominal declension has seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative), in two numbers (singular and plural), and a grammatical gender (masculine, feminine and neuter). The dual number markes paired objects or just two objects and is not widely used. Some nouns do not have singular forms but dual are used instead (sometimes only the dual number is possible).

There are four declension types. The first type contains most feminine nouns. The second declension is used for most masculine and neuter nouns. The third declension is used for feminine nouns ending in a consonant. The fourth declension is used for neuter nouns ending in ьи/iy (Common Slavic *ę).

Three of the types consist of two different subgroups: hard and soft. The soft subgroup consists of nouns whose roots end in a soft letter (followed by iotified vowel or soft vowel). The hard group consists of all other nouns. The fourth type contains two subgroups: those with an "n" insert, and those with a "t" insert. In Medieval times the "s" subgroup existed, but these nouns have typically become the second type.

The accending (acute) accent is marked differently from the descending (grave) one, like in beréza ("birch", acute accent) and kìt ("cat", grave accent); long vowels are marked with a macron, as in žytiḗ ("life"). They are not usually found in texts, except dictionaries and grammar workbooks and also sometimes to avoid confusion between word forms that would be written alike: mòje žytiḗ ("my life"), mojèho žỳtiē ("of my life").

First declension

This declension consists of nouns that end in "-a", "-ia" or "-ī". It consists primarily of feminine nouns, but a few nouns with these ending referring to professions can be either masculine or feminine. In these cases, the genitive plural is often formed by adding "-iw", such as teslia - tesliw Nouns referring to people can also take this ending. Feminine nouns in "-ī" (like gazdýńī "housewife") have this ending only in the nominative and vocative singular and dual. In all other cases they decline like soft a-stem nouns.

First declension

	beréza - "birch"			kyrnýcia - "well"			pánī - "lady"
	Singular			Dual			Plural
	Hard	Soft	-ī	Hard	Soft	-ī	Hard	Soft	-ī
Nominative	beréza	kyrnýcia	páńī	beréźi	kyrnýći	páńī	berézy	kyrnýciy	pániȳ
Genitive2	berézy	kyrnýciy	pániy	berìz	kyrnỳc	páń	berìz	kyrnỳc	páń
Dative1	beréźi	kyrnýći	páńi	berézama	kyrnýciema	pániema	berézam	kyrnýciam	pániam
Accusative3	berézu	kyrnýciu	pániu	beréźi	kyrnýći	páńi	berézy	kyrnýciy	pániy
Instrumental	berézow	kyrnýcew	pánew	berezama	kyrnýciema	pániema	berézamy	kyrnycièmy	pániemy
Locative1	beréźi	kyrnýći	páńi	berézach	kyrnýcach	pániach	berézach	kyrnýciach	pániach
Vocative	berézo	kyrnýce	páńī	beréźi	kyrnyći	páńī	berézy	kyrnýciy	pániȳ

1. A velar consonant undergoes the appropriate second palatalisation changes
2. If two or more consonants are left at the end of the word, then a fill vowel may be inserted.
3. The genitive form is used for all animate nouns, while inanimate nouns take the nominative form.

Second declension

The second declension consists of masculine and neuter nouns. Masculine nouns primarily end in a consonant, while neuter nouns end in "-o", "-e" or "-ie" ([eː]).

Second declension, masculine

	kìt - "cat"			kìń - "horse"
	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft
Nominative	kìt	kìń	kotá	kònia	kotý	kòniy
Genitive1	kotá	koniá	kotìw	kòniw	kotìw	kònȳ
Dative	kotówy	konéwy	kotóma	konióma	kotom	kòniem
Accusative2	kotá	koniá	kotá	konia	kòty	kòniy
Instrumental	kotóm	koném	kotóma	koniema	kotámy	koniámy
Locative3	koťí	końí	kotóch	koniech	kotóch	kòniech
Vocative4	kòte	kòniu	kòta	kònia	kòty	kòniy

1. Use the ending "-a" with:

   Names of professions, people’s names (first and last)

   Names of plants and animals

   Names of objects

   Names of settlements and geographic places

   Names of measuring units

   Use the ending "-u" with:

   Chemical elements, materials

   Collective nouns

   Names of buildings

   Feelings

   Names of processes, states, phenomena

   Names of games and dances

2. The accusative case for animate nouns is identical to the genitive case; for inanimate nouns, it is identical to the nominative.
3. Nouns that take the -і ending undergo the first palatalisation, while those taking the -u ending do not.
4. If the ending -е is used, then the first palatalization occurs. However, it can be avoided by using the -u form.

Second declension, neuter

	bolóto - "swamp"			sònce - "sun"			žytiḗ - "life"
	Singular			Dual			Plural
	Hard	Soft	Long Soft	Hard	Soft	Long Soft	Hard	Soft	Long Soft
Nominative	bolóto	sònce	žytiḗ	bolóťi	sońćí	žytī́	bolóťa	sonciá	žytiḗ
Genitive	bolóta	sòncia	žỳtiē	bolít	sońćíw	žytī́w/žýťī1	bolít	sònec	žyťī́w/žýťī1
Dative	bolótu	sònciu	žỳtiū	bolótoma	sońćíma	žytī́ma	bolótom	sònciem	žytiḗm
Accusative	bolóto	sònce	žỳtiē	bolóťi	sońćí	žyťī́	bolóťa	sonciá	žytiḗ
Instrumental	bolótom	sòncem	žytiḗm	bolótoma	sońćíma	žyťī́ma	bolotámy	sonciámy	žyťī́my
Locative2	bolóťi	sòńći	žytī́	bolótoch	sonciéch	žyťī́ch	bolótoch	sonciéch	žyťī́ch
Vocative	bolóto	sònce	žỳtiē	bolóťi	sońćí	žytiḗ	bolóťa	sonciá	žytiḗ

1. The older form žýťī is often used, but the newer žyťī́w is more used in areas, where Ukrainian dominates.
2. The second palatalization do not occure in long soft subtype.

Third declension

Though once containing both feminine and masculine nouns, this declension now consists only of feminine nouns that end in a consonant. All third type masculine nouns are now declined as the second type ones, for instance: earlier звѣ́р/zwěr - звѣри́/zwěrí ("animal", nominative and genitive singular) became звíр/zwír - звíра/zwíra.

Third declension

	nìcz - "night"			ťìń - "shadow"
	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft
Nominative	nìcz	ťíń	nòczi	ťíńi	nòczy	ťíni
Genitive	nòczy	ťíniy	noczȳ́	ťínȳ	noczȳ́	ťínȳ
Dative	nòczi	ťíńi	noczýma	ťíńima	noczám	ťíńam
Accusative	nìcz	ťíń	nòczi	ťíńi	nòczy	ťíńi
Instrumental	nòczew	ťínew	noczýma	ťíńima	noczámy	ťíniamy
Locative	noczí	ťíńi	nòczach	ťíniach	nòczach	ťíńach
Vocative	nòcze	ťíne	nòczi	ťíńi	nòczy	ťíńi

Fourth declension

This declension consists of solely neuter nouns that are derived from Common Slavic *ę. There are two distinct subgroups: "t" and "n". The s subgroup was obsolete already in Old East Slavonic and became a part of the second declension, for example: early Old Ruthenian slòwo - slowesá ("word", nominative singular and plural) became Old Ruthenian slòwo - slowā́ and finally Ruthenian slòwo - slowá.

Fourth declension

	ìmjy - "name"			teliỳ - "calf"
	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft
Nominative	ìmjy	teliỳ	imení	teliýťi	imená	teliýta
Genitive	ìmeny	teliýta	imèn	teliýt	imèn	teliýt
Dative	ìmeńi	teliýtu	imenóma	teliýtoma	imenóm	teliýtom
Accusative	ìmjy	teliỳ	imení	teliýťi	imená	teliýt
Instrumental	ìmenem	teliýtom	imenóma	teliýtoma	imenámy	teliýtamy
Locative	ìmeńi	teliýti	imenóch	teliýtoch	imenóch	teliýtoch
Vocative	ìmjy	teliỳ	imení	teliýťi	imená	teliýta

Adjectives

Ruthenian adjectives always agree with the nouns they modify in gender (only in singular), number, and case. Like in nouns there are 2 different declension types: hard and soft.

Hard Declension

bílȳ - "white"
	Singular			Dual	Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	bílȳ	bílā	bílē	bíľī	bílī
Genitive	bíloho	bíloj(i)	bíloho	bílych	bílych
Dative	bílomu	bíľī	bílomu	bílyma	bílym
Accusative1	bílȳ/oho	bílū	bílē/oho	bíľī/ych	bílī/ych
Instrumental	bílym	bílow	bílym	bílyma	bílymy
Locative	bíľīm	bíľī	bíľīm	bílych	bílych

1. A difference between animate and inanimate adjectives is made in the accusative case.

Hard Declension

sýniȳ - "blue"
	Singular			Dual	Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	sýniȳ	sýniā	sýniē	sýńī	sýńī
Genitive	sýneho	sýnȳ	sýneho	sýnych	sýnych
Dative	sýnemu	sýnī	sýnemu	sýnyma	sýniym
Accusative1	sýniȳ/eho	sýniū	sýniē/eho	sýńī/ych	sýńī/ych
Instrumental	sýnym	sýnew	sýnym	sýnyma	sýnymy
Locative	sýńīm	sýńī	sýńīm	sýniych	sýniych

1. A difference between animate and inanimate adjectives is made in the accusative case.

Verbs

All Ruthenian verbs conjugate for three persons in two numbers (singular and plural, the dual number is obsolete even in dialects; the subject in the dual number agrees with its verb in plural. However, some proverbs and phrases have verbs in dual number: Ked ne chczeta, to ne musyta "If you don't want to, you don't have to".) and two simple tenses (present/future and past), with periphrastic forms for the iterative, future and conditional, imperative and present/past participles, distinguished by adjectival and adverbial usage. There are three voices, active, passive and middle. The middle voice, however, is rarely included separately from the active one. Unlike present, the past tense has to agree in both person and gender with the subject, for it was originally the periphrastic present perfect, formed together with the present of быти (modern: buty /bu.tɪ/) "to be". Some dialects, like Hucul has partially preserved the ancient aorist, that has been lost elsewhere, including the standard Ruthenian. Like in other Slavic languages, most verbs come in pairs, one is imperfective and the other is perfective, usually formed with a prefix.

Verb types

Ruthenian verbs are divided into five categories. Classes I, II and III have stems ending in "-e", while the class IV has "-y(t)"-stems (the consonant "t" appears in the "-y(t)" ending when a next word begins with a vowel or it is the last word in the sentence). Class V consists of the athematic verbs and has different endings.

Verb Classes

Class	Subtype	Examples		Translation
		infinitive	3rd person sg.
Class I	Ia	nésty	nése	to carry
	Ib	pektý	peczé	to bake
	Ic	poczíty	poczné	to start
	Id	bráty	bére	to take
Class II	IIa	molóty	mèle	to mill
	IIb	śíjaty	śíje	to sow
	IIc	lýty	lýje	to pour
	IId	ciluwáty	cilúje	to pour
Class III	—	stỳhty	stỳhne	to ripen
Class IV	IVa	rádyty	rády(t)	to advise
	IVb	leťíty	léty(t)	to fly
Class V	—	mā́ty	mā́	to have

Indicative

The indicative mood is used to describe events, which are happening, have happened, or will happen. The indicative mood contains the present, past, future and iterative tenses.

In Ruthenian, present indicative corresponds to English present simple for imperfective verbs and to future simple for perfective verbs.

For classes I, II, and III the endings are:

е stem endings

	singular	plural
First Person	-u	-emo
Second Person	-esz	-ete
Third Person	-e	-ut

For the class IV the endings are:

y(t) stem endings

	singular	plural
First Person	-(j)u	-ymo
Second Person	-ysz	-yte
Third Person	-y(t)	-(j)yt

For the class V the endings are:

athematic endings

	singular	plural
First Person	-m	-mo
Second Person	-sz	-te
Third Person	-long vowel	-jut/-(j)yt

The past tense in Ruthenian had originally been a past adjectival participle and derives from the perfect tense, that's why it preserves its original adjectival declension for gender as well as gained a verbal conjugation from the word *byti in present tense. The same change has occured in West Slavic languages.

For all verb classes the endings are the same:

past tense endings

Number	singular			plural
Gender	masculine	feminine	neuter
First Person	-wym	-lam	—	-lysmo
Second Person	-wys	-las	—	-lyste
Third Person	-w	-la	-lo	-ly

Conditional

The conditional mood is formed from the past tense stem, "-by-" and a personal ending coming at the end. These new endings ("-bym", "-byste" etc.) are in fact clitics, which are not always attached to the verb, for example, forming a question, the clitic is almost always attached to the question word, rather then to the verb, like in Debym to poszukala? ("Where should I look it for?"). When forming past conditional, the clitic is always attached to the auxillary verb buty, if there are no other clarifying words: Szukala bulabym u ľiśi ("I should've looked in the forest"), but Hdybym szukala bula w ľiśi, to najszlabym ("If I've looked in the forest, I would have found it". Here hdybym "If I would" is a conjunction).

conditional mood endings

Number	singular			plural
Gender	masculine	feminine	neuter
First Person	-w-bym	-la-bym	—	-ly-bysmo
Second Person	-w-bys	-la-bys	—	-ly-byste
Third Person	-w-by	-la-by	-lo-by	-ly-by