Ruthenian

Ruthenian language
Halycka mowa
Pronunciation	[/ˈɦɑ.lɪt͡s.kɑ/]
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	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Balto-Slavic Proto-Slavic Old East Slavic
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. It is the co-official language of the Halicia Region (along with Ukrainian), where it 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.

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 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 Ruthenians call 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.