Ruthenian
| Ruthenian language | |
|---|---|
| Halycka mowa | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [/ˈɦɑ.lɪt͡s.kɑː. ˈmɔː.wɑ/] |
| Created by | Raistas |
| Setting | parallel Earth |
| Native speakers | 3 186 000 (2001 census) |
Indo-European
| |
Early forms | |
| 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 factors. 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
- 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.
- Upper Dnistrian (dijalekt kresowý) is considered to be the main Halician Ruthenian dialect, spoken in the cities of Lwiw, Ternopiľ, and Stanislaw 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.
- Pokuttian 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).
- Hucul dialect is spoken by the Hucul people on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, in the extreme southern parts of the Stanislaw Oblasť and Transcarpathian Oblasťs. It also preserves the /ɨ~ɤ/ sound and has /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.
| 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.
| A a | B b | C c | Ć ć | Cz cz | Ch ch | D d | Ď ď | E e | é/ě | 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.
| 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
| 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 myhoťińý
Kupajut sé zemia i more Rożczyniuje żytié 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 | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ, ɛ̝ | ɛ̝ː | ɔ̜ | 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
- 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).
- 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.
- 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").
- 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.
- 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.
- 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".
- The Common Slavic *ě turned into a diphthong *ie and later merged with *ē by the XIVth century (*sě̑no "hay" became *sḕno).
- The long ending -ā in nominative plural of neutral grammatical gender became short -a like in genitive singular.
- Word-final *ł (hard or velarized "l") developed into *w: *wołk "wolf" became *wowk, *orèł "eagle" → worèw (but orel in Ukrainian, arol in Belarusian, which indicates that the change was irregular in those languages). A similar process also happened in Polish, but later it spread onto every position of ł that was not palatalized.
Late Old Ruthenian
This is the time, when Ruthenian became distinct from Ukrainian and Belarusian, developing its unique features.
- 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", *majeť "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.
- 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]).
- 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.
- Since the old /i/ sound disappeared, new [i] developed from long /e/. This change did not involve [e] from *ä in most Ruthenian dialects.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
| 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 |
- A velar consonant undergoes the appropriate second palatalisation changes
- If two or more consonants are left at the end of the word, then a fill vowel may be inserted.
- 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]).
| 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 |
- 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
- The accusative case for animate nouns is identical to the genitive case; for inanimate nouns, it is identical to the nominative.
- Nouns that take the -і ending undergo the first palatalisation, while those taking the -u ending do not.
- If the ending -е is used, then the first palatalization occurs. However, it can be avoided by using the -u form.
| 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 | žýťī | 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 |
- The older form žýťī is often used, but the newer žyťī́w is more used in areas, where Ukrainian dominates.
- 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.
| 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.
| 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.
| 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 |
- A difference between animate and inanimate adjectives is made in the accusative case.
| 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 |
- 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.
| 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:
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First Person | -u | -emo |
| Second Person | -esz | -ete |
| Third Person | -e | -ut |
For the class IV the endings are:
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First Person | -(j)u | -ymo |
| Second Person | -ysz | -yte |
| Third Person | -y(t) | -(j)yt |
For the class V the endings are:
| 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:
| 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).
| 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 |
Imperative
The imperative mood exists only in the present tense. There are no forms for the 1st person singular. The mood is formed from the present stem of the verb plus the following endings:
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First Person | — | -im/-jmo |
| Second Person | -y/-j/-Ø | -it/-jte |
| Third Person | naj + 3rdsg | naj + 3rdpl |
The first set of endings is used with stems ending in a consonant, while the second set of endings is used with stems that end in a vowel. The third set is used with irregular stems.
| bráty - "to take" | znáty - "to know" | jísty - "to eat" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | plural | singular | plural | singular | plural | |
| First Person | — | berím | — | znā́jmo | — | jídžmo |
| Second Person | berý | berít | znáj | znā́jte | jídž | jídžte |
| Third Person | naj bère | naj bèrut | naj znā́ | naj znájut | naj jíśť | naj jidiýt |
Samples
Below are two songs from "the Anthology of Carpathian songs" ("Antologia. Piéśni Karpat" in the Lesser Polish dialect) written in 1855 by Mateusz Daszawski, who had collected and written down many Polish and Ruthenian songs. The Ruthenian songs are not written in the modern orthography: vowels with the acute accent (called samogłoski pochylone in Polish) are used to mark vowel length, "ü" is used to mark [y] vowel in some dialects, also "ż" is found instead of modern "ž".
-Hrabaj, ďíwczy, hrabaj -Rake, dear girl, rake Tu zelenú tráwu. This green grass. -Ja bym pohrabala, -I would have raked it, Ta już ne uprawju. But I can't handle it. Jiszcze tota tráwa That grass has Ne je nakoszena. not been mowed. Jój, ne nakoszena, Oh, not been mowed, Jiszcze ne koszena. Not been mowed yet. Ja bym totu tráwu I would have mowed Sama wykosyla, That grass myself, Tülko siy zmuczylam, But I'm tired, Plachtu swoju styrhlam. I've taken off my coat.
This song was recorded in a small town of Wolowec. It is a folk song and belongs to a cycle of the songs of the harvesting season. It tells a story about a young girl and her mother. The mother asks her daughter to rake the grass for it to dry and become hay, but the grass hasn't been mowed yet, so there is nothing to rake, and the girl is too tired working in the field to mow the grass.
Bystrá wodo, bystrá wodo, Swift water, swift water, Wysoký swí bereh rozmylas, You washed away your high banks, Rozlyla siy po zelenim poľi, You have poured over a green field, Szyroki luhy zatopylas. You have flooded wide meadows. Bystrá wodo, bystrá wodo, Swift water, swift water, U berehy siy wertaj, Come back to your banks, Ríczysko mász szyroké, You have a wide riverbed, Kaminiém u ńim siy hraj. Play with stones there. Bystrá wodo, bystrá wodo, Swift water, swift water, Ćistu swoju riwneńko trymaj, Keep straight your path, Dyrży siy ridnych berehiw, Stay close to your native banks, Polia naszoho ne zalywaj. Don't flood our field.
This song is about the Limnycia river, which sometimes flooded neighbouring villages. The exact origin of the song is unknown, it had been composed in the village of Swárycziw around the time it was recorded.