Rusyn

Rusyn can refer to:

Rusyn language

Rusyn /ˈruːsᵻn/ (Rusyn: русиньска бесїда or русиньскый язык), also known in English as Ruthene UK /rʊˈθiːn/US /ruːˈθiːn/ (sometimes Ruthenian), is an East Slavic language variety spoken by the Rusyns of Eastern Europe.

There are controversial political implications about the nature of Rusyn as a language or dialect. While some linguists treat it as a distinct language (with its own ISO 639-3 code), some scholars of Slavic languages treat it as a dialect of Ukrainian.

Geographical distribution

Rusyn, or, specifically, Carpatho-Rusyn, is a vernacular spoken in the Transcarpathian Region of Ukraine; northeastern Slovakia; in Vojvodina, Serbia; southeastern Poland, where the Rusyn dialect is generally known as Łemkowski, after the characteristic word лем/lem (meaning "only", "but" and "like"); Hungary (where the people and language are called Ruszin); and northern Maramureș, Romania, where the people are called Ruteni and the language Ruteană.

Classification

The classification and identification of the Rusyn language is historically and politically problematic. Prior to World War I, Rusyns were recognized as the Ruthenes of Galicia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand had planned to recognize them as one of the ten states of a planned United States of Greater Austria before his assassination. After the war, Austria-Hungary was partitioned, and Ruthenia was appended to the new Czechoslovak state as its easternmost province. With the advent of World War II, Ruthenia declared its independence, lasting one day, until its annexation by Hungary. After the war, the Ruthenes of Czechoslovakia, occupied by Hungary, were annexed by the Soviet Union as part of the Ukrainian SSR, which proceeded with an anti-ethnic assimilation program. Poland did the same, using internal exile to move all Rusyns from the southern homelands to western areas conquered from Germany, and immersed in Polish.