Support for Rusyn language

Sun Jun 20 00:26:22 UTC 2004

Dear discussants,

There is an argument on the side of not supporting Rusyn (or, for that
matter, any other small language group) into the status of language. Quite
outside of banks or armies or even newspapers.

For linguists, these groups have considerable theoretical interest of
course, and also it is certainly true that it is unhealthy, unhappy, and
wrong to tell someone that his/her speech is no good.

But I believe that the formation of more formal languages will tend to
encourage more division and separation among the world's peoples.  It is
also true that a child brought up in a small language group must perforce
learn another language in order to have access to world culture and society.
My argument is not that we should force the abandonment of languages, but we
should not encourage their proliferation either.

(What I really want is that everyone in the world learn a language not
usually spoken by its parents.)

Genevra

http://www.GenevraGerhart.com

ggerhart at comcast.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of colkitto
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2004 12:10 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Support for Rusyn language

I hope I'm not the only one to suggest that a literary language needs an
army, a navy, and an ATTITUDE
(the example that spring to mind here is Afrikaans)

part of the determination of distance must include the range of uses of the
given language/dialect.  I first became aware of this issue while reading a
contrastive study between Shetland dialect and Faroese - you can write folk
poetry in the former, but can you charter a bank in it (to take one boring,
but necessary function of a literary language in the modern world)?  The
Ebonics controversy might have been partly  resolved by asking: can you
charter a bank in it?

If Rusyn has developed a similar full range of uses (however artificially in
the initial stages), and cna be used for such purposes, then one would have
to at least partially concede the point ....

Robert Orr

> I do not remember the exact citation from Baudouin de Courtenay who said
about a literary language as a dialect, which is simply supported by army,
police, etc.
>
> Let any dialect become a separate language! Vive la democratie! Are you
with us?.
>
> Yet, I am wondering, who is sufficiently qualified (as a LINGUIST, even
not a Slavist, and not a Politician) to determine a distance between a
language and a dialect? (A question which would torment Potebnja who was
pondering over the questione della lingua in Malorossija)
>
> Can I declare a vernacular spoken in my village, a language or not? Or
should I first declare my village's independence and then make the same with
the dialect/language?

> May we compare a case of Rusyn with the fate of "malorusskoje narechije"?
Is this politically or linguistically correct in view of Ukraine's long
experience in its relationships with Russia and Poland?
>
> Who has objective criteria to base his theory of literary language upon?

> Is there a universal theory of literary language, to wit, let's make this
dialect a language, or vice versa?
>
> There are more questions than answers, which may prompt me as a linguist
(and not a villager) to accept a vernacular spoken in a neighboring village
as a separate language.
>
>
> A.D.
>
>
>
> -- "Robert A. Rothstein" <rar at SLAVIC.UMASS.EDU> wrote:
> As Professor Danylenko undoubtedly understands, codification is a
> necessary step along the road to establishing a new literary or standard
> language.  If the codified version is accepted by speakers and takes on
> all the functions of a standard language, then there is reason to
> recognize the existence of a new language.  In the case of the Rusyns of
> Slovakia, Poland (the Lemkos), the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine,
> Hungary and Romania, if they are successful in their process of language
> building, outside observers should agree with the contention of many
> Rusyns, that what they speak is not a dialect (or dialects) of Ukrainian
> but a separate language.  The Macedonians were the last Slavs to go
> through such a process, and nowadays almost all Slavists would grant
> them the right to say that what they speak is not a Bulgarian dialect.
> Similarly hardly anyone would now claim that Ukrainian is merely a
> dialect of Russian.  In the new Europe the existence of regional
> languages does not have to be a political question, although there are
> those who would make it such.
>
> To Professor Mills: Horace Lunt has argued convincingly that the Rusin
> spoken in the Vojvodina, largely by the descendents of emigrants from
> Eastern Slovakia, is
> best analyzed as a kind of Serbianized East Slovak, and thus a variety
> of West, not East, Slavic.
>
> Bob Rothstein
>
>
> Andriy Danylenko wrote:
>
> >I thought everybody understood that this codification is a mere political
action aimed at, guess what...
> >
> >Andriy Danylenko
> >danylenko at juno.com
> >adanylenko at pace.edu
> >
> >-- Charles Mills <cmills at KNOX.EDU> wrote:
> >I thought Rusin was the fourth (or fifth or sixth or seventh) West
> >Slavic language.
> >
> >
> >Elaine Rusinko wrote:
> >
> >As many of you know, the Rusyn language was codified in Slovakia in 1995
> >as the fourth East Slavic language ...
> >
> >
> >
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                     http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                     http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------