Support for Rusyn language

[Robert A. Rothstein]

Andriy Danylenko wrote:

>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.
>
>
It was Max Weinreich who wrote about "the wittily bitter definition of a
member of a national minority that a language is a dialect that has an
army and a navy."

>Let any dialect become a separate language! Vive la democratie! Are you with us?…
>
Dialects don't do anything; their speakers do. If those who habitually
use a particular linguistic system feel that what they speak is
significantly different from the most closely language or dialect and
that they are culturally different from the speakers of that language or
dialect, they can try to develop their system into a literary or
standard language. Success is not guaranteed, but equal opportunity is a
good principle.

>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)
>
>
Potebnia, the great nineteenth-century Russian and Ukrainian linguist,
suggested that linguists could measure the distance between a given
language and the one closest to it, saying for example, that
"malorusskie govory s velikorusskimi - eto rodnye brat'ia, a s drugimi
slavianskimi - dvoiurodnye i troiurodnye," but "iz etogo nel'zia
vyvesti, chto odno iz etikh narechii dolzhno imet' pis'mennost', a
drugoe net, ni togo, chto oba dolzhny imet' pis'mennost' svoiu ili
obshchuiu." He mocked the notion that linguists should issue judgments
about the difference between language and dialect: "Eto neskol'ko
napominaet slova odnoi damy v romane Dikkensa: 'Slovar', kakoe eto
poleznoe, kakoe neobkhodimoe sochinenie. Tut znacheniia vsekh slov! - Ne
bud' doktora Dzhonsona ili drugogo kogo v etom rode, my by do sikh por
nazyvali krovat' kochergoiu.' Ne bud' Mikloshicha, priznaiushchego
samostoiatel'nost' malorusskogo narechiia, ili drugo kogo v etom rode, i
malorusskaia pis'mennost' ne sushchestvovala by ili vlachila by lish'
neschastnuiu zhizn'."
Such twentieth-century linguists as Einar Haugen and Uriel Weinreich,
however, have suggested that there are criteria one could use to judge
the extent to which an "undeveloped language" has moved along the path
to becoming a "fully developed language" (Haugen's terminology) or the
degree of "crystallization of new languages" (Weinreich's terminology).
One of their criteria is mentioned by Robert Orr in his contribution to
this discussion, namely, the range of uses of the given speech variety.

>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?
>
>
Ukrainian was recognized as a language long before Ukraine finally
achieved political independence. There's no necessary connection between
linguistic self-determination and political independence.

>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?
>
Why not? The East Slavic speakers of the the Kingdom of Hungary (in the
Austro-Hungarian state) also had a long history. Some of them became
Hungarians; others maintained a Slavic ethnic identity, some viewing
themselves as members of a "Russian nation," some as Ukrainians (when
that option became possible) and some considering themselves members of
a separate ethnos (Rusyn, Rusnak, etc.).

>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?
>
>
>
See the reference to Haugen and U. Weinreich above. But of course these
are not calls for action, but suggestions as to how one might measure
the extent to which a group of speakers has succeeded in elevating the
status of its speech variety to that of a literary or standard language.
Why don't we wait and see if the Rusyns succeed? As Wayles Browne points
out in his contribution to the discussion "one can publish serious
magazines and newspapers in [Rusyn and] they find a responsive
readership," which is one measure of some success.

Although in her posting Genevra Gerhart makes a reasonable case on
practical grounds for non-proliferation of languages, there is also a
case to be made for preserving the richness of linguistic diversity.

Bob Rothstein

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