Pannonian Rusyn

In some non-Slavic languages, Pannonian Rusyns may be referred to by somewhat archaic exonyms, such as Pannonian Ruthenes or Pannonian Ruthenians, and their language is thus labeled as Pannonian Ruthenian, but such terminology is not used in the native (Rusyn) language. Ruthenian exonyms are also viewed as imprecise, since they have several broader meanings, both in terms of their historical uses and ethnic scopes, that are encompassing various East Slavic groups and their languages. In English, Pannonian Rusyns generally refer to their language as simply "Ruthenian"; for instance, there exists a "Department of Ruthenian Studies" at the Faculty of Philosophy in the University of Novi Sad, which teaches courses relating to Pannonian Rusyn. Most commonly, native speakers refer to their language simply as Rusky (, ), that renders in English as Rusyn. Sometimes they also use the somewhat archaic term Rusnacky (, ), that renders in English as Rusnak. These terms are used both by laypersons in daily conversation, and by Pannonian-Rusyn linguists in native-language scholarly works. Since those terms have historically been (and still are) used by Carpathian Rusyns and other East Slavs as endonyms for their own vernacular, a need emerged for an appropriate adjective to identify this particular linguistic variety. In this spirit, Gabriel Kostelnik proposed the term () to refer to the language spoken in the region of Bačka (modern-day Serbia). Eventually, the more general term, (), was adopted by several scholars and thus also encompassed the varieties of the language spoken in the region of Syrmia (modern-day Serbia and Croatia). Terms such as Vojvodina Rusyn or Vojvodinian Rusyn were alternatively used to refer to all variants in the region of Vojvodina. Even wider term Yugoslav Rusyn was sometimes also used during the existence of former Yugoslavia. Finally, during the 1970s and 1980s, Rusyn writer and artist Yulian Kolyesarov proposed the term Panonsko-Rusky () or Pannonian Rusyn. In spite of all the aforementioned endonymic tems, some modern authors still opt to use those based on the exonymic term Ruthenian. Since native speakers do not use Ruthenian or related terms for self-identification in their own language, such terms are likewise not used in works written in the native language. Still, the terms are employed by some authors in various English-language and non-Slavic works; sometimes in a very general manner. For instance, instead of using regional identifiers (such as Pannonian Ruthenian, corresponding to Pannonian Rusyn), several of these authors have begun to simply designate that linguistic variety solely as Ruthenian, excluding any regional or other adjectives. Thus, a peculiar terminological situation has emerged as the term Ruthenian language already has a specific and well-established meaning in both traditional and scientific contexts and primarily refers to late medieval and early modern varieties of East Slavic as were spoken in the regions of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus from the 15th until 18th centuries. More recently in the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the corresponding term () was employed until 1918 as the official exonymic term for the entire body of East Slavic languages within the borders of the Monarchy. ISO 639-3 Identifier In 2022, the ISO 639-3 identifier, rsk, and language names, Rusyn and Ruthenian, were approved for Pannonian Rusyn by ISO. The change followed request in 2020 by a group of linguists (including Aleksandr Dulichenko) in which ISO was asked to recognize Pannonian Rusyn as distinct and separate from Carpathian Rusyn and to issue it the new ISO 639-3 identifier, Ruthenian language (with the additional name, Rusnak). This ISO update is the latest development since a 2019 proposal from a smaller group of those same linguists which similarly requested suppression of the code, rue, and division of Rusyn language into two distinct languages: the East Rusyn language (Carpathian Rusyn) and the South Rusyn language (Pannonian Rusyn). However, in 2020, ISO authorities rejected the request. As explained earlier, term Ruthenian language already has a specific and well-established meaning. However, the additional term, Rusnak, also has a wider connotation as it is a traditional endonym for all Rusyns (whether in Pannonia or Carpathian Rus'). The effects of the adoption of these terms for Pannonian Rusyn by ISO (if any) remain to be seen. ==Classification==

Pannonian Rusyn has recently been treated as a separate language from Carpatho-Rusyn. By some scholars, mainly American scholars, Pannonian Rusyn has been treated as a West Slavic language, and Carpatho-Rusyn as an East Slavic language, which would make Pannonian Rusyn the only West Slavic language to use the Cyrillic script. In the ISO 639-9 identifier application for Pannonian Rusyn (or "Ruthenian" as it is referred to in that document), the authors note that "Ruthenian is closest to [a] linguistic entity sometimes called [; ], ... (the speeches of Trebišov and Prešov [districts])." Though Pannonian Rusyn shares most of its linguistic features with these Eastern Slovak dialects, it shares nine features which are exclusive to South-West Zemplin (Trebišov) Eastern Slovak varieties: аlsо states that East Slovak features predominate both on phonological and morphological level. He points to the following phonological features: • Stress in Ruthenian is always on penultimate syllable; Dulichenko connects this feature with Polish, although it is present in all Eastern Slovak speeches; • Initial e > ie/є (e.g. ; ; ); • i = y/и = ы (e.g. ; ; ; ), although East Slavic languages and dialects rigorously differentiate between *i and *y, with most Carpathian Rusyn varieties even differentiating a third ŷ, whereas Slovak and Czech merge i and y; • dj > dz (e.g. ; ; ); tj > c (ts) (e.g. ; ; ); • z' > (ź) > zh/ж (e.g. ; ; boiazhl'ivi/бояжлїви "afraid"); s' > (ś) > sh/ш (e.g. ; ; ); • The Proto-Slavic consonant groups *dl and *tl are preserved (e.g. zubadlo/зубадло "(artificial) teeth", ; ; stretla/стретла "she met"); • gvi > hvi (e.g. ; ); kvi > kvi (e.g. ; ); • Absence of epenthesis l'/л (е.g. ; ; ). • Proto-Slavic groups -ort and -olt became groups rot- and lot- (e.g. ; ; ); • The below Proto-Slavic groups changed in the same manner as in West and South Slavic languages. In contrast, these groups became torot, tolot, teret, tolot (e.g. boroda, poroch, korova; holova, boloto, holod; bereh, pered, vereteno; moloko, polot', polova) in East Slavic languages. • tort became trat (e.g. ; ; ); • tolt became tlat (e.g. ; ; ); • tert became tret (e.g. ; ; ); • telt became tlet (e.g. ; ; ). Dulichenko also notes that Pannonian Rusyn shares the following morphological features with East Slovak dialects: • The nominative singular of nouns of neuter gender on a soft stem is formed by the ending -o (e.g.; ; ), while East Slavic and standard Slovak generally use -e; • The instrumental singular of nouns of feminine gender is formed by the ending -u/-у (e.g.; ), whereas standard Slovak employs -ou; • The genitive plural and locative plural (vocative plural for nouns pertaining to animate thing) of nouns are formed by the ending -okh/-ох (e.g. [shpiv] ptitsokh/[шпив] птицох "singing of birds", [brekh] psokh/[брех] псох "barking of dogs", ); • The dative plural of nouns formed by the ending -om/-ом (e.g. gu bradlom/ґу брадлом "to the heaps", ); • The instrumental plural ending: a) of adjectives (e.g.; ); b) of possessive, interrogative, demonstrative and personal pronouns of the third person plural (e.g.; ; ); • The nominative plural ending -o a) of possessive pronouns (e.g.); b) of possessive adjectives (e. g. shestrino chustochki/шестрино хусточки "sister's kerchiefs"); • The ending -m/-м for the first person singular of the Present Tense (e.g.; ; ); • The ending -me/-ме for the first person plural of the Present Tense (e.g.; ; ); • The endings -a, -'a, -u, -'u/-а, -я, -у, -ю for the third person plural of the Present Tense (e.g.; ); • The reflexive particle she/ше is weakly related to a verb and can proceed it (e.g.); • The system of forms of the auxiliary verb buts (som, shi, ie, zme, stse, su)/буц (сом, ши, є, зме, сце, су); • The conjunction zhe/же in the dependent clause (e.g. ia znam zhe …/я знам же ... "I know that ..."). Classification as West Slavic Pannonian Rusyn and Carpathian Rusyn are claimed by some scholarsto both be East Slavic languages.Pannonian Rusyn differs from Carpathian Rusyn in that the former has been influenced by the surrounding South Slavic languages (especially Serbian), whilst the latter has been influenced by the surrounding West Slavic languages (especially Polish and Slovak). Among the West Slavic languages, Pannonian Rusyn has been especially influenced by the Eastern Slovak dialects. This influence occurred before the Rusyns emigrated to Pannonia from the northern Carpathian region, around the middle of the 18th century. More recently, Pannonian Rusyn has been claimed, even by linguists and grammarians of Pannonian Rusyn origin, to be an inherit from Old Slovak, with extraneous East Slavic influence being derived from historically geographically proximate Carpathian Rusyn. This largely manifests in vocabulary, for example words displaying and . In turn, Carpathian Rusyn has also been influenced by pre-migration Pannonian Rusyn, albeit to a smaller degree; for instance, the word for "spear" is , a feminine noun borrowed from Pannonian Rusyn , inherited from Old Slovak kopija. A native East Slavic inherit would have yielded a neuter noun; compare Russian . Yet another theory, supported and proposed by Slavic linguists such as Aleksandr Dulichenko, claims that Pannonian Rusyn is a microlanguage, albeit one that cannot be neatly classified as the descendant of any one larger Slavic literary language, due to the interweaving of West Slavic and East Slavic features (both grammatically and lexically), further combined with partial South Slavic (chiefly Serbo-Croatian) influence in the last two centuries. == Phonology ==

Consonants • Any consonant may be geminated when spelt twice. For example, (kojjak) is pronounced rather than . However, this almost exclusively occurs in compound words, as native words are generally respelled to reduce repeated letters into one letter. Vowels Unlike standard Slovak or Czech, there is no vowel length distinction. There is also very little (if any) vowel reduction, and [] is almost never realized as [], although [] may sometimes be realized as [] in certain words due to Serbian influence, such as (, "I don't know") being pronounced as by certain speakers in colloquial speech. Another notable difference to other West Slavic languages and to Western East Slavic languages is that there is no shift involved with the vowel ⟨o⟩. Czech notably uses ⟨ů⟩ to denote [] which had historically evolved from ⟨o⟩, while Slovak and Polish use ⟨ô⟩ and ⟨ó⟩ [] respectively to represent their respective O-involved vowel shifts. In the Ukrainian language, Proto-Slavic *o shifts to ⟨і⟩ under certain circumstances, while in Carpathian Rusyn, it may manifest as ⟨і⟩, ⟨ӱ⟩, or ⟨у⟩ depending on the dialect. However, such a shift is not present in Pannonian Rusyn. This can be illustrated using the word for "horse" (Proto-Slavic *koňь), which is kůň in Czech, kôň in Slovak, кінь (kin') in Ukrainian, and (kün') in Carpathian Rusyn. However, in Pannonian Rusyn, the term is конь (kon'), with no vowel shift compared to the Proto-Slavic form. Prosody Pannonian Rusyn, for the vast majority of words, has penultimate stress, that is, the second-to-last syllable is stressed for every word with two or more syllables. For example, (tovariš, "friend") is pronounced , while its dative and locative form, (tovarišovi) is pronounced . The main systematic exception is words ending in (-izm, "-ism"), which are considered to have a syllabic ⟨м⟩ and thus pronounced . The syllabicity of the ending is lost in oblique forms which append a vowel to the word, thus retaining stress as . However, due to influence from Serbo-Croatian , -ism type nouns are often spelt with (-izem) in the nominative singular, which also retains stress on . Another exception is words which end in the indefinite suffix (-šik). For those words, the stressed syllable is the same one as in the pronoun without this suffix, that is, despite the vowel, this suffix is not taken into account when considering penultimate stress. For instance, (xtorišik, "some, any") is pronounced rather than which would have otherwise been derived according to the rule of penultimate stress. For a minority of words, they may have irregular stress, which is usually indicated in dictionaries with an acute accent. These tend to be interjections, and examples of this include (akurát , "exactly!"), (bájako , "of course not!") and (ni-á , "look..."). Voicing and devoicing Pannonian Rusyn consonants display voicing and devoicing, depending on their position in a word or surrounding words. At the end of a word, voiced consonants are devoiced, for example (raz, "time") is pronounced rather than . This phenomenon also occurs in many other Slavic languages, such as Russian or Polish. However, final devoicing does not occur when the word is followed by a word which begins with a voiced consonant or a vowel; instead, unvoiced consonants are voiced, for instance (, "brother and sister") being pronounced as rather than . In a consonant cluster, whether a consonant is voiced or not depends on the final consonant in the cluster. This affects whether the consonant(s) before it are voiced. For instance, in the word (drobizg, "poultry"), since the final consonant is devoiced to , the preceding consonant is also subsequently devoiced to , thus giving as the final pronunciation. Likewise, in the word (francuzki, "French"), since ⟨к⟩ is unvoiced, it affects the preceding ⟨з⟩ and devoices it to , therefore giving as the pronunciation, and also implying that (-zki) and (-ski) are essentially homophonic. One unusual phenomenon is that for any conjugated verb form that ends in (-me), any unvoiced consonant immediately preceding this suffix is voiced. For instance, (pljecme), the first-person plural imperative form of (pljesc, "to knit"), is pronounced rather than . This phenomenon is shared with standard Slovak, and is likewise generally not reflected in spelling. The main exception of this is the first-person plural present verb form (zme, "we are"), pronounced , which is the same as Slovak . Both forms come from Old Slovak . ==Vocabulary==

Being a language born of unique circumstances, Pannonian Rusyn bears numerous lexical influences. Slovak inherit A large amount of vocabulary is inherited from Old Slovak, and West Slavic cognates may be found in standard Slovak and/or Czech. For example, (sxopni, "capable") being cognate with Czech and Slovak , (naščivic, "to visit") sharing a common origin with Czech and Slovak , or (ozda, "perhaps") corresponding to Slovak . In a majority of cases, Proto-Slavic *dь and *tь, later Old Slovak , become and in Pannonian Rusyn. This is a common feature across Eastern Slovak dialects. For instance, Proto-Slavic *děti becomes Pannonian Rusyn (dzeci, "children") compared to Slovak . This phenomenon is also observed in the singular locative forms of certain nouns whose root end in -d or -t, for instance (mesto) → (mesce). In some cases, this may converge with the standard Slovak term, such as Pannonian Rusyn (medzi, "between") and Slovak both being ; or (cesto, "dough") and Slovak both being . While the sounds of [] and [] do exist in Pannonian Rusyn, as in Czech and standard Slovak, they are only used in loanwords, chiefly those from Carpathian Rusyn or Hungarian. On the other hand, unlike Czech and Slovak, Proto-Slavic *zь and *sь have largely been retained, in the form of ⟨ж⟩ and ⟨ш⟩. For example, the word for "today" is (nješka), a reduced form of (dnješka) which comes from Proto-Slavic *dьnьsьka, whence also Czech dneska, with *sь hardened to s. This also occurs before vowels, for instance Proto-Slavic *beseda → Pannonian Rusyn (bešeda), or Proto-Slavic *zelenъ → Pannonian Rusyn (željeni). This is most prevalent in the reflexive particle, which in Czech is , in standard Slovak (dialectally, also ), but in Pannonian Rusyn it is (še), which perhaps bears greater phonological similarity to Polish . This is also seen in the locative form of certain nouns, for instance (ljes) becoming (lješe) in the locative, or (guzel) becoming (gužlje); in adverbs derived from adjectives in , like (radosni, "happy, merry") and (radošnje, "happily, merrily"), which compare Polish ; as well as in the present tense conjugated forms of verbs whose infinitives end in or , such as (rosnuc, "to grow") becoming (rošnje, "is growing"), or (marznuc, "to freeze") becoming (maržnje, "is freezing"); compare Polish , but . It is also worth noting, however, that the palatalization of [] does not necessarily indicate a preceding з → ж / с → ш shift; take for example (poznjejše, "later"), originally the comparative adverb of (pozni, "late"). Certain inherited words display an unusual shift of *e, *ě or *ę → (ej), for example *pętь ("five") and *šestь ("six") → (pejc), (šejsc). Some of these forms are in fact attested in Old Slovak, such as , however there is no uniformity to this shift. It sometimes even occurs in loanwords, such as (šejtac, "to walk") from Serbo-Croatian , or (Bejč, "Vienna") from Hungarian . Carpathian Rusyn In this case, Carpathian Rusyn refers to the East Slavic dialects spoken in the regions between Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine, often referred to simply as Rusyn. One common trait of a loanword from Carpathian Rusyn is the usage of , which are not found in native Pannonian Rusyn words inherited from Old Slovak. For example, (nadjija, "hope"), from Carpathian Rusyn , or (djido, "grandfather") from Carpathian Rusyn . Another trait is the use of ⟨и⟩ where etymologically the word would have displayed ⟨о⟩. This usually indicates a Carpathian Rusyn word which displayed an *o → ⟨і⟩ or ⟨ӱ⟩ shift. For instance, (mrija, "dream", cf. Belarusian (mroja)) → Pannonian Rusyn (mrija, "imagination"), or (čarivnyk) or even (*čarüvnyk, "wizard") → Pannonian Rusyn (čarivnjik, "wizard, magician"), cf. Old Slovak . In certain cases, ⟨и⟩ in place of ⟨е⟩ can also be an indicator of a Carpathian Rusyn borrowing, such as (siver, "north") from (sjiver), where a native Slovak inherit would have yielded something akin to (*šever); however, this I > E shift sometimes also occurs in Slovak inherits, such as sled > *slied > *slíd > Pannonian Rusyn (šljid). Some common Pannonian Rusyns names are of Carpathian Rusyn origin, such as (Mitro) probably being a reduced form of (Dmytro), or (Mikola) being from Carpathian Rusyn (Mykola), the Rusyn and Ukrainian variant of Nicholas. In some cases, Carpathian Rusyn given names may become surnames in Pannonian Rusyn, such as (Mikita) from (Mykyta) or (Homa / Choma) from (Xoma). A number of country names or otherwise place names also derive from Carpathian Rusyn, for instance (Haličina, "Galicia"), from Carpathian Rusyn (Halyčyna); or (Kitaj, "China") from Carpathian Rusyn (Kitaj). Hungarian Hungarian loanwords may be divided into pre-Pannonian migration, and post-migration. Pre-migration words are often also found in Carpathian Rusyn, such as (govlja, "stork") from Hungarian , whereas post-migration Hungarian loanwords are often shared with Serbo-Croatian, such as (varoš, "city; town") from . As a general rule, Hungarian ó tends to become (ov) in Pannonian Rusyn, usually pronounced , but may change to in declined forms, as in (ašov, "spade", from Hungarian ásó) , but (ašovi, "spades") . For certain words, Hungarian é may become (ej), such as becoming (cejdula) in the Kucura dialect, or ("Vienna") being colloquially referred to as (Bejč). Hungarian h may be rendered as ⟨г⟩, such as in (Horvat, "Croatian") from Hungarian ; or it may be rendered as ⟨х⟩, e.g. (xarča, "catfish") from . In addition to regular vocabulary, many Pannonian Rusyns also bear Hungarian surnames (and/or, less often, first names), such as (Nad') from Hungarian (literally "big"), (Tamaš) from ("Thomas"), or (Djuri) from , a diminutive of ("George"). It is also not uncommon that certain Hungarian compound surnames are univerbated into a singular term, such as (Kišjuhas) from , literally "Small-Shepherd", though and both exist as separate Rusyn surnames. Some of these names and surnames are also found among Czechs and Slovaks, as well as other Rusyns. Serbo-Croatian In the two centuries since Pannonian Rusyns moved to modern-day Croatia and Serbia, a large amount of vocabulary from Serbo-Croatian has entered the language. This includes almost all internationalisms, country names, and modern technical vocabulary. Some of these may be direct borrowings, or they may be calques. Examples include (zajednjica, "community") from Serbo-Croatian , or (oporcijovac, "to tax") being a calque of Serbo-Croatian . This extends to many modern-day technologies; for instance, the term for an HTTP cookie is (, literally "little baked good"), which is a semantic loan of Serbo-Croatian . Certain loans into Pannonian Rusyn are derived from older Serbo-Croatian terms, that remain in use even after they become increasingly dated or even obsolete in Serbian and Croatian. For instance, (, "division") is a derivation from Serbo-Croatian or , which displaced the earlier form (). However, the inverse has seemed to occur in Serbo-Croatian, where the forms or have become the dominant forms, all while Pannonian Rusyn continues to use (). Another example is (, "police officer"), from German . Whereas modern Serbo-Croatian appends a Slavic suffix to the term to create , the preferred form in Pannonian Rusyn is still (), even though there also exists a similar derivation (). Many country names, especially of European countries, end in either (-ska) or (-cka) and decline using a feminine adjectival declension, for instance (Njemecka, "Germany"), genitive/dative/locative (Njemeckej). This is likely a calque of Serbo-Croatian , which also declines with an adjectival declension: , . Certain words may be a blend of Slovak, Carpathian Rusyn and Serbo-Croatian all at once; for instance, (pošljidok) seems to be a blend of Serbo-Croatian , Pannonian Rusyn (šljid, via an unattested Old Slovak *slied), and Carpathian Rusyn (nasljidok). Serbo-Croatian influence has also promoted the use of certain words that had already existed in Old Slovak, but had become obsolete in modern standard Slovak. For instance, the use of the word (tajna, "secret") due to influence from Serbo-Croatian , or (sušeda, "female neighbour") due to influence from Serbo-Croatian , where modern Slovak instead prefers . In some cases however, the similarities may be down to coincidence; збогом ("goodbye") exists in both Serbo-Croatian (zbogom) and in Pannonian Rusyn (zbohom), however phrases like (literally "to go with God") have been attested in Old Slovak since at least as early as 1681, and indeed is still used in modern Slovak as it is in Pannonian Rusyn. As citizens of Serbia and Croatia, Pannonian Rusyns are also increasingly giving their children names from Serbo-Croatian (respelt using the Rusyn orthography, e.g. → ), or occasionally creating names based on Serbo-Croatian ones. For instance, one male given name is (Dzvonko), modelled after Serbo-Croatian , with influence from (dzvon, "bell"). This is despite the fact that is not formed from the word for "bell", but rather a diminutive form of . Certain names may be rendered slightly differently depending on whether it was borrowed from Serbo-Croatian or from Carpathian Rusyn; for example, the equivalent of "Alexander" may be either (Aleksandar, via Serbo-Croatian) or (Aleksander, via Carpathian Rusyn), although the former is generally preferred; and the equivalent of "Helen" may be (Jelena), (Helena), (Xelena), or (Olena). Proscribed Serbisms In the modern era, due to all Pannonian Rusyns being fluent speakers of Serbian or Croatian (depending on which country they live in), certain colloquialisms from Serbo-Croatian may be used in casual speech or informal writing, which tend to be proscribed by education authorities. Two examples of this are (da, "so as to") and (god, "-ever"), which come from Serbo-Croatian and respectively, where teachers would usually recommend using the native mostly-equivalents (naj) and (hoč). Where these two are commonly used even in written Pannonian Rusyn, one very common chiefly spoken filler used by Rusyns is (ovaj, "uh, um"), also used by Serbs and Croats as . Despite the proscription, some of these Serbisms have been used in Pannonian Rusyn for over a century; (da), for example, is attested in a letter dated to July of 1925, and may have even been used prior to that. Furthermore, there exist some ubiquitous Serbisms which are not proscribed by language authorities. These are often prepositions, such as (dok, "while, as long as") or (spram, "towards"). English The vast majority of anglicisms in Pannonian Rusyn, including and especially technical and technological terminology, entered the language via Serbo-Croatian. There are nonetheless some exceptions, such as the obsolete word (štrickara, "tram") from English streetcar, or (čungam) from chewing gum. If the English word contains an ⟨h⟩, then it is usually rendered in Pannonian Rusyn as ⟨г⟩, even though the Serbo-Croatian term would use ⟨х⟩. For instance, English humor → Serbo-Croatian → Pannonian Rusyn (humor), although there are rare exceptions like (Ajdaxo) for Idaho. Certain English words may be morphologically modified depending on the intermediate language(s), such as (biftek, "steak") from English beefsteak via French . Other languages Pannonian Rusyn also has some vocabulary from German, some of which may have entered via Bavarian. For instance, (soft, "gravy") from , the Bavarian variant of German . Some such vocabulary may be present in other languages in the region; (šporhet, "stove"), from German (possibly via some Bavarian ), is cognate with Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian . In some cases, German vocabulary may be retained where they may have become obsolete in other Slavic languages, such as (hajziban, "train"), from German , which also exists in obsolete Serbo-Croatian as , and dialectally in Polish as . Some words from Ottoman Turkish are also commonplace in Pannonian Rusyn, such as (dutjan, "shop") and (madžun, "jam"). These terms most likely entered Pannonian Rusyn via a Serbo-Croatian intermediate. Modern derivations from Czech or Slovak are uncommon, however some terms are hard to explain as deriving from elsewhere. Czech derivations in Pannonian Rusyn enter the language most often via Serbo-Croatian modern-day coinages, such as (, "magazine, journal") or (, "handwriting; manuscript"). On the other hand, there also exists the term (, "motorcycle, motorbike"), which either developed spontaneously in Pannonian Rusyn, or it may be a derivation from Czech/Slovak , as in Serbo-Croatian means "chainsaw", bearing in mind also that ethnic Slovaks also live in Vojvodina and in fact outnumber Rusyns. ==Orthography==

Pannonian Rusyn is written using the Cyrillic script. This Cyrillic-based orthography has been used in an unofficial capacity since at least the beginning of the 20th century, popularized by Rusyn writer, poet, grammarian, linguist and philosopher Havriil Kostelnyk with his book of poems '' (Z mojoho valala, "From my village", 1903), with further texts written in the 1920s and 30s, including (Gramatika bačvan'sko-ruskej bešedi'', "Grammar of the Bačka-Rusyn language") published in 1923. Based on Kostelnyk's work, Pannonian Rusyn was further codified and standardized by Mikola Kočiš in Правопис руского язика (Pravopis ruskoho jazika; "Orthography of the Rusyn language", 1971) and Ґраматика руского язика (Gramatika ruskoho jazika; "Grammar of the Rusyn language", 1974), albeit with rather minimal changes, as texts written in the 1920s are still almost completely intelligible today. :::: The Pannonian Rusyn alphabet has 32 letters. It includes all the letters of the Ukrainian alphabet except І/і. Like the Carpathian Rusyn alphabets, and like the Ukrainian alphabet until 1990, the Pannonian Rusyn alphabet places ь after я, while the vast majority of Cyrillic alphabets place ь before э (if present), ю, and я. Prior to the standardization of the Cyrillic script, various scripts were informally used, including a Latin script based on the Hungarian orthography. Sometimes, this would lead to certain phonemes being misconstrued; for instance, the river and canal Bega, known in Serbo-Croatian as "Begej", was genericized into the word meaning "canal" in Pannonian Rusyn as early as the late 1800s. However, it was then spelt as in the unofficial Hungarian script, as the digraph ly is pronounced [] in modern Hungarian. Confusion arose as other Pannonian Rusyn speakers used ly to represent [], the palatalized form of [] (spelt in modern Cyrillic as ). Hence, what was originally became , and the word is today spelt in Cyrillic as . The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was also used in the 1930s, with the letters ⟨ј⟩, ⟨љ⟩, and ⟨њ⟩, so modern and were spelt as ањи and љем respectively. The Cyrillic orthography was standardized based on the dialect spoken in Ruski Krstur. One notable deviation is found in the Kucura dialect, where the plural past perfect is realized with the ending -лї instead of -ли, as is standard. For instance, читали ("they read"), normally pronounced , would be pronounced as if spelt читалї, i.e. , in the Kucura dialect. The ending is nonetheless written as -ли. Only four consonants - - may be followed by the soft sign ⟨ь⟩, in which are palatalized and become (and not ). These four consonants also attain this value when followed by ⟨є⟩, ⟨ї⟩, ⟨я⟩ or ⟨ю⟩. For all other consonants, ⟨є⟩, ⟨ї⟩, ⟨й⟩, ⟨я⟩ or ⟨ю⟩ only produce an additional sound followed by the corresponding vowel sound. In Carpathian Rusyn on the other hand, ⟨є⟩, ⟨ї⟩, ⟨й⟩, ⟨я⟩ or ⟨ю⟩ may also follow consonants such as ⟨з⟩, ⟨р⟩, ⟨с⟩ or ⟨ц⟩ depending on the specific orthography, for instance in the phrase в межичасї (v mežyčasji, "in the meantime"). Like with the Ukrainian orthography, the apostrophe ⟨'⟩ is also used to divide two consonants to prevent forming affricates, such as (''pod'žemni, "underground") (composed of , "under" and , "earth; ground") being pronounced rather than ; or it may be used to prevent a palatalizable consonant from being palatalized, such as in the word (st'juardesa'', "female flight attendant, stewardess") which is pronounced with rather than . Comparison with the Carpathian Rusyn alphabets The Prešov Rusyn alphabet of Slovakia has 36 letters. It includes all the letters of the Pannonian Rusyn alphabet plus ё, і, ы, and ъ. The Lemko Rusyn alphabet of Poland has 34 letters. It includes all the letters of the Pannonian Rusyn alphabet with the exception of ї, plus і, ы, and ъ. In the Ukrainian alphabet, и precedes і and ї, and the Pannonian Rusyn alphabet (which doesn't have і) follows this precedent by placing и before ї. In the Prešov Rusyn alphabet, however, і and ї come before и, and likewise, і comes before и in the Lemko Rusyn alphabet (which doesn't have ї). It should also be noted that ⟨г⟩ and ⟨ґ⟩ are treated as entirely independent letters and usage of the latter is not optional, as it may be in the Belarusian and Ukrainian orthographies. For instance, where Ukrainian has (hamburher) for "hamburger", Pannonian Rusyn only uses (hamburger). Nonetheless, there are certain loanwords, most often from Carpathian Rusyn and/or Old Church Slavonic, that display ⟨г⟩ even though its counterpart in Serbo-Croatian may use ⟨г⟩ [], such as (hraždan, "citizen"), (Jehipet, "Egypt"), and (hrečeski, "Greek"). Latinization There does not exist a standardized Latin-script orthography for Pannonian Rusyn. Due to all Pannonian Rusyns being Serbo-Croatian speakers, if any Latinization is required (say for use in a web domain or to render a Rusyn surname in a Croatian system), Gaj's Latin alphabet is used. For most letters, the conversion is relatively straightforward; however, at least in Serbia, ⟨г⟩ and ⟨х⟩ are both Latinized as ⟨h⟩, bearing in mind that // is not used in Serbo-Croatian. This may lead to confusion, for instance being Latinized as Helena and erroneously re-Cyrillicized as in Pannonian Rusyn. On the other hand, Serbo-Croatian ⟨h⟩ often corresponds to ⟨ch⟩ in West Slavic languages, so the Eastern Slovak surname becomes in Pannonian Rusyn Cyrillic, then in Serbian Cyrillic, and finally in Gaj's Latin Alphabet. Conversely, Serbo-Croatian , , and are always Cyrillicized as , , and , with no exceptions. Therefore, whereas "Miami" is rendered in Russian, it is spelt as in Pannonian Rusyn. Croatian Latin alphabet Rusyns in Croatia often write Pannonian Rusyn using the Latin alphabet. Unlike in Serbia, [] tends to be spelt as ⟨ch⟩. Elsewise, the alphabet is similar to Gaj's Latin alphabet, albeit with ⟨dj⟩ and ⟨tj⟩ in place of ⟨đ⟩ and ⟨ć⟩, as well as ⟨dz⟩ as a separate digraph. The Croatian Pannonian Rusyn Latin alphabet is thus as follows: :::: An example of its use is as follows: : Note the use of ⟨ch⟩ rather than ⟨h⟩ for writing [] with chižočko and chudobko. == Education ==

After the World War II, in the socialist Yugoslavia, Rusyns were officially recognized as a distinct ethnic minority, and their legal status was regulated in Yugoslav constituent republics of Serbia and Croatia. In the 1963 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, Rusyns were designated as one of seven (explicitly named) ethnic minorities, and the same provision was implemented in the Statute of Vojvodina (an autonomous province of Serbia) that was adopted in the same year. During the same period, Rusyn ethnic minority was also recognized in the Socialist Republic of Croatia, by the Constitutional Amendment IV, that was adopted in 1972. That provision was confirmed by the new 1974 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, that recognized not only local Rusyns but also local Ukrainians, thus designating them as separate and distinct ethnic minorities. Consequently, a Rusyn language high school was established in Ruski Krstur (Руски Керестур, / ), the cultural centre of the Pannonian Rusyns. At least 250 Rusyn language books have been printed so far for the high school and elementary schools in the region.) There is a lectureship at the Rusyn Studies at Novi Sad University. ==Media==

There are regular television and radio programmes in Pannonian Rusyn, by the regional public broadcaster Radio Television of Vojvodina, including the multilingual radio station Radio Novi Sad 3, with the breakdown of minutes broadcasting language in 2001 was as follows: 23.5% Serbian, 23.5% Hungarian, 5.7% Slovak, 5.7% Romanian, 3.8% Rusyn, 2.2% Romani, and 0.2% Ukrainian. ==See also==