Language of Rusyns in Slovakia: Controversies, vagaries, and rivalry of codification discourses

Abstract

Slovakia is a rather young country in Central Europe that was established on 1st January 1993 after the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia. The development of national and language structure of the population in Slovakia is closely related to the changing geopolitical, social, and cultural context. One consequence of this complicated history is a relatively high degree of language diversification. The territory of current Slovakia was a part of the Hungarian Kingdom up to 1918. After World War I, Slovakia became part of Czechoslovakia. During the World War II period (1939-1945), the southern part of Slovak territory was occupied by Hungary, and the rest of the area was established as the Slovak state under the influence of Nazi Germany. After the World War II, Slovakia was part of Czechoslovakia once again up to 1992. This period was mostly connected with totalitarian communist regime (1948-1989). Sociopolitical and economic changes that began in 1989 created a new situation for national and language minority development. The restoration of political freedom and plurality led to emancipation of minority languages and cultures. Slovakia has several minority languages. According to the population census in 2011, Slovak language as a mother tongue was declared by 78.6% of Slovak citizens. The most important minority languages declared as a mother tongue are Hungarian (9.4%), Romany (2.3%), Rusyn/Ruthenian (1%), Czech (0.65%), Ukrainian (0.1%), and German (0.1%). There are also groups with Polish, Croatian, Bulgarian, and other mother tongues in Slovakia. Our chapter deals with the Ruthenian/Rusyn language, which codification was very long and complicated process.