Rusyn-Slovak Bilingualism in the Context of the Contemporary Rusyn Language Cover Image

Русиньско-словацькый білінґвізм на фонї сучасного русиньского языка
Rusyn-Slovak Bilingualism in the Context of the Contemporary Rusyn Language

Author(s): Anna Plišková, Zdenka Citriaková, Kvetoslava Koporová
Subject(s): Semantics, Eastern Slavic Languages, Sociology of Education
Published by: Филозофски факултет, Универзитет у Новом Саду
Keywords: Rusyn-Slovak bilingualism; Code-switching; Language loans; Bilingual education; Rusyn language

Summary/Abstract: This contribution deals with the issue of Rusyn-Slovak bilingualism in contemporary Slovakia. The development of the Rusyn language in the context of minority-majority bilingualism is characterized by specific tendencies which we discuss here based on an analysis of audiotaped material. Our recordings offer a limited sample of the speech of a young generation of Rusyns representing Rusyn dialects of the Snina district in the region of eastern Zemplín County. The Rusyn spoken vernacular in its present condition has been significantly inf luenced by Slovak. The lexicon has been most strongly “attacked” by foreign-language lexemes which have spontaneously found their way to the center of the vocabulary of the Rusyn-speaking population and have stamped out older native words of East Slavic origin. A great part of the lexicon in the spoken language largely of the younger generation of Rusyns is taken from Slovak and Czech. Penetrating into their vocabulary in a dynamic way are various foreign-language words, as well as entire linguistic constructions which are either adapted into a particular dialect or are simply adopted in their original form. Linguists define several types of bilingualism. In the Rusyn language context in Slovakia we can, for the most part, speak of social bilingualism because communication in both languages is carried on here over a large geographical territory. Present in this landscape is also diagonal bilingualism based on a typical mastery of a non-literary and dialectal form of the language. Confusion of codes and linguistic borrowings on the part of Rusyn-Slovak bilingual speakers are most frequent in those spheres of language use in which Rusyn does not have a sufficiently developed vocabulary. The environment in which Rusyns live and the everyday situations in which they are immersed simply demand the adoption, mastery, and use of two languages and thus bilingual education here often is not managed with conscious deliberation on the part of parents. There exist, however, several methods for achieving bilingual education from which there are many benefits for children. In practice, though, we encounter negative opinions and even prejudices toward bilingual education of children which insist that bilingualism negatively impacts their communicative, mental, and psychic development. In our view, practical experience supports exactly the opposite.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 35-53
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Ukrainian