Old Belarusian language
| Ruthenian | |
|---|---|
| Old Ruthenian рус(c)кий языкъrus(s)kij jazykŭ |
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| Native to | Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (language of administration of Grand Duchy of Lithuania until 1699) |
| Extinct | developed into Belarusian, Ukrainian and Rusyn. |
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Indo-European
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| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
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Linguist list
|
orv-olr |
| Glottolog | None |
Ruthenian (or Old Belarusian, Old Ukrainian, see other names) was the group of varieties of Eastern Slavonic spoken in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The written form is also called Chancery Slavonic by Lithuanian linguists.
Scholars do not agree whether Ruthenian was a separate language, or a Western dialect or set of dialects of Old East Slavic, but it is agreed that Ruthenian has a close genetic relationship with it. Old East Slavic was the colloquial language used in Kievan Rus' (10th–13th centuries). Ruthenian can be seen as a predecessor of modern Belarusian, Rusyn and Ukrainian. Indeed, all these languages, from Old East Slavic to Rusyn, have been labelled as Ruthenian (Ukrainian: рутенська мова, русинська мова).
In modern texts, the language in question is sometimes called "Old Belarusian" or starabiełaruskaja mova (Belarusian: “Старабеларуская мова”) and "Old Ukrainian" or staroukrajinska mova (Ukrainian: “Староукраїнська мова”). As Ruthenian was always in a kind of diglossic opposition to Church Slavonic, this vernacular language was and still is often called prosta(ja) mova (Cyrillic проста(я) мова), literally "simple language".
On the other hand, there exists a school of thought that Old Belarusian and Old Ukrainian must be considered as separate historical languages.
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Wikipedia