Re: [Cz-L] Languages of the Ukraine

Wow! I'm speechless. I really mean it.
Thank you.
 Yosef Eshet

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Polak" <charles.polak_at_bbc.co.uk>
To: "'Miriam Taylor'" <mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu>; <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 12:49 PM
Subject: RE: [Cz-L] Languages of the Ukraine

Certainly "Rusyn" and the English-from-Latin "Ruthenian" are the same word.

When Transcarpathian Ruthenia (Ukrainian: "Zakarpatyya" - or, for Czechs,
"Subcarpathian Ruthenia" (Podkarpatská Rus) - belonged to Czechoslovakia,
the Trans/Subcarpathian Ruthenians were THE Ruthenians par excellence,
because they were the only nation (except BelaRUSians?) for whom the name
was used.

The point is that "Rus" and "Rosiya" (Russia) are not quite the same word -
the latter refers to Moscow, "the Third Rome"; it's "Rhosia" a Hellenized
(Greekified) form of "Rus" preferred by the Tsars of Muscovy to maintain
their claim that their state was the real successor of Byzantine-ally Kievan
Rus - for Tolkienists, Rohan to Byzantium's Gondor - once Kiev had fallen to
the (initially pagan) Lithuanians and (Catholic) Poles. "Rus" and "Rusyn"
are originally the much more inclusive term, encompassing all eastern Slavs
(i.e. those who say "g/holod" and "g/horod" instead of "g/hlad" and
"g/hrad"): i.e. Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, including the
Carpathian and Transcarpathian highlanders.

Why Latin has "th" in "Ruthenia" and "Ruthenian", subsequently taken over by
German, English, etc., seems to be anyone's guess. I think I'm the only
person who's spotted that Arabic "Arthaniya" refers to the same place and
its people, and this does have the English "thick things" th-sound, though
only in a good classical pronunciation or in the Iraqi, Gulf, Saudi and
Yemeni dialects - some Levantine, Egyptian or Northwest African
Arabic-speakers would in fact substitute an s-sound. Possibly the Latin is
(for reasons unknown) somehow filtered through Arabic, and the Arabic
accounts were written by Persians or Turks, in whose pronunciation of Arabic
the th-letter comes out as "s", possibly using the th-letter
"hypercorrectly".

Charles Polák
mailto:charles.polak_at_bbc.co.uk

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Received on 2014-02-23 09:49:37