Pannonian Rusyn

Pannonian Rusyn (руски язик), also historically referred to as Yugoslav Rusyn, is a variety of the Rusyn language, spoken by the Pannonian Rusyns, primarily in the regions of Vojvodina (northern part of modern Serbia) and Slavonia (eastern part of modern Croatia), and also in the Pannonian Rusyn diaspora in the United States and Canada. Since Rusyns are officially recognized as a national minority both in Serbia and Croatia, their language is also recognized as a minority language, and in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Serbia) it is employed as one of six official provincial languages. 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. There are several scholarly debates on various linguistic issues related to this language, including the question whether Pannonian Rusyn should be reclassified as a distinct microlanguage, or still considered to be just a specific variety of the common Rusyn language, that also has other varieties, spoken by Rusyns in northern (Carpathian) regions, mainly in southwestern Ukraine, northeastern Slovakia, southeastern Poland, and northern Romania. Most commonly, native speakers refer to their language simply as Rusky (руски язик / ), that renders in English as Rusyn. Sometimes they also use the somewhat archaic term Rusnacky (руснацки язик / ), 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.