Shifts in digital media usage before and after the pandemic by Rusyns in Ukraine

1 Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences, even in the realm of linguistics, affecting our languages through the development of new lexis (Katermina and Yachenko 2020), as well as forcing us to adopt new research methodologies (Leemann et al. 2020; Nesbitt and Watts 2021).

One aspect of life that changed immensely was our dependency on the internet for communication and entertainment. While lockdowns were often spent watching films and speaking to others online, a select few Rusyn speakers in Ukraine’s Transcarpathian region took this opportunity to boost public awareness of their language and explore new means of revitalizing it.

The largest populations where Rusyn is spoken are in Poland, Serbia’s Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Slovakia, and Ukraine. It sometimes goes by other names, such as Lemko in Poland and Pannonian in Vojvodina. Different authors also give the language in general different names, such as Ruthenian, the term used in the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, with Rusniak being used as a “local variant” (Magocsi 1995b).

Almost every country where Rusyn is spoken recognizes it as a distinct language and includes it as one of their minority languages. Vojvodina is considered the most protective of Rusyn, as Fejsa (2017: 76) writes: “The Ruthenians in Serbia … have … the highest level of minority rights, comparing to the Ruthenians in all other countries”. It first received recognition in Vojvodina in 1963 (Katunin 2015: 232) and has many freedoms in public and private spheres. Similarly, Poland and Slovakia also nurture the use of this language in various domains. One popular example from Slovakia, which recognized Rusyn in 1995 (Magocsi 1995a), is the summer school “Studium Carpatho-Ruthenorum”, which takes place at the University of Prešov (Carpatho-Rusyn Society 2022). However, Ukraine is the only country which gives no linguistic recognition to its Rusyn population. Rusyns are considered Ukrainians, and their language is considered a dialect of Ukrainian. Despite it being a threatened language (Hammarström et al. 2023), and Ukraine’s unwillingness to recognize it, some communities still want to bring about a change in its status.

Recognition is not a new aim for the Rusyn community in Transcarpathia. One example is a vote in 1991: residents of the region were asked whether they wanted to be part of Ukraine or become autonomous. The vote concluded in favour of the latter, but it was ignored (Benc 2020). A second example, a decade later, involves a priest who published a Rusyn grammar (Sydor 2005), the introduction of which can be interpreted as anti-Ukrainian because it describes Rusyns as being under the control of a higher power, although not explicitly naming Ukraine: “Who ever might surround the Rusyns, in whatever government they might have been, whatever their next state language might be, whatever assimilatory programs the ‘liberators’ might resort to … their own local ancient Slavonic ancestral conversation prevailed” (Sydor 2005: 12). He was later found guilty of separatism, as well as of having ties to Russia because he asked that country for support.

This paper discusses the linguistic situation from pre-pandemic times to now, documenting the new initiatives that have been taken towards digitally revitalizing the language. In addition, it offers suggestions for future research and projects from which the language could benefit.

2 Literature review

Linguistics has numerous terms to express the efforts that go into protecting languages. Fishman uses the term ‘reversing language shift’, which he defines as “the recovery, recreation and retention of a complete way of life, including non-linguistic as well as linguistic features” (2001: 452). Another term is ‘language revitalization’, which Tsunoda (2006: 168) divides into two types: ‘language maintenance’ and ‘language revival’. The latter concerns already extinct languages, while the former focuses on those in danger of becoming so.

Endangerment can be classified into different levels, for which there is more varying terminology: Tsunoda’s (2006: 15) four classifications are “(i) healthy, strong, (ii) weakening, sick, (iii) moribund, dying, and (iv) dead”; the UNESCO Language Vitality Assessment (UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages 2003) has up to nine factors with different types of classifications; Krauss (2007) has seven.

Methods for revitalization also differ, but the usual starting point is to conduct some form of documentation, be it corpus development or the creation of a grammar. Knowing what to document is also key, as Król (2021: 46) points out: “documentation … is the basis of revitalisation but it is not the final goal. Also we have to take care of what we document … I gave up looking for ‘the pure Wymysiöeryś language’ and … started to listen to what people were actually saying.”

People need to use the language for it to continue. One of the first routes to this is to create teaching programmes. However, others disagree with this approach, such as Hinton (2018: 446), who states “various programs involving the schools were and are being developed … but some people realized that if families were not using the language at home, it would be best to start bringing the language to the children at the earliest possible age by other means”. This can be done in various ways, such as simply having families communicate in their language or providing media for their youth to watch at home.

Only recently has the digital world been utilized for revitalizing languages. Television and radio have been around a lot longer, and minority languages have been represented on these, but understanding how to exploit their maximum efficacy is relatively recent. Belmar and Glass (2019: 15) state that “virtual communities can be seen as breathing spaces for minority languages when they encourage language use (be it overtly or covertly). … These virtual communities seem to be … the perfect tool for minority languages to reclaim their own space.” Some languages have flourished thanks to the internet, such as Kashubian: “The rise of the Internet has been very advantageous for the Kashubian-speaking community, especially for the young. First of all, it has engendered an increase in the language’s prestige … Secondarily, the Internet has facilitated the use of Kashubian in different kinds of … communication” (Dołowy-Rybińska 2011: 114). The internet is not a guarantee, however, and not all languages have thrived, as Cunliffe et al. (2013: 356) point out: “young Welsh speakers appear to see English as the language of the internet”.

The issue of dominant languages persists against the revitalization efforts of any language, be that as a result of its presence in administration or in daily life. Two other commonly mentioned factors – the simple ease of using the majority language and laziness – highlight the question of motivation. Not everyone wants to revitalize their native language and every person has the right to speak the language they want. This refusal can stem from various factors. In earlier research (Wood 2021), I discovered that there are Transcarpathian inhabitants who, for political or historical reasons, have no interest in the future of Rusyn. One participant in the study explained: “they got used to the fact that the government rules everything and they have no control of the situation. … So even those people who do think it’s a separate language, they don’t bother to set up any movement” and, instead, focus on their Ukrainian identity (Wood 2021: 58). Such sentiments exist elsewhere: the Duoxu language lacks the legal requirements to be recognized in China, leading people to abandon their Duoxu identity “to invest more in their Tibetan identity” (Chirkova 2018: 448).

Returning to digital tactics, studies have already been dedicated to minority languages in the context of COVID-19. Discussing the issue on a global scale, Piller et al. (2020: 505) remark that “global knowledge dissemination was woefully limited to a small number of languages as the world entered the pandemic” and it was understood that the world was unprepared for multilingual communications. In China, instructions about what to do in the pandemic began in Mandarin, then, eventually, minority languages were also utilized (Wang et al. 2022). The efforts of the government have only been minimal, however, and Wang et al. document that artists have developed their own projects to create texts and artworks. As a result, “ethnic scripts of some moderate vitality groups such as the Bai and the Lisu and languages in danger such as Yugur are on the rise due to the pandemic publicity purpose” (Wang et al. 2022: 15).

In Europe, other studies of minority languages during the pandemic include that of Stenberg-Sirén (2021), who focuses on how the media influences and introduces new words into minority languages from the Finnish-Swedish context through translation. It concludes that minority language media “can bring new vocabulary into society” (2021: 109), but the extent to which it is used in daily life remains to be seen. Bober and Willis (2023) studied the digitalization of a newspaper for the German-speaking minority in Denmark. They conclude that the newspaper reached over 7,000 users online and on social media during the pandemic, with younger people also engaging. Additionally, as Gomez-Aguinaga et al. (2021) conclude, access to media in the native language of minorities is important in general as it is associated with trust: “the consumption of Spanish-language news media is strongly associated with source credibility among Latinos, whereas … English-language news media is not” (2021: 9).

Not every minority has been considered by the government or media when it comes to issues around the pandemic, however, as Chen (2020) reports. Taiwanese indigenous communities were practically excluded from accessing COVID-19 information, resulting in these communities taking matters into their own hands: “bottom-up communications were virtually always translations of top-down mainstream messages, focusing on prevention measures under the control of the individual” (2020: 605). It is not a hopeless situation, however, as Browne and Uribe-Jongbloed (2013: 10) explain that media for minorities usually “resulted from the great and persistent effort of ‘activist individuals’ and groups”.

Relating this to the Rusyn situation in Transcarpathia is complicated, because the language never had much of a written media presence in the past. With the rise of technology, groups have been created on social media, but the outreach, so far, is small. Serbia received support to educate people about the pandemic through the translation of information into minority languages by UNICEF (Tatić 2021: 143), while Poland and Slovakia have their own popular Rusyn media outlets, such as radio stations (e.g. Lem.fm). The Rusyn community in Ukraine, on the other hand, cannot passively access their language, but rather they must actively speak it and create their own content in order to use it.

3 The Rusyn situation

4 Discussion

What has been described does not indicate the biggest progression in terms of language revitalization, but there is an element of growth between the periods before and after the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, older media, such as books, were published on the internet. Access was open to all, but no one was accessing the materials. As Eisenlohr (2004: 35) explains: “an increase in teaching material or otherwise published discourse alone does not necessarily lead to language revitalization in the sense of increased use of a lesser-used language in everyday contexts”.

During the pandemic, more mainstream services (such as social media and video games) began to be used by people, as they had no choice but to use virtual spaces to entertain themselves.

Figure 1 shows that, from August 2020, interest has been steadily rising in relation to Lyzhechko’s YouTube channel’s subscribers. There is no data about who these people are, but Lyzhechko explains in an interview that his subscribers “are not learners, but speakers” (YevhenCoUkraine 2020). This graph could indicate a growth in Rusyn speakers taking an interest in their language. He has around the same number of visitors that Bober and Willis (2023) reported for the digitized newspaper Der Nordschleswiger and its social media accounts during the pandemic.

Figure 1:

Lyzhechko’s YouTube channel analytics from August 2020 to January 2024 (Social 2024).

One reason for the increase may be because the pandemic prompted many people to return to their families, and the inhabitants of Ukraine were no exception to this. Rusyns going back to their homes in the countryside with the Rusyn-speaking older generation would have had increased exposure to the language. González et al. (2023: 14) “observed an overall trend that spending more time at home … meant increased use of, and exposure to, the HL [home language]”. This may have nurtured an interest to find other speakers or communities. For now, this is speculation, but it does open up paths to further research.

As for other media outlets, the Society for Rusyn Evolution is slowly, but consistently, publishing new media. It releases a new article around once a week and has various contributors, with experts in fields such as historical, literary, and linguistic studies, and additionally publishes works of fiction.

Interfyisa works in a similar way, publishing around once a week, but not about Rusyn. Instead, the site translates and adapts already written articles from other languages such as English or Ukrainian. As it translates, it creates new lexis for the language and gives a reason to use Rusyn in the technological domain. This website also provides a good starting point for future research on the practice of translating and creating neologisms in minority languages. As Stenberg-Sirén (2021: 103) explains, in the context of government level translation, sometimes “working close to the experts in their respective fields … may have a better possibility to find the best words and phrases than a language-planning group consisting of linguistic experts”. The more experts develop content in their native language, the more linguists can observe the introduction of “new vocabulary into society” (2021: 109).

Translation is a possible method for language revitalization, but it has its drawbacks: “translation may be a threat … imposing on them the models of the dominant language” (Kuusi et al. 2017: 155). However, “the best results are … achieved when the construction of the translators’ agency is perceived not as something strictly individual but as a collaborative project” (Kuusi et al. 2017: 155). Such a collaboration is happening with Interfyisa, helping develop technological vocabulary.

The most recent development of the translation of Minecraft is also positive in terms of expanding the reach of the language. Valijärvi and Kahn (2023: 153) express this view, listing a range of benefits such as language development with games “acting as a conduit facilitating the creation of neologisms”, as well as being able to “create global grassroots language-based communities”. They also write that “video games can have a potent symbolic value, helping users to express their linguistic and cultural identity while helping to raise the languages’ status and prestige” and help “connect to their heritage and appreciate their relevance in the contemporary world” (2023: 153). It is too early to see results, but it is an interesting future research project.

The common feature of all of these aforementioned platforms is community creation. In principle, this is positive as more people are becoming involved. As noted earlier, Belmar and Glass (2019: 15) consider that “virtual communities can be seen as breathing spaces”. Fishman (2001: 474), however, explains that “media, at best, only creates a ‘virtual’ community”. Estimating the number of communities to which an individual belongs (e.g. educational, professional, gaming, etc.) is difficult, but these few new Rusyn ones will not render a noteworthy change.

Looking out in the physical world, not a lot is happening. There has been no shift in daily life: Rusyn is still heard in the street and local facilities where Ukrainian is not mandated. One participant in Wood (2021: 122) explains: “on the local level with my mates and with the staff at the pub I go regular [sic] to, I can speak whatever I want, but they still need to be able to speak Ukrainian to provide services to other citizens of the country”.

Furthermore, there is no documentation of the language. As mentioned by Król (2021: 46), “documentation is essential”. There are those few resources by Sydor (2005), Pečora (2013), and Megela (2019), but they differ far too greatly from each other. Linguistic documentation needs to be conducted, and this perhaps can also provide motivation for people to use their language.

Finally, this issue of motivation needs to be addressed. What has been observed is that there are small communities that have a heightened interest in the longevity of this language. Regular, non-language enthusiasts, however, have varying views. Four of the five participants in my earlier study are hopeful that they will see their language develop, while one was indifferent. One participant stated that “a large group of people who do speak Rusyn do think it’s a separate language, but they don’t really care if it has any legal status”, while another explained that “we just speaking the way we speak [sic], and we don’t stand for the right to write in Rusyn” (Wood 2021: 58). Others are merely accustomed to speaking Ukrainian: “I even had some friends from the city … who I knew identified as Rusyns … so we’d speak about Rusyn things. But we just always did it in Ukrainian” (Wood 2021: 58). The dominant language is still omnipresent in this region, but the pandemic has shown that the desire for progression is rising slightly. Based on the literature, one can suggest that the future of the language will follow one of two possible paths: the Kashubian path, which is successful (Dołowy-Rybińska 2011); or the Welsh path, which is not so successful (Cunliffe et al. 2013). There is a third possibility, the abandonment of the language, as has happened with Duoxu (Chirkova 2018). So far there are many speakers of Rusyn who are still holding onto their ties with their Rusyn identity, so this third path is not likely. As noted earlier, Browne and Uribe-Jongbloed (2013) consider that the forms of media that have been created in Rusyn are born from a minority’s persistence, which some small communities in Transcarpathia clearly still have.

5 Conclusions

Small numbers of Rusyn speakers, across all countries in which they live, have at various stages in history expressed a desire to be recognized and supported. The Rusyn speakers of Ukraine are the last to face this issue.

Despite the Ukrainian government’s unwillingness to recognize this minority, speakers from the younger generation are carrying out their own efforts to create digital content. This began before the pandemic, with the uploading of resources that were freely available (e.g. Rueportal), but no one was accessing them. At the start of the pandemic, a shift occurred: different strategies were undertaken in order to reach the Rusyn audience more interactively through YouTube videos and media sites for which Rusyns are responsible. The increase in engagement with these materials suggests that this kind of media is more effective than simply providing free access to old resources. Being present online is not enough for true revitalization to happen, but is a starting point.

Further steps should be taken, one of them being state recognition. The process would be easier with governmental aid, but, due to the ongoing conflict with Russia, it is not a priority in Ukraine. Future research should be done to better evaluate the attitudes and motivations of Transcarpathia’s residents. From the data on Lyzhechko’s channel, apparently interest is rising, slowly but steadily.

Another step forward would be the accurate documentation of the Transcarpathian variants of Rusyn, since there is only a handful of literature that shows the language in written form. Interfyisa and the Society for Rusyn Evolution are already developing a database for linguists to study the written language, but there is very little about spoken variants.

There is still a long way to go, but the future looks promising.