The name Old Ruthenian language has been applied to different things.
- Old East Slavic language was the language of Kievan Rus', spoken from the 9th to 14th centuries. It was the ancestor of the East Slavic languages Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian.
- Ruthenian language was its descendant which was spoken in the historic Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 15th to 18th centuries. It was the ancestor of modern Belarusian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian languages.
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)