[6] 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.

Sometimes they also use the somewhat archaic term Rusnacky (Ruthenian: руснацки язик / rusnatsky jazyk), that renders in English as Rusnak.

[10][11][12] Since those terms have historically been (and still are) used by Carpathian Rusyns and other East Slavs as endonyms for their own vernacular,[13] a need emerged for an appropriate adjective to identify this particular linguistic variety.

[14] Eventually, the more general term, Bačka-Srem, was adopted by several scholars and thus also encompassed the varieties of the language spoken in the region of Srem (modern-day Serbia and Croatia).

[18][19] In spite of all the aforementioned endonymic tems, some modern authors still opt to use those based on the exonymic term Ruthenian.

[20][21][22] Thus, a peculiar terminological situation has emerged as the term Ruthenian language already has a specific and well-established meaning in both traditional and scientific contexts and primarily refers to late medieval and early modern varieties of East Slavic as were spoken in the regions of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus from the 15th until 18th centuries.

The change followed a November 2020 request by a group of linguists (including Aleksandr Dulichenko) in which ISO was asked to recognize Pannonian Rusyn as distinct and separate from Carpathian Rusyn and to issue it the new ISO 639-3 identifier, Ruthenian language (with the additional name, Rusnak).

However, the additional term, Rusnak, also has a wider connotation as it is a traditional endonym for all Rusyns (whether in Pannonia or Carpathian Rus').

In former Yugoslavia, Rusyns were recognized as a distinct national minority, with rights that included education in their own language.

The breakdown of minutes of Novi Sad original broadcasting by language in 2001 was: 23.5% Serbian, 23.5% Hungarian, 5.7% Slovak, 5.7% Romanian, 3.8% Rusyn, 2.2% Romani, and 0.2% Ukrainian.

It includes all the letters of the Pannonian Rusyn alphabet with the exception of ї, plus і, ы, and ъ.