Belarusian language

Belarusian language (беларуская мова, BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova) �" language of the Belarusian people. It is one of the three East Slavonic languages and is spoken in Belarus and abroad. It shares some vocabulary with the languages of the neighbouring Slavic nations, notably with Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian.

Names

Official, romanised

* Belarusian �" derivative from the form of the name of the country «Belarus», officially approved for the use abroad by the Belarusian authorities (c.1992) and promoted since then.
** Belarusan �" variation of «Belarusian».
* Byelorussian �" derivative from the form of the name of the country «Byelorussia» (), used officially (in the Russian language) in the times of the USSR, and, later, in the Russia.
** Belorussian �" variation of «Byelorussian».

Alternative

* Great Lithuanian () �" proposed and used by Yan Stankyevich since c.1960s, intended to part with the «diminishing tradition of having the name related to the Muscovite tradition of calling the Belarusian lands» and to pertain to the «great tradition of Belarusian statehood».
* Kryvian ( or or ) �" derivative from the name of the Slavonic tribe Kryvichy (), one of the main tribes in the foundations of the forming of the Belarusian nation. Created and used by 19th cent. Polish writers Jaroszewicz, Narbut, Rogalski, Czeczot. Strongly promoted by Lastowski.

Vernacular

* «Simple» () or «local» () �" used mainly in times, preceding the scientific, political and, following that, the common recognition of the existence of the Belarusian language, and nation in general. Supposedly, the definition still possible to meet up to the end of 1930s, e.g., in Western Belarus.

Old Belarusian

While the «Old Belarusian» (or, alternatively, «West Russian» (Karskiy)) literary language had gradually become, to an extent, artificial, still, the «Old Belarusian» vernacular language had been preserving the relative purity. The literary language had been permanently «leaning» upon the vernacular, so then, noticing the characteristic Belarusian features prevailing in the literary language had given the scientific grounds to rightfully call the Old Belarusian its name, Belarusian with the qualifier Old added to distinguish it from the modern Belarusian language (Karskiy 1893, 1903).

Historically, the Old Belarusian language (c.14th�"17th centuries) had also been called:
* Ruthenian (Old Belarusian: «руски езыкъ») �" by the contemporaries, but, generally, not in contemporary Muscovy.
** (variant) Simple Ruthenian or simple talk (Old Belarusian: «простая молва» or «простый руский (язык)») �" publisher Grigoriy Khodkevich (16th cent.)
* (Old) Ruthenian �" modern collective name, covering both Old Belarusian and Old Ukrainian languages, prevailingly used by the 20th cent. Lithuanian, also some Polish and English researches.
* Lithuanian () �" possibly, exclusive reference to it in the contemporary Muscovy. Also by Zizaniy (end 16th cent.), Pamva Byerynda (1653).
* Lithuanian-Russian () �" by 19 cent. Russian researchers Keppen, archbishop Filaret, Sakharov, Karatayev.
* Russian-Polish or even Polish dialect �" Shtritter, Polish researcher Samuel Bogumil Linde, Polish writer Wisniewski. Notably, the definition had been used even when referencing to Skaryna's translation of Bible.
* Belarusian (language) �" rarely in contemporary Muscovy. Also Kryzhanich. The denotation Belarusian (language) () when referring both to the 19th cent. language and to the Medieval language had been used in works of the 19th cent. Russian researchers Buslayev, Ogonovskiy, Zhitetskiy, Sobolevskiy, Nedeshev, Vladimirov and had served as a basis for the Karskiy's denotation.
* (Old) West Russian, language or dialect (, ) �" chiefly by the supporters of the concept of the Proto-Russian phase, esp. since the end of the 19th century (notably: Karskiy, Shakhmatov). [Karskiy 1893, 1903]

Dialects

Besides the literary norm, there exist two main dialects of the Belarusian language, the North-Eastern and the South-Western. Besides, there exist the inter-dialect, transitional Middle Belarusian dialect group and the separate West Palyesian dialect group.

The North-Eastern and the South-Western dialects are separated by the highly conventional imaginary line Ashmyany �" Minsk �" Babruysk �" Homyel, with the areal of the Middle Belarusian dialect group to be placed on and along this line.

The North-Eastern dialect is chiefly characterised by the «soft sounding R» () and «strong sounding AH» (), and the South-Western dialect is chiefly characterised by the «hard sounding R» () and «moderate sounding AH» ().

The West Palyesian dialect group is more distinct linguistically, close to Ukrainian language in many aspects, and is separated by the conventional line Pruzhany �" Ivatsevichy �" Tsyelyakhany �" Luninyets �" Stolin.

History

Proto-language

As Belarusian is an Indo-European language, its most remote known ancestor is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European. The breakup of PIE around 3000 BCE led to various distinct dialects. Due to similarities between them, some scholars believe that the Baltic and Slavic languages are both descended from a common ancestor, a so-called Balto-Slavonic proto-language, while other scholars attribute similarities to areal convergence. The Belarusian language is along with the other Slavic languages descended from a common ancestor variously termed Proto-Slavic or Common Slavic.

Transition to Old Belarusian

There exist two main concepts of the next phase of the evolution of the Belarusian language:
* After the breakup of the Common Slavic language, a distinct Old East Slavonic language (or Proto-Russian) formed next (c. 7th�"8th centuries CE), with the subsequent appearance of the (Old) Belarusian language. Some of the notable supporters of this concept: Karskiy, Shakhmatov, Vowk-Lyevanovich. The prevailing concept in Russia and USSR.
* That the (Old) Belarusian language was the direct evolvement from the Proto-Slavonic phase, with the earlier material evidences of this dated early 13th century. Some of the notable supporters of this concept: Buzuk, Nimchynaw, Yan Stankyevich. Yan Stankyevich claimed the separation of the (Old) Belarusian language had begun not later than 5th cent., claimed prof. O. Hujer supported these deductions. [Stank 1939]

Old Belarusian

Foundations

The foundations of the Old Belarusian language were:
* The Proto-Slavic (alternatively, Proto-Russian) language.
* The particularities of the local Slavonic dialects (acc. to Karskiy: «the Western branch of the Middle Russian dialects»).
* The Old Church Slavonic literary tradition.
* Western and Polish influences, conducted mainly to the literary tradition.

The earliest known existing literacy artifacts, showing the distinctive features of the Old Belarusian language, the Charters of Smolensk (), date back to 1229.

Forming

During the 13th�"16th centuries, the phonetics and morphology of the Old Belarusian language had completed its forming, producing the specific features, distinctly absent before, e.g., the phonetics developing the «AH-ing» ( in the c.14th cent. and the «U shortening» in beg. 13th cent.[Karskiy 1903] V.1 Ch.3, and the morphology developing the sporadic Old Belarusian particularities in the 14th �" 15th cent. already. So, the Old Belarusian language had formed, as an entity, in the 14th �" 16th cent., with the bulk of the development occuring during the 14th �" 15th cent. and the pinnacle of the development reached in the 16th cent. [Karskiy 1903]The syntax and lexics, however, had continued changing, with the literary language being strongly influenced by the Polish language, since the 15th cent. and especially in the 16th�"17th centuries. The vernacular language had been relatively free in that aspect, and had differed in its syntax and, especially, in its lexicon.

1200s-1400s

In the 14th cent., the emerging Old Belarusian language had already been enjoying the wide-scale ubiquity of use in the GDL, being spoken and written from the lower classes to the nobility, non-Slavonic included, to the Grand Dukes of Lithuania themselves, from the vernacular to the state documents.[Dovnar 1926] Ch.3 Sec.3

Some of the notable literary artefacts of the period [Zhur 1993]:
* Treaty of Mstislav Davydovich, prince of Smolensk, with Riga ang Goths' Coast (6 documents).
* Charter (letter) of prince Gerden (1264).
* Charters of Izyaslav, prince of Polatsk (c.1265).
* Charters of Yakov, bishop of Polatsk (c.1300).
* Charter of Riga dwellers to Mikhail, prince of Vitsyebsk (c.1300).
* Treaty with Riga (c.1330).
* Charter of Polish king Wladyslaw II Jagiello to prince Skirgayla (1387).
* Translation of the Wislica Statute (1347).
* Translation of the Code of Law of Kazimierz IV (1468).

See also: Mutual influences of the Old Belarusian and Ukrainian languages.

1500s-1600s

In the 15th �" 16th cent., and partially in the 17th cent., the Old Belarusian in the GDL had been the prevalent language of the state, diplomatic, business and private letters, the documents of the town, land, castle offices, town halls, magistrates, magdeburgies, the inventories and revisions of the estates, the indexes of the armed forces, even in the ethnic Lithuanian lands of the GDL. [Zhur 1993] The major part of the documents of the Lithuanian Metrica of the 15th �" 16th cent. had been composed in Old Belarusian (see also: Lithuanian Metrica#Languages). The Royal Chancelleries of Krakow and Warsaw had been composing the official correspondence to the GDL in Old Belarusian. [Zhur 1993] The Codes of Law of the GDL had been written in the Old Belarusian. The Old Belarusian language had been highly esteemed abroad, too.

The Old Belarusian became the 3rd Slavonic language, after the Czech and Polish, in which the printing had begun. The first book in Old Belarusian had been printed by Skaryna in Prague (1517). Later in the 16th cent., the center of the printing activity done in the Old Belarusian had moved to the Vil'na.

The Old Belarusian had been the language of the belletristics, publicistics, memoirs, religious polemics, hamiletics, agiography etc. The Old Belarusian had seen the translations of the Western knight novels, historical chronicles and apocryphal works. [Zhur 1993]

= Clerical literature

=The trend of including the Old Belarusian language features into the Old Church Slavonic (clerical) texts is dating back to at least the end 15th cent., e.g., in the «Chetya», copied by Byarozka of Navahradak (1489). [AniZhur 1988]

Skaryna, while retaining the (Old) Church Slavonic basis in the language of his books, had introduced so much of the Old Belarusian lexics, that the language of his books had diverted considerably from the traditional (Old) Church Slavonic. [Karskiy 1893]

Further steps in the closing of the gap between the language of the religious literature and the vernacular had been attempted by Budny and Tsyapinski.

Summarily, in the 16th �" beginning of the 17th cent., the Old Belarusian had, to a great extent, become the language of the liturgical literature printed in the GDL, in place of the Old Church Slavonic. [Karskiy 1903]

= Grammars

=In the 2nd half 16th �" 1st half 17th cent., various authors had published several attempts of codification of the Old Belarusian language. [Yask 2001] The most notable of them were:
* Grammar and elementary reading by Ivan Fyodorov (1574, 1578).
* Grammar by Lavrentiy Zizaniy (1596).
* Grammar by Ivan Uzhevich (1645).

= Polonisation

=Since the end 14th cent., the wide-scale Polish and Catholic political, cultural and religious expansion into the East Slavonic lands had begun in the end 14th cent. The noticeable Polonisation, primarily of the GDL nobility, had been effected by the mid. 15th cent., already.[Dovnar 1926] Ch.5 Sec.7

Initially, and up into the beg. 17th cent., there had existed significant political opposition to the expansion. Among some of its successes had been the amending the Code of Law (Statute) of 1566 with the clause, declaring the Ruthenian language (contemporary name) as the only allowed language of the office in the GDL. The clause had been maintained in the Code of Law of 1588, and even in its re-publication in Polish language (1614). See also: Golden age of Belarusian history.

The general decline of the Old Belarusian culture in the GDL in favour of Polish had been progressing, though, despite being decried and lamented by various publicists, like, e.g., by Tsyapinski in the foreword to his «Scriptures» (1570) The events had taken the especially unfavourable turn in the 1570s, with the beginning and progressing of the Counter-Reformation in Commonwealth, as the Orthodox and Protestants had constituted the major part of the Old Belarusian language userbase. The Commonwealth Inquisition's «Index of Books Forbidden» (issued since 1603) had included many of the Old Belarusian and Lithuanian publications. [Halyen 1988]

1600s-1690s

As more and more of the upper and, following them, middle classes had been embracing the Polonisation, the effective usage of the Old Belarusian had been dwindling. By the half the 17th cent., the only significant amount of printing in the Old Belarusian was done by Orthodox church. However, even the language of the Orthodox-written texts, in a pursuit of «attractiveness» had been by then heavily infested with Polonisms, diverting considerably not only from the vernacular language, but from the earlier Old Belarusian literary tradition as well. Notably, since 1626 all of the anti-Greek-Catholic Orthodox polemic had been published completely in Polish language.

By the 2nd quarter 17th cent., the Old Belarusian (literary) language had effectively incorporated the multitude of the Polish language's elements, and therefore had become highly artificial and partially just unfit for the real live use, losing the connection with its live vernacular foundations. The literary language of the epoch, especially after the transfer of the center of the Orthodox printing to Kiev (c.1610s), could not even be considered truely Old Belarusian anymore. [Karskiy 1903]

In 1696, the General Confederation of Estates had decreed the cancellation of the use of the Old Belarusian language in the role of the language of office and court.

1700s-1790s

The Belarusian language hadn't seen much development in the 18th cent. It had been used, in its vernacular form, by the rural dwellers and lower-class town dwellers, by some minor nobility, too. It had been the language of the oral forms of the folk lore. About the only schools, which had been teaching in Belarusian, had been the schools of the Basilian order (Greek-Catholic). The printing in the Belarusian had been all but extinct. In 1787, however, two interesting publications had happened, which, while belonging to the small genre of the clerical school dramaturgy, may be viewed as a first approaches to form the modern Belarusian language.

1800s-1820s

During the rule of Alexander I, the direct control over the education in the «joined provinces» had been transferred to the local power people. This had marked the beginning of the brief period of the intensive development of the schooling in the Belarusian lands. The Wilno Academia, after its reorganising into Emperor's Vil'na University (1803?), had become, by the contemporary laws, the main and rules-setting educational institution of the whole Vil'na educational district, which included the lands of Belarus and Lithuania (completely), three Ukrainian Gubernias (Podol, Kiev, Volyn'), Byelostok district (since 1807).

The new structure had been headed by prince Adam Czartoryjski, helped by such notable personalities as Tadeusz Czacki, rev. Kołłąntaj, Jan Śniadecki. Effectively, this setup had enabled the cultural Polonisation and cultivating of the strictly Polish patriotism in Belarusian lands in scale never before possible. The whole spirit of the schooling and the University had become distinctly Polish. In the words of rev. Dmochowski: «...under the Russian rule the finest perspectives [for the advancing of the Polish national cause through the education] are opening, it's just the question of choosing right people...» The Polonisation trend had been complemented with the (covert) anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox trends.

Such activities had seen some, rather weak and short-lived, opposition, e.g., by the first head of the University rev. Strojnowski, and by the Uniate mitropolit Lisowski. However, soon the headship of the University had been transferred to the notable Polish national activist Jan Śniadecki, and so any opposition to the Polonisation in the University had ceased.

Summarily, the 1800s �" 1810s had seen the unprecedented prosperity of the Polish culture and language in the former GDL lands, had prepared the era of such famous «Belarusians by birth �" Poles by choice», as Mickiewicz and Syrokomla. The era had seen the effective completion of the Polonisation of the smallest nobility, with further reduction of the areal of use of the contemporary Belarusian language. [Dovnar 1926]

1830s-1910s

In the 1897 Imperial census most referred to their native language not as Ruthenian as they did during the Polish rule, but as White Ruthenian or Belarusian.

All Empire	125640021	5885547	55667469	7931307
Guberniya	Total Population	Belarusian (Beloruskij)	Russian (Velikoruskij)	-	Vilna	1591207	891903	78623	130054
Vitebsk	1489246	987020	198001	50377
Grodno	1603409	1141714	74143	161662
Minsk	2147621	1633091	83999	64617
Mogilev	1686764	1389782	58155	17526
Smolensk	1525279	100757	1397875	7314
Chernigov	2297854	151465	495963	3302
Forevisla guberniyas	9402253	29347	335337	6755503

MAP1MAP2

The end of the 19th century however still showed that the urban language of Belarusian towns remained either Polish or Russian and in the same census towns exceeding 50000 had Belarusian speakers of less than a tenth. This state of affairs greatly contributed to a perception that Belarusian is a "rural" and "uneducated" language.

However the census was a major breakthrough for the first steps of the Belarusian national self-consiounce and identity, as it clearly showed to the Imperial authorities, and the still strong Polish minority that the population and the language was neither Polish nor Russian. In 1904 the Russian Imperial authorities legalised the language and Belarusian schools along with communities switched their language of communication. Initially only in Rural areas, but in cities all schools too were mandatory to include Belarusian language.

On March 25, 1918, under German occupation the Belarusian People's Republic was proclaimed and for a brief period the official language of all communication in the BNR was Belarusian. In 1918–1919, the Belarusian lands were divided between Poland and the RSFSR where the Belarusian SSR was created.

1920-1930

= Soviet Belarus

=

In BSSR, the Tarashkyevich's grammar had been officially accepted for use in the state schooling after it's re-publishing in the unchanged form by Yazep Lyosik under the name «Ya. Lyosik. Practical grammar. P[art]. I» (1922). This grammar had been re-published once again, unchanged, by the Belarusian State Publishing House under the name «Ya. Lyosik. Belarusian language. Grammar. Ed. I. 1923» (1923).

In 1925, Yazep Lyosik had introduced two new chapters to the grammar, addressing the orthography of the combined words and partly modifying the ortography of the assimilated words. Hence, the Belarusian grammar had been popularised and taught in educational system in that form.

The ambiguousness and insufficient development of several components of the Tarashkyevich's grammar had been the cause of some problems in the practical mass usage and stirring the certain discontent with the grammar.

In 1924 �" 1925, Yazep Lyosik and Anton Lyosik had prepared and published their project of the reform of the orthography, proposing the radical change in the principle of «AH-ing» () and introducing the fully phonetical orthography.

The Belarusian Academic Conference on Reform of the Orthography and Alphabet (1926) had been called, and after the discussions on the project the Conference had made resolutions on some of the problems. However, as the project of Lyosik brothers hadn't been addressing all of the problematic issues, so the Conference hadn't been able to address all of those, too.

As the outcome of the conference, the Orthographical Commission created to prepare the project of the actual reform had been formed on 1927-10-01, headed by S. Nyekrashevich, with the following principal guidelines of its work adopted:
* To consider the resolutions of the Belarusian Academical Conference (1926) non-mandatory, although highly competent material.
* To simplify Tarashkyevich's grammar where it was ambiguous or difficult in use, to amend it where it was insufficiently developed (e. g., orthography of the assimilated words), to create new rules if absent (orthography of the proper names and geographical names).

During its work in 1927-12-7 �" 1929-4-7, the Commission had actually prepared the project of the reform of the orthography. The resulting project had included both completely new rules and existing rules in unchanged and changed forms, with those changed being, variously, outcome of the work of the Commission itself, or the resolutions of Belarusian Academical Conference (1926), re-approved by the Commission.

Notably, the use of the Ь (soft sign) before the combinations «consonant+iotified vowel» («softened consonants»), which had been denounced as highly redundant before (e.g., in the proceedings of the Belarusian Academic Conference (1926)), had been cancelled. However, the complete resolvement of the highly important issue of the orthography of the un-stressed Е (IE) had not been achieved.

It is worth noticing, that both the resolutions of the Belarusian Academic Conference (1926) and the project of the Orthographical Commission (1930) had been causing much disagreement in the Belrusian academical environment. Several elements of the project were to be put under appeal in the «higher (political?) bodies of power».

1930s

= Soviet Belarus

=

In 1929 �" 1930, the Communist authorities of the Soviet Belarus had brought out the drastic crackdowns against the supposed «national-democratic counter-revolution» (inf. «nats-dems» ()). Effectively, the entire generations of the Socialist Belarusian national activists of the 1st quarter of the 20th cent. had been wiped out from the political, scientifical, in fact, from any real social existence. Only the most famous, cult figures, like, e.g., Yanka Kupala, had been spared.

See also: Political events in USSR in 1929 �" 1930.

However, the new power group in the Belarusian science had quickly formed, or, possibly, had emerged after the power shifts, under the virtual leadership of the Head of the Philosophy Institute of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, academician S. Ya. Vol'fson (). The book published under his editorship «Science in service of nats-dems' counter-revolution» (1931), represented the new spirit of the political life in Soviet Belarus.

The Reform of Belarusian Grammar (1933) had been brought out quite unexpectedly, supposedly, [Stank 1936] with the project published in the central newspaper of the Belarusian Communist Party «Zvyazda» on 1933-06-28 and the decree of the Council of People's Commissaries (Council of Ministers) of BSSR issued on 1933-08-28, to gain the status of law on 1933-09-16.

There had been some post-factum speculations, too, that the 1930 project of the reform (as prepared by the people no longer politically «clean»), had been given for the «purification» to the «nats-dems» competition in the Academy of Sciences, which would explain the «block» nature of the differences between the 1930 and 1933 versions. Peculiarly, Yan Stankyevich in his notable critique of the reform [Stank 1936] didn't mention the project prepared by 1930, dating the project of the reform to 1932.

The officially announced causes for the reform were:
* The pre-1933 grammar was maintaining artificial barriers between the Russian and Belarusian languages.
* The reform was to cancel the influences of the Polonisation corrupting the Belarusian language.
* The reform was to remove the archaisms, neologisms and vulgarisms, supposedly introduced by the «national-democrats».
* The reform was to simplify the grammar of the Belarusian language.

The reform had been accompanied by the fervent press campaign directed against the «nats-dems not yet giving up».

The decree had been named «On changing and simplifying of the Belarusian orthography» (), but the bulk of the changes had been introduced into the grammar. Yan Stankyevich in his critique of the reform talked about 25 changes, with 1 of them being stricly orthographical, and 24 relating to both orthography and grammar. [Stank 1936]

It is worth noticing, that many of the changes in the orthography proper («stronger principle of AH-ing», «no redundant soft sign», «uniform nye and byez») had been, in fact, just implementations of the earlier propositions of the by then repressed persons (e.g., Yazep Lyosik, Lastowski, Nyekrashevich, 1930 project). [BAC 1926][Nyekr 1930][Padluzhny 2004]

The morphological principle in the orthography had been strengthened, which also had been proposed in 1920s. [BAC 1926]

The «removal of the influences of the Polonisation» had been represented, effectively, by the:
* Reducing the use of the «consonant+non-iotified vowel» in assimilated Latinisms in favour of «consonant+iotified vowel», leaving only «�"», «Т», «Р» unexceptionally «hard».
* Changing the method of representation of the sound «L» in the Latinisms to another variant of the Belarusian sound «Л» (of 4 variants existing), rendered with succeeding non-iotified vowels instead of iotified.
* Introducing the new preferences of use of the letters «Ф» over «Т» for «fita», and «�'» over «Б» for «beta», in Hellenisms. [Stank 1936]

The «removing of the artificial barriers between the Russian and Belarusian languages» (virtually the often-quoted «Russification of the Belarusian language», which may well occur to be the term coined by Yan Stankyevich) had, indeed, moved the normative Belarusian morphology and syntax closer to their Russian counterparts, often removing from the use the indigenous features of the Belarusian language. [Stank 1936]

Peculiarly, some components of the reform had moved the Belarusian grammar to the grammars of other Slavonic languages, which would hardly be its goal. [Stank 1936]

= Western Belarus

=

In Western Belarus, there had been some voices raised against the reform, chiefly by the non-Communist/non-Socialist wing of the Belarusian national scena. Yan Stankyevich named Belarusian Scientific Society, Belarusian National Committee, Society of the friends of Belarusian linguistics in the Wilno University. [Stank 1936] Certain political and scientifical groups and figures went on with using the pre-reform orthography and grammar, however, in succeedingly multiplying and differing versions.

However, the reformed grammar and orthography had been used, too, e.g., during the process of S. Prytytski (1936).

1940s

1950s-1970s

In 1949 �" 1957, the discussion on problems of the Belarusian orthography had been hold. On 1957-05-11, the Council of Ministers of BSSR had approved the project of the Commission on Orthography «On making more precise and on partially changing the acting rules of Belarusian orthography» (). The project had served as a basis for the normative «Rules of the Belarusian orthography and punctuation» (), published in 1959. The 1959 reform had partly amended the drastic changes of the 1933 reform, still getting its share of general anti-Russification critique. [Sstank 1962]

In 2006, the 1959 revision is still the normative Belarusian orthography.

The BSSR counterpart of the USSR law «On strengthening of ties of school with real life and on further development of the popular education in USSR» (1958), adopted in 1959, along with introduction of the mandatory 8-year school education, made it possible for the parents of pupils to opt for non-mandatory studying of the «second language of teaching», which would be Belarusian in Russian language school and vice versa. However, e.g., in 1955/1956 schooling year there had been 95% of schools with Russian as the primary language of teaching, and 5% with Belarusian as the primary language of teaching. [Sstank 1962]Data of polls>

	Belarusians, mln.		Declared native speakers, mln.		Belarus inhab., mln.
	BSSR	USSR	BSSR	USSR	villages	cities
1959	6.53	7.91	?	~7.9	~5.5	~2.6
1970	7.29	9.05	~6.56*	?	~5.1	~3.9

Notes:
* additionally, 0.33 mln. non-Belarusians

The poor state of the teaching in the Belarusian language, the low numbers of Belarusian books printed had been causing the concerns of the civically active part of the society. In 1957 �" 1961, those concerns had been numerously voiced in the BSSR press, notably by then young writer Barys Sachanka.

1980s-2000s

Interest in the Belarusian language was revived at the end of 1980s during perestroika. In 1990, Belarusian became the only official language of Belarusian SSR, and a second campaign of Belarusization followed. The "Law on languages" (Закон аб мовах), ratified on 26 January 1990, envisioned a complete switch of all administrative and official documentation of the country into Belarusian by 2000. However, the Belarusization was halted following the election of Alexander Lukashenka as the President of Belarus in 1994. Also in 1995 there was a referendum which, among other things, gave Russian language an equal status with Belarusian. Currently, russification is taking place in Belarus on an ever-growing scale, and the government does not provide any support for the Belarusian language. The population of Belarus itself tends to identify as a close associate of Russia (if not considering themselves Russian outright). In this respect, a fact of note is that the official website of the Belarusian President is in two languages: Russian and English (as of 2006)

During Soviet times, the Belarusian language was viewed by many native speakers as a rural and peasant language as opposed to Russian's image as a modern and urban language. That image in the eyes of the public has changed somewhat in the years of Belarus independence: some perceive it as a language of the young emerging urban elite. Yakub Kolas National State Humanities Lyceum, closed down by the authorities, continues to work underground, visiting Lithuania and Poland. Nevertheless, current Russification policies are seen by some as a serious threat that may lead to the eventual extinction of the Belarusian language in Belarus.

The largest centre of Belarusian cultural activity, in the Belarusian language, outside Belarus is in the Polish province of Białystok (Belastok in Belarusian), which is home to a long-established Belarusian minority. Primary and secondary schools with additionial teaching of the Belorussian language are available in Hajnówka. Belarusian Association of Students organizes rock festival Basovišča. Radio Racja broadcasts in Belarusian.

Orthography

Belarusian alphabet

The Belarusian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic script, from the alphabet of the Old Church Slavonic language. Its modern form was determined in 1918, and consists of thirty-two letters. Historically, the Glagolitic script had been used, sporadically, until 11th �" 12th centuries. Historically, there also existed practices of rendering of the Belarusian text in Latin script and in Arabic script.

Romanisation

Some of the standard systems for romanizing (transliterating) of the Belarusian text:
* BGN/PCGN romanization of Belarusian, 1979 (United States Board on Geographic Names and Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use)
* Scientific transliteration, or the International Scholarly System for linguistics
* ALA-LC romanization, 1997 (American Library Association and Library of Congress)
* ISO 9:1995
* Instruction on transliteration of Belarusian geographical names with letters of Latin script, 2000

Grammar

The rules of modern Belarusian grammar were adopted in 1959. Modern Belarusian grammar reflects the prevailingly synthetic (flexive) and partly analytic nature of the Belarusian language. Belarusian orthography is centered around the principle of phonetic writing («you write down what you hear») and is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of the Myensk-Vil'nya region at the beginning of the 20th century. The rules of Belarusian Grammar were originally set down by notable Belarusian linguist Branislaw Tarashkyevich and first printed in Vilnya (1918). Historically, there had existed several other alternative Belarusian grammars. See also Belarusian phonetics and Belarusian grammar#History.

Vocabulary

In terms of lexicon, Belarusian is very closely related to Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian as well as other slavic languages.

Some very basic examples:
* вітаю (vitaju) �" hello
* як (jak) �" how
* як маесься? (jak majessia?) �" how are you doing?
* добрай раніцы (dobraj ranicy) �" good morning
* дабранач (dabranach) �" good night
* дзякуй (dziakuj) �" thank you
* калі ласка (kali laska) �" please, you are welcome
* спадар / спадарыня (spadar / spadarynia) �" mister / missis
* добра (dobra) �" good
* кепска / дрэнна (kiepska / drenna) �" bad
* выдатна (vydatna) �" excellent
* цудоўна (cudouna) �" wonderful
* дзе (dzie) �" where?
* адкуль (adkul) �" where from?
* чаму (chamu) �" why?
* разумею (razumieju) �" I understand
* нічога не разумею (nichoha nie razumieju) �" I don't understand anything

Comparison

¦¦ Ukrainian (Українська мова) >