Belarusian language

Belarusian is an East Slavic language. It is one of the two official languages in Belarus, the other being Russian. It is also spoken in parts of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland (where it is the official language in 5 bilingual municipalities), Ukraine, and the United States by the Belarusian diaspora. Before Belarus gained independence in 1991, the language was known in English as Byelorussian or Belorussian, or alternatively as White Russian. Following independence, it became known as Belarusian, or alternatively as Belarusan. As one of the East Slavic languages, Belarusian shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group. To some extent, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian retain a degree of mutual intelligibility. Belarusian descends from a language generally referred to as Ruthenian (13th to 18th centuries), which had, in turn, descended from what is referred to as Old East Slavic (10th to 13th centuries). In the first Belarusian census in 1999, the Belarusian language was declared a "language spoken at home" by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens (36.7% of the population). About 6,984,000 (85.6%) of Belarusians declared it their "mother tongue". Other sources, such as Ethnologue, put the figure at approximately 3.5 million active speakers in Belarus. In Russia, the Belarusian language is declared as a "familiar language" by about 316,000 inhabitants, among them about 248,000 Belarusians, comprising about 30.7% of Belarusians living in Russia. In Ukraine, the Belarusian language is declared as a "native language" by about 55,000 Belarusians, which comprise about 19.7% of Belarusians living in Ukraine. In Poland, the Belarusian language is declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 40,000 inhabitants. According to a study done by the Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home, while Belarusian is actively used by only 11.9% of Belarusians (others speak a mixture of Russian and Belarusian, known as Trasianka). Approximately 29.4% of Belarusians can write, speak, and read Belarusian, while 52.5% can only read and speak it. Nevertheless, there are no Belarusian-language universities in Belarus.

Names

Official English-language name Belarusian ( or ) – derived from the name of the country "Belarus". It may also be spelled Belarusan (), a form used officially from 1992 to 1995 including in the United Nations and by diaspora.

Historical Byelorussian – derived from the Russian-language name of the country "Byelorussia" (Russian: Белоруссия, romanized: Belorussiya, lit. 'White Russia'), used officially (in the Russian language) in the times of the USSR (1922–1991) and, later, in the Russian Federation. White Ruthenian, or White Russian, (and its equivalents in other languages) – literally, a word-by-word translation of the parts of the composite word Belarusian. The term "White Ruthenian" with reference to language has appeared in English-language texts since at least 1921. The oldest one, Latin term "Albae Russiae, Poloczk dicto" is recorded in 1381.

Alternative suggestions Grand-Lithuanian, or Grand Lithuanian, – proposed and used by Jan Stankievič since the 1960s, referencing chancery language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 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 – derived from the name of the Slavonic tribe Kryvichs, one of the main tribes in the foundations of the forming of the Belarusian nation. Created and used in the 19th century by Belarusian Polish-speaking writers Jaroszewicz, Narbut, Rogalski, Jan Czeczot. Promoted by Vatslaw Lastowski.

Vernacular Simple, or local, – used mainly in times preceding the common recognition of the existence of Belarus in general. Simple Black Ruthenian – used in the beginning of the 19th century by the Russian researcher Baranovski and attributed to contemporary vernacular Belarusian.

Classification and relationship to other languages There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility among the Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian languages. Within East Slavic, the Belarusian language is most closely related to Ukrainian.

Dialects

Besides the standardized lect, there are two main dialects of the Belarusian language: the northeastern dialect and the southwestern dialect. In addition, there is a transitional "Middle Belarusian" dialect group and a separate "West Polesian" dialect group. The northeastern and southwestern dialects are separated by a hypothetical line (Ashmyany–Minsk–Babruysk–Gomel) with the area of the Middle Belarusian dialect group placed on and along this line. The northeastern dialect is characterised by the "soft sounding R" and "strong akanye"; and the southwestern dialect is characterised by the "hard sounding R" and "moderate akanye". The West Polesian dialect group is separated from the rest of the country by the conventional line Pruzhany–Ivatsevichy–Tsyelyakhany–Luninyets–Stolin.

History

The modern Belarusian language was redeveloped on the base of the vernacular spoken remnants of the Ruthenian language, surviving in the ethnic Belarusian territories in the 19th century. The end of the 18th century (the times of the Divisions of Commonwealth) is the usual conventional borderline between the Ruthenian and Modern Belarusian stages of development. By the end of the 18th century, (Old) Belarusian was still common among the minor nobility in the eastern part, in the territory of present-day Belarus, of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (hereafter Lithuania). Jan Czeczot in the 1840s had mentioned that even his generation's grandfathers preferred speaking (Old) Belarusian. According to A. N. Pypin, the Belarusian language was spoken in some areas among the minor nobility during the 19th century. In its vernacular form, it was the language of the smaller town dwellers and of the peasantry and it had been the language of oral folklore. Teaching in Belarusian was conducted mainly in schools run by the Basilian order. The development of Belarusian in the 19th century was strongly influenced by the political conflict in the territories of the former Lithuania, between the Russian Imperial authorities, trying to consolidate their rule over the "joined provinces", and the Polish and Polonized nobility, trying to bring back its pre-Partitions rule

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