Belarusian language

Belarusian
беларуская мова
Pronunciation[bʲɛɫaˈruskaja ˈmɔva]
Native toBelarus
EthnicityBelarusians
Native speakers
5.094 million[1] (2019 census)
1.3 million L2 speakers (2009 census)[1]
Early forms
Cyrillic (Belarusian alphabet)
Belarusian Latin alphabet
Belarusian Braille
Belarusian Arabic alphabet
Official status
Official language in
 Belarus
 Poland (in Gmina Orla, Gmina Narewka, Gmina Czyże, Gmina Hajnówka and the town of Hajnówka)
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byNational Academy of Sciences of Belarus
Language codes
ISO 639-1be
ISO 639-2bel
ISO 639-3bel
Glottologbela1254
Linguasphere53-AAA-eb < 53-AAA-e
(varieties:
53-AAA-eba to 53-AAA-ebg) language of minority[5]
Belarusian-speaking world
Legend: Dark blue – territory where Belarusian is the primary language; Light blue – territory where Belarusian is a minority language
Belarusian is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2023)[6]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Belarusian (endonym: беларуская мова, romanized: bielaruskaja mova, pronounced [bʲɛɫaˈruskaja ˈmɔva]) is an East Slavic language. It is one of the two official languages in Belarus, alongside Russian. Additionally, it is spoken in some parts of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine by Belarusian minorities in those countries.

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.[7]

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 as a "language spoken at home" by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens (36.7% of the population).[8][9] 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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12] In Poland, the Belarusian language is declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 40,000 inhabitants[13] 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.[14] Nevertheless, there are no Belarusian-language universities in Belarus.[15][16]

  1. ^ a b "Distribution of the population by native language and language normally spoken at home". Belstat.gov.by. Retrieved 4 September 2024.
  2. ^ Jan Jiřička (3 July 2013). "Česko má nové oficiální národnostní menšiny. Vietnamce a Bělorusy – iDNES.cz". Zpravy.idnes.cz. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
  3. ^ "To which languages does the Charter apply?". European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Council of Europe. p. 3. Archived from the original on 2012-08-18. Retrieved 2014-04-03.
  4. ^ "Про затвердження переліку мов національних меншин (спільнот) та корінних народів України, яким загрожує зникнення". Official webportal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. 7 June 2024.
  5. ^ Yefim Karsky. "Belarusians. II. The language of Belarusian people". В. 1. — [S.l.], 1908.
  6. ^ "Population classified by knowledge of the Belarusian and Russian languages by region and Minsk City". Belstat.gov.by. Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Як нас заве сьвет — «Беларашэн» ці Belarus(i)an? was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Data from 1999 Belarusian general census in English Archived May 5, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Of these, about 3,370,000 (41.3%)[clarification needed] were Belarusians, and about 257,000 belonged to other ethnicities (Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews).
  10. ^ Belarusian language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon [dead link]
  11. ^ Russian Census (2002), in Russian[dead link]
  12. ^ 2001 Ukrainian census In Ukrainian
  13. ^ "Ludność. Stan I Struktura Demograficzno-Społeczna". Główny Urząd Statystyczny. Archived from the original on May 25, 2005. Retrieved February 6, 2007.
  14. ^ А.В. Зубик; А.О. Роговая (1 January 2013). "The problem of using the Belarusian language" (PDF). Polessky State University. Archived (PDF) from the original on Dec 19, 2023 – via CORE.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kamusella was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Coakley was invoked but never defined (see the help page).