Belarusian language

The Belarusian or White Russian (Belarusian: Беларуская мова, romanization Biełaruskaja mova) is a co-official language along with Belarusian Russian, one of the four East Slavic languages.

Historical, social and cultural aspects

Use and official status

Belarusian is officially recognized in both Belarus and the Podlaskie Voivodeship in Poland. However, in neither of the two regions is it the majority language.

Despite Belarus's departure from the USSR in 1991, the use of Belarusian is declining in favor of Russian. According to a 2009 Belarusian government study^{[citation needed]}, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home, while Belarusian is only used at home 11.9% of Belarusians. Only 29.4% can write, speak and read Belarusian correctly, though the percentage rises to 52.5% when looking at how many can speak and read it. According to the same study, one in ten Belarusians does not understand Belarusian. The position of the Belarusian language is similar to that of Irish in Ireland.

Linguistic description

Classification

Belarusian is an East Slavic language, Russian and Ukrainian are the two Slavic languages most closely related to Belarusian.

Grammar

Belarusian, like the other Slavic languages, is an inflectional language of the fusion type. In the noun, the pronoun and the adjective, the grammatical case is used.

Names (Назоўнік - Nazounik)

There are 6 cases:

• Nominative (N.A. - Nazouny).
• Genitivo (Родны - Rodny).
• Dativo (Diavальны - Davalny).
• Acusativo (Вінавальны - Vinavalny).
• Instrumental (Trворны - Tvorny).
• Locative (Mednes - Mesny).

There is a seventh case, vocative (клічны - klichny), but it is rarely used in modern Belarusian.

Pronouns (Займеннікі - Zajmiennik)

In Belarusian there are 8 types of pronouns (займеннікі - zajmiennik):

• Posesivos (Прыналежныя): мой (mi, mine); твой (tuyo); яго, ягоны (suyo); яе, ены (suyo de it); наш, наскі (nuestro); ваш (vuestro); іх, іхны).
• Staff (Aсабовыя): я (yo), ты (tú), ён (el), яна (ella), яно (ello), мы (nosotros), вы (vosotros), яны (ellos);
• Negatives (Aдмо delayныя): ніхто, нішто, нічый ніякі ніводзін, ніводны.
• Defined (Asian): сам; самы увесь усё усе усякі, усялякі коны іншы.
• Indefinidos (Няпьныя): нехта нешта нейкі (а); нечы некаыторы некалькі (хтось, хтосьці
• Interrogatives-comparatives (Пытальныя): хто які каторы чый колькі.
• Demonstratives (рказальныя): той гэты гэны такі гэткі, гэтакі столькі, гэтулькі.
• Reflectives (Zivārотны): сяáе.

Vocabulary

In lexical terms, Belarusian is more closely related, firstly to Ukrainian, then to Polish, and lastly to Russian.^{[citation needed]}

Writing system

Like Russian, Belarusian uses the Cyrillic alphabet. Before it came into use, Belarusian was written in its own alphabet, the łacinka (лацінка) based on the Latin alphabet. Some people continue to write in łacinka, but officially only Cyrillic is used.

• You can definitely write:
  • Alphabet łacinka (based on Latin alphabet).
  • Belarusian alphabet (based on Cyrillic alphabet).

Belarusian Cyrillic Alphabet

бб бб в г дд (дждж дздз) е жж зз іі йй к л м нsel

The apostrophe is used between a consonant and a weak vowel (е, ё, ю, я) to indicate that there is no palatalization of the preceding consonant, thus pronouncing the vowel as it would be at the beginning of a word. In łacinka it is done through the letter j, compare: "Сям'я" with "Siamja".

Before 1933, apart from the letter Ge (Гг), the Belarusian alphabet contained the letter Ghe (Ґґ). Some Belarusian linguists have requested the recovery of that letter, but it has not been officially approved.

Belarusian Latin alphabet

The Belarusian Latin alphabet is called łacinka.

Aa Bb Cc Ćć Čč Dd (DŽdž DZdz) Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Łł Mm Nn Ńń Oo Pp Rr Ss Śś Šš Tt Uu Ŭŭ Vv Yy Zz Źź Žž

Examples

Some basic examples:

• - Hello.
• - How?
• How are you?
• - Good morning.
• - Good night.
• - Thank you.
• Калі ласка (Kałi łaska) - Please do nothing.
• (Spadar / Spadarynia) - Lord/Lady.
• - Good / Good.
• (Kiepska / Drenna) - Malo / Mal.
• - Excellent.
• (Cudoŭna) - Wonderful.
• Where?
• Where?
• - Why?
• I understand.
• - I don't understand anything.