Belarusian language
Spoken in
- Indo-European languages Slavic Languages East Slavic languages Belarusian
Be
Bel
Bel
The White Russian ( беларуская мова; newer designation Belarusian, outdated or Weißruthenisch Albaruthenisch ) is an East Slavic language which is spoken by about 7.9 million people as a native language. Of these, the majority living in Belarus ( Belarus), where it is next to the Russian one of the two official languages. A minority living in Poland in the area of Białystok.
Origin
The White Russian is together with the Russian and the Ukrainian one of the three East Slavic languages that have evolved in the Middle Ages from a common ancestor language of the Rus, which is referred to as Old Russian.
In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Since the 14th century its own on the Ruthenian (the predecessor of the White Russian ) based firm language and the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became the court of the Lithuanian Grand Duke was in Vilnius.
With the expansion of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the entire western part of the former Kievan Rus she also took on Ukrainian elements. According to the Lithuanian personal union with Poland they came under very strong influence of the Polish. (For more details, refer Ruthenian language. ) After the destruction of the Polish- Lithuanian state ( 1795), this written language came more and more into disuse.
Although already the first literary works in a new Belarusian literary language, which was based on the north-eastern dialects of White Russian ( first work applies a resultant 1812-1830 anonymous translation of the Aeneid, Eneida emerged in the first half of the 19th century nawywarat " Aeneid flipped ").
20th century
Only after the revolution of 1905 legal books and newspapers were printed. From 1903 to 1911 appeared in Warsaw, the important work Belorussy. Jazyk belorusskowo naroda of Jauchim Karski, in which the written language was codified. An important role is also played in this time appearing from 1906 magazine Nasha niwa ( "Our hall ").
1917 failed the first attempt to establish their own Belarusian State, after which most Belarusians living in the Soviet Republic of Belarus, a smaller part in Poland. In the Soviet Union, the Byelorussian could develop freely until the late 1920s, after which it fell again under significant pressure of Russian. 1933 was enforced by a Orthografiereform the approach to the Russian, and vocabulary and grammar were since then under Russian influence. The same fate befell the White Russian in the Polish territories that were connected in 1939 to the Soviet Union.
Only under perestroika, there was a revival of the Belarusian literary language, which was declared in January 1990 on the State Language of the Soviet Republic of Belarus. There was now also efforts in 1933 abolished the traditional spelling ( according to their developers Branislau Taraschkewitsch known as Taraškievica ( тарашкевіца ) or the classic version ) re-establish, since that time compete effectively two systems, namely the Taraškievica (of emigrants and active Belarusian speakers preferred ) and the Soviet Narkomauka ( наркомаўка until today still official standard ).
The current state is that the Belarusian literary language is spoken only by a small intellectual class in the cities. In the country Belarusian dialects have survived, most of the city 's population speaks a transitional form between the Belarusian and Russian, the ( " feed " ) is referred to pejoratively as Trasjanka. In the education system, the White Russian is weakly anchored, in the summer of 2003, the only high school was closed with Belarusian language of instruction against strong opposition from the students and teachers. According to the Belarusian introduction as the only official language and the independence was a brief flowering, " Rebirth" ( Belarusian Adradschenne ) called, but which ended with the introduction of Russian as other official language by President Lukashenka in 1994/95 again. The prognosis is rather bleak, many White Russians fear that a complete absorption of the White Russian in Russian is almost impossible to prevent.
Moreover, it has, resulting with a movement that wants to expand its West Pole Maltese to their own language further fragmentation.
Writing and spelling
Today Belarusian written language is written with Cyrillic script, see the following table:
The letters inventory corresponds approximately to that of the Russian and the Ukrainian. Typical Belarusian letter ў, which (except in the Dungan in Kyrgyzstan and in the Chukchi Peninsula Yupik ) is found only in this language, and also the spelling of the ë is mandatory (unlike in Russian ). The White Russian lacks the Russian letters и, щ ъ and (there has additionally і and ў ). Compared with the Ukrainian him the letters are missing ї є and (there has also ы, э, ë and ў ).
The spelling of the White Russian is strictly phonetically, that is, it depends largely on the debate. This also means that the unstressed o not only ( as in Russian ) as a spoken but also written. Due to the phonetic spelling, a distinct difference to the image of the Russian and Ukrainian. See, for example white russian вада "water" against Russian вода, the words are spoken the same, but spelled differently.
The letters compounds дж and дз are sometimes treated as separate units, since they only describe a sound. In these cases, they follow in the alphabet as a separate letter after д.
A problem of the Belarusian orthography is that both the volume h as well be sound g г reproduced by the letter of the. Until 1933 a separate letter ґ was used for g (as in Ukrainian ), its reintroduction is being considered.
The spelling of the White Russian in Latin script ( Łacinka ) is based on the Polish orthography, but also has special characters with diacritics ( š, č, etc.) and uses (other than Polish ) the letter v instead of w. It is also characteristic for them a phonetic spelling ( "water" then so is called vada ).
Grammar
The grammar of the White Russian is not significantly different from the other Slavic languages. Specifically, the following can be said:
- The nouns have three genders on ( masculine, feminine nouns, Neutra ), divided in turn into animate and inanimate. There are six case and two numbers, singular and plural. It is striking that the declension of nouns is more balanced than about the Russian or Czech, which can be explained by the fact that the Belarusian standard language emerged in the 19th century from the vernacular and no direct continuity with the Altweißrussischen there.
- The adjectives have lost, known from other Slavic languages predicative forms (so-called short forms ).
- The verb has four tenses up, next to present, past and future tense and the past perfect rare in Slavic languages , also characteristic of the Slavic languages category of aspect. The system of participles and Adverbialpartizipien is less developed than in other Slavic languages.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary of the White Russian is made up of different layers. In addition to the Slavic Erbwortschatz and some influences of the Church Slavonic mainly borrowings from Polish are characteristic, however, the Russian missing. See, for example white soot. дзякаваць " thank " against Russian and Polish благодарить dziękować. Belarusian цікавы "interesting" as Polish ciekawy etc. In the interwar period were busy instead of Polish ( and Russian ) loan words to form their own words on the basis of dialect words Belarusian linguists, from 1933, the specialized vocabulary but was Russified targeted.