Belarusian (, ) 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.
As one of the East Slavic languages, Belarusian shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group. To some extent, Russian, Rusyn, Ukrainian, and Belarusian retain a degree of mutual intelligibility. Its predecessor is generally referred to as Ruthenian (13th to 18th centuries), 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). About 6,984,000 (85.6%) of Belarusians declared it their "mother tongue". Other sources, such as Ethnologue, put the figure at approximately 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 (data from Russian Census (2002) In Russian). 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 (data from 2001 Ukrainian census In Ukrainian). In Poland, the Belarusian language is declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 40,000 inhabitants (data from 2002 Polish general census Table 34 (in Polish) 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.
Names
The Belarusian language has been known under a number of names, both contemporary and historical. Some of the most dissimilar are from the Old Belarusian period.
Official English-language name
Belarusian () – 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 (also spelled Belorussian, Bielorussian) – derived from the Russian-language name of the country "Byelorussia" (), used officially (in the Russian language) in the times of the USSR (1922–1991) and, later, in the Russian Federation. White Russian or White Ruthenian (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
Great Lithuanian () – proposed and used by Jan Stankievič since the 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 Krivian (, ) – derived from the name of the Slavonic tribe Krivichi, 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 Vacłaŭ Łastoŭski.
Vernacular
Simple () or local () – used mainly in times preceding the common recognition of the existence of the Belarusian language, and nation in general. Supposedly, the term can still be encountered up to the end of the 1930s, e.g., in Western Belarus. It is widely used to this day in Pomerania in reference to the mixed Polish-Belarusian dialects spoken there. Simple Black Ruthenian () – used in the beginning of the 19th century by the Russian researcher Baranovski and attributed to contemporary vernacular Belarusian.