Belarus Languages

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Belarus

Languages

Description

Belarus's two official languages are Russian and Belarusian; Russian is the most common language used at home, used by 70% of the population, while Belarusian, the official first language, is spoken at home by 23%. Minorities also speak Polish, Ukrainian and Eastern Yiddish. Belarusian, although not as widely used as Russian, is the mother tongue of 53.2% of the population, whereas Russian is the mother tongue of only 41.5%.

• Belarusian - one of the two official languages in the Republic of Belarus under the current Constitution.

• Russian -

References

Russian is commonly spoken and is the language of the genealogical sources. Belorussian is written in Cyrillic and is closely related to both Ukrainian and Russian.

For word list and help researching in Belorussian records, see:

• Russian Genealogical Word List