Belarus Languages

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Belarus Wiki Topics
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Record Types
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Description[edit | edit source]

Belarus's two official languages are Russian and Belarusian. 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%. [1]

  • Belarusian - one of the two official languages in the Republic of Belarus under the current Constitution and spoken at home by 23%.
  • Russian - the most common language used at home, used by 70% of the population.

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.[2]

Word List(s)[edit | edit source]

Alphabet and Pronunciation[edit | edit source]

The Belarusian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic script. The modern Belarusian form was defined in 1918, and consists of thirty-two letters. Belarusian had also been written in the Belarusian Latin alphabet and the Hebrew alphabet.

Pronunciation

Language Aids and Dictionaries[edit | edit source]

Dictionaries

  • Pashkevich, Valentyna. English-Belarusian dictionary. Kolas: Kolas Publisher, 2006. Available at: WorldCat.
  • Silitski, Vitalʹ and Jan Zaprudnik. Historical dictionary of Belarus. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2007. Available at: WorldCat.
  • Pocekt English-Belarusian-Russian Dictionary. Minsk: Vyšéišaja škola, 1995. Available at: WorldCat.

Online Dictionaries

Language Aids

Additional Resources[edit | edit source]

  • Silitski, Vitalʹ and Jan Zaprudnik. The A to Z of Belarus. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2010. Available at: WorldCat.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Belarus," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus#Religion_and_languages#:~:text=Religion%20and%20languages, accessed 4 Aug 2021.
  2. ↑ The Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Family History Record Profile: Belarus,” Word document, private files of the FamilySearch Content Strategy Team, 2002.




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

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