Belarus Languages


Belarus Wiki Topics
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Record Types
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Belarus Genealogical Word Lists
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Local Research Resources

Description

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)

Alphabet and Pronunciation

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

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

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

References

  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: