Re: Lukashenka (jara: Country names still needed)

Hello,

> > The latest newspaper article on the guy I read spelt it that way.
> > Hm, "Alexander Lukashenko" probably is the commonest form
> in Swedish media,
> > but one does not hear alot of things from Belarus here.
>
> That's the Russian form. The same happens in our media.
> Unfortunately, little
> people, even among journalists who are supposed to know
> better, seem to realize
> that Ukrainian/Belorussian is NOT the same as Russian.
> The situation for Belorussian is even worse, since that
> language seems to be in
> a position comparable to that of Irish in Ireland.
Well, comparable, but rather different still. First off, the
sociolinguistic strata structure is more complex. There's Russian, then
there's _trasyanka_ (remember we talked about Russo-Ukr. 'surzhik'?
Well, same here), then there are the dialects, and then there's the
literary language. What's good news, a good part of the younger
generation in Belarus' are very aware of the language's problems, and
they try to speak and write Belarussian as much as they can, and the use
of literary Belorussian seems to be on the rise in the cities. What's
more good news, the literary language has two sources to borrow
terminology and the like - both Russian and Polish can be used, and
that's no question of controversy, for there is a long-standing
tradition of borrowing from both [1]. What's bad news, there are several
variants in existence right at the moment: _narkamauka_ (the Soviet
Byelorussian norm[2]), _taraszkiewica_ (the norm set forth in the 20's
by the grammarian Branislau Taraszkiewicz [3], persecuted during Soviet
times but actually rather good and true to the actual language (of his
time)). Then there's the question of whether to write modern Belorussian
in Cyrillic or in the _lacinka_ (the 16th - 17th Polish-based
orthography).

So actually the language in Belarus' has to overcome two obstacles: the
absence of a common norm (but it seems that taraszkiewica is gaining
ground steadily) and the hositility of the government. Now this second
one is a looot more difficult :-(

[1] How is 'philology' in Belorussian? Is it 'filalohyja' or
'filyalyohyja'? - 'Movaznaustva', of course!

[2] What language can you learn with an English-Russian dictionary? -
English
What language can you learn with a Russian-Belorussian dyctionary? -
Russo-Belorussian.

[3] The grammar is available in Belorussian at
http://txt.knihi.com/taraskievic/hramatyka/

Links:
http://www.pravapis.org (in English and Belorussian)
http://mova.by.ru (a great site, but only in Belorussian and Russian.
Many links)
http://www.belarus-misc.org/bel-ling.htm (a good overview in English)
http://knihi.com/ (THE Belorussian web library)

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

Is mall a mharcaicheas am fear a bheachdaicheas
                 --Scottish proverb