BELARUSAN: a language of Belarus

The following is the entry for this language as it appeared in the 14th edition (2000).
It was superseded by the corresponding entry in the 15th edition (2005). See also the corresponding entry in the current edition of Ethnologue.

SIL code: RUW

ISO 639-1: be

ISO 639-2: bel

Population	7,905,000 in Belarus, 98% of the population (1993 Johnstone). Population total all countries 10,200,000. 74% of the ethnic group from the former USSR speak it as mother tongue.
Region	Also spoken in Azerbaijan, Canada, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia (Europe), Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, USA, Uzbekistan.
Alternate names	BELARUSIAN, BELORUSSIAN, BIELORUSSIAN, WHITE RUSSIAN, WHITE RUTHENIAN, BYELORUSSIAN
Dialects	NORTHEAST BELARUSAN (POLOTS, VITEB-MOGILEV), SOUTHWEST BELARUSAN (GRODNEN-BARANOVICH, SLUTSKO-MOZYR, SLUTSKA-MAZYRSKI), CENTRAL BELARUSAN.
Classification	Indo-European, Slavic, East.
Comments	Linguistically between Russian and Ukrainian, with transitional dialects to both. National language. Cyrillic script used. Christian, Muslim (Tatar). Bible 1973.

Also spoken in:

Poland

Language name	BELARUSAN
Population	230,000 in Poland (1993 Johnstone).
Alternate names	BYELORUSSIAN, WHITE RUSSIAN
Comments	Cyrillic alphabet. Bible 1973. See main entry under Belarus.