Belarusan

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A language of Belarus

ISO 639-3
bel
Alternate Names
Belarusian, Belorussian, Bielorussian, Byelorussian, White Russian, White Ruthenian
Population

6,720,000 in Belarus (Johnstone and Mandryk 2001). Population total all countries: 7,818,960. Ethnic population: 9,050,000.

Location

Also in Azerbaijan (Belarusian), Canada, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russian Federation (Belarusian), Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United States, Uzbekistan.

Language Status

1 (National). Statutory national language (1994, Constitution, Article 17(1)), largely symbolic use.

Classification
Indo-European, Slavic, East
Dialects

Central Belarusan, Northeast Belarusan (Polots, Viteb-Mogilev), Southwest Belarusan (Grodnen-Baranovich, Slutska-Mazyrski, Slutsko-Mozyr). Linguistically between Russian [rus] and Ukrainian [ukr], with transitional dialects to both.

Language Development
Fully developed. Bible: 1973.
Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Belarusan
Writing
Cyrillic script.
Other Comments

Christian, Muslim.

Also spoken in:

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