Офіційний науковий дискурс щодо мовної державної політики (на прикладі Білорусі)

Abstract

Based on the analysis of scientific and publicistic speeches of Belarusian scientists, the article highlights the peculiarities of the national and language policy of the Republic of Belarus, based on the previous history of the Belarusian lands, in particular, as part of three empires – Polish-Lithuanian, Russian and Soviet. In the context of a comparative comparison with Ukrainian realities, elements of the actual evasion of state policy from the implementation of the declaration on the state status of the Belarusian language are revealed through the ambiguity of the positions of leading local scientists. As arguments for this ambiguity, general political and linguistic collisions are presented, among which are the discrepancy between the formal term «republic» and the realities of the last quarter of a century, the nature of the ancient letter ѣ («yat») and even the discourse regarding the choice between the forms of title toponyms: «Belarus» or «Belorussia» and «Minsk» or «Mensk». The essence of the phenomenon of almost complete self-identification of local citizens as Belarusians, and the Belarusian language as their native language, is analyzed, despite the fact that they are accustomed to being in the same ideological and political sphere with Russians and use almost exclusively Russian. The nature of the terms «trasyanka» (as a form of the Belarusian language) and «surzhyk» (as a form of the Ukrainian language) as deliberately introduced into the scientific and journalistic discourse of the Soviet era to denote the secondary nature of these languages in comparison with metropolitan Russian is investigated. Examples of these forms are given. It is concluded that the language situation in Belarus is still at the beginning of the emergence of such a dangerous challenge, when public attention is just beginning to focus on it. The latter should understand that the identification of oneself as Belarusians, and the national language as a native language in the face of complete defeat of this language in a bilingual confrontation with Russian, means only the level of ethnographic character of such a nation, and not its sovereignty in the world space even in its embryonic state. It is noted that in the conditions of today's civil movement in Belarus, real independence (national and linguistic) can be born, among the main conditions of which, in particular, is the knowledge of the language of the titular nation by a public statesman. Key words: Belarus, Belarusian language, Russian language, bilingualism, national identity, Ukrainian language, educational sphere.