Belarusian Language Research Articles

On the issue of code switching in the speech of multilinguals on the Lithuanian-Belarusian borderland (based on field materials)

The article deals with cases of switching codes in the speech of the inhabitants of Lithuania, as well as the border Lithuanian-Belarusian territories, who speak Polish, Lithuanian and Belarusian (Russian) languages. The analyzed texts were written down by Rita Balkute during ethnographic expeditions, which were not aimed at revealing the actual linguistic features of the speech of the informants. Analysis of the material shows that ethnolinguistic factors play an important role in code switching; for example, informants often switch to Polish when describing magical practices or when quoting spells. The article discusses the reasons for such transitions, as well as cases of mixing codes when hybrid texts are formed in Polish and Belarusian.

Беларус, беларускi: гісторыя найменняў айчыны і суайчыннікаў

The research is based on two concepts: 1) a stable ethnic name (ethnonym) testifies to the strong ethno-identity of people, and changes in this name indicate changes in ethnic selfconsciousness of the group; 2) the name of the language used by the ethnos (linguonym), as well as the ethnonym, is very significant for ethnic identity, and a stable linguonym and its formation is more important for the mentality of people than intra-linguistic changes. The purpose of the article is to show the stages of the formation of the names of Belarusians and the Belarusian language. This goal cannot be realized without referring to the formation of the ethnic identity of Belarusians. Since the diachronic approach is adopted, the necessary historical-geographical and linguistic context is given. The study applies methods of working with text: both with scientific literature and with original texts in the field of issues. The information from these two types of sources is used to show the stages of the formation of Belarusian ethnonyms and linguonyms. The synthesis and final interpretation were also carried out through the extralinguistic (first of all, historical) perspective. The formation of the names of the concept of “homeland” was also considered. As a result of the research, the author comes to conclusion that at the beginning of the 20th century Belarusians had already formed the names of their homeland, ethnos and language, that is, for more than a hundred years they considered themselves a separate nation.

Маркеры этнічнай ідэнтычнасці жыхароў Віленшчыны (па матэрыялах палявых этнаграфічных экспедыцый пачатку ХХІ ст.)

The article presents an analysis of ways to articulate one's and another's ethnic identity of the inhabitants of Vilnius region on the basis of linguistic, territorial and religious markers of distinctiveness. The research is based on the ethnographic fieldwork materials collected in 2007-2011. Language is the most significant marker of ethnic identity in the Belarusian-Lithuanian borderland, where it is difficult to find other contrasting cultural differences between Lithuanians, Poles and Belarusians. For example, in Vilnius region Lithuanians are most often identified by local Slavic-speaking residents on the basis of this feature. However, in the case of people who speak a regional variant of the Belarusian language in Vilnius region, we are dealing with an ethnic anomaly or liminal category – often referred to as locals (“people from here”). Residents who consider themselves Poles call their language simple (prostaya mova). For them, it is no longer a direct marker of ethnicity. In this case, other determinants become markers of identity. First of all, it is the territory of origin and religion that situationally signal the ethnic boundaries between Lithuanians, Poles and Belarusians of Vilnius region.

CВІТАНОК БІЛОРУСЬКОЇ НЕЗАЛЕЖНОСТІ ТА УЗУРПАЦІЯ ВЛАДИ РЕЖИМОМ ОЛЕКСАНДРА ЛУКАШЕНКА

Despite the geographical and cultural proximity, the contemporary history of Belarus is poorly represented in Ukrainian historiography. The study of the socio-political processes that took place in the Republic of Belarus after it became an independent country is necessary to understand the reasons for the failure of its nationally oriented course in 1991–1994, the Lukashenko regime’s coming to power and its subsequent transformation into a state unfriendly to Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic bloc. After gaining independence during the «parade of sovereignties» in 1988–1991, Belarus began to experience the processes of national revival of the Belarusian language and culture and democratisation of social and political life, initiated by the national conservatives from the Belarusian Populat Front (BPF), but already in the fourth year of independence, the above-mentioned processes were curtailed and the Republic of Belarus, headed by the permanent president Alexander Lukashenko, became known as «Europe’s last dictatorship». Nevertheless, mass opposition protests have been taking place almost throughout the entire period since 1994, from the so-called Minsk Spring to the large-scale protests of 2020. The article generally chronicles the anti-authoritarian resistance of civil society in Belarus in the 1990s, examining the formation and activities of Zianon Pazniak’s Belarusian People’s Front party, the confrontation between different branches of power against the backdrop of Alexander Lukashenka’s first victory in the presidential election and his subsequent usurpation of power, human rights violations, fraud during the presidential election, regime repression of the opposition and its activities. A special focus on the Belarusian Popular Front is due to the importance of this party as the most significant opposition force during the period of independent Belarus’ existence.

A model of homographs automatic identification for the Belarusian language

Objectives. А prototype system for automated removal of homonyms in Belarusian and Russian electronic texts is described. This is due to the urgent problem of automatic text processing at the morphological level, the process of which is complicated by the inflection of the Belarusian language with a diverse and rich system of morphological characteristics of parts of speech.Methods. The work uses regular homographs identification methods and knowledge-based methods.Results. Methods and approaches for designing systems for automatic detection of homographs are proposed. An algorithm for identifying homographs on the basis of knowledge-based method has been developed. An effective and fast-acting prototype for their removal in Russian and Belarusian has been implemented.Conclusion. A working prototype of the homograph search is presented, which is the first resource for removing ambiguity for the Belarusian language in open access.

WOMEN’S WRITING AS IMMATERIAL LABOUR IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY BELARUSIAN LITERATURE

The goal of this article is to analyse women’s writing as immaterial labour, focusing on the case of contemporary Belarusian literature as the contribution to the de-Westernizing of creative labour studies. First, the paper focuses on language choice specific for contemporary Belarusian literature and educational opportunities as the prerequisites to begin a writing career set in the 1990–2000s. Second, the paper outlines the environment providing publishing and showcase opportunities, emphasising the mid-2010s as the period of increased diversity. And third, the paper assesses the conditions that influence creative expression sustaining the labour of creating writing in 2020–2023. Within this argumentation, the paper investigates the state of specifically women’s writing in Belarus, considering the problematics of equal opportunities. Thus, in the 1990– 2000s women’s writing wasn’t on the agenda aimed at the preservation of the field and relating it to the Belarusian language. In the 2010s educative and showcase opportunities supporting the efforts of young writers provided an equally beneficial environment for men and women writing in Belarusian or Russian. The representation of women writers increased, including more women writers awarded with book prizes by both state and independent organizations although still not equal with men writers. During 2020–2023 it is mostly recognized women writers over 40 years old, especially currently in emigration, who produce literary works that are successfully published in Belarusian or Russian. Younger women writers have less opportunities for publication and showcase, switching to autofiction of shorter formats barely sustaining their efforts as labour. Interestingly, in both cases the most common themes are ancestry and corporality, making women representation in contemporary Belarusian literature less diverse. This affects the demand in literary works by women writers among diverse groups of women as the reading audience, making the labour of women writers in Belarus more precarious.

Дифференциальные признаки глагольных фразеологизмов белорусского языка со значением деятельности и отношения

This article deals with the formal and semantic properties of verbal phraseological units with the meanings of activity and relationship in the Belarusian language. The key research method applied here is descriptive, followed by the comparative and analytical methods. The author established that the subject of verbal units with the meaning of activity can only be a person (a group of people), an active doer of a certain activity who consciously and purposefully carries out this activity. In verbal phraseological units with the meaning of relationship, the subject and object are participants in an interaction (they can be a person, an inanimate object or an abstract concept). Changes in the subject-object environment can lead to the transformation of meaning and the development of polysemy of verbal phraseological units. As a rule, the object of verbal phraseological units with the meaning of specific activity is a product of an activity; however, many units are objectless. Verbal phraseological units with the meaning of abstract activity reflect the mental and speech activity of the person subject (human) and are mostly objectless. The subject of verbal phraseological units with the meaning of relationship is not an active doer of an action aimed to create (or destroy) an object (product of activity), but is characterized, first and foremost, by a relationship to a person or an object. The author has established that the phraseological units with the meaning of relationship can be divided into four groups: 1) interpersonal (interaction between people or groups of people), 2) person–object (relationship of a person to an object) 3) object–person (an object’s influence on a person) and 4) interobject (certain dependencies between objects). In the Belarusian language, рhraseological units with the meaning of interpersonal relatioship prevail. The results obtained can be implemented in the practice of teaching phraseology in higher education institutions and schools as well as in the theory and practice of phraseography.

Belarusization in the Smolensk Region from the Pages of the Newspaper «Rabochiy Put’», 1920–1930s

The article presents the practice of Belarusization in the Smolensk region in the 1920s – the first half of the 1930s in the format of its reflection on the pages of the newspaper «Rabochiy Put’», as the press organ of the Smolensk Gubernatorial Committee of the RCP (b) – the CPSU (b) and the Gubernatorial Executive Committee, and since 1929 – the main printing body of the Western region with the administrative center in Smolensk.
 The materials of the «Rabochiy Put’» do not form the reader's holistic perception of the policy of Belarusization in the Smolensk region, as in one of the Russian regions with a compact Belarusian population. There were no Belarusian collective farms or Belarusian village councils in the province, as was the case, for example, among Latvians and Jews. Therefore, the main direction of Belarusization has become the education system, i.e. the introduction of the Belarusian language and the course of Belarusian studies in individual schools, as well as attempts to transmit a number of schools into the Belarusian language.
 At the same time, even fragmentary data from newspaper materials of different genres and volumes indicate that neither the provincial authorities (virtually at all levels up to village councils), nor the titular and even the Belarusian
 population itself have become active supporters of the policy of Belarusization, only formally participating in this process, as in one of the many socio-political campaigns of thаt period.

Morphemic structure of russian and belarusian adjective color names: general and specific

The article is devoted to the comparative study of the modern Russian and Belarusian languages at the morphemic level. It is proved that it is the contrastive study that makes it possible to reveal the features of the morphemic organization of the equivalent lexical units of the Russian and Belarusian languages, to clearly see the real degree of lexical coincidence and mismatch of closely related languages using the example of morphemic word structures. The article gives a classification of interlingual Russian and Belarusian adjective color correlates depending on the nature of their morphemic structure. The coincidence of both the structures themselves as a whole and individual morphemes, as well as their specific differences, which indicates the national specificity of each of the compared closely related languages. The conclusion is made about the importance of this type of research in solving an urgent problem in Russian linguistics – establishing the similarity and difference between two closely related languages at the morphemic level, which will contribute to a deeper understanding of the ways of development of the word-formation systems of the Belarusian and Russian languages, the features of their correlation and interaction in the conditions of state bilingualism.

Structural and semantic organisation of retrospection in the prose of V. V. Gnilomedov

The article presents the results of a study of the category of retrospection based on the material of V. Gnilomedov's fiction; the features of its typification are determined based on the method of introducing a retrospective plan into the plot of the work. The methods of representation of compositional-textual retrospection are revealed such as information addition of facts, comparison of events, method of direct actualization of past events, cause-and-effect relations. Markers of the category of time are qualified and systematized, including lexical units of time, forms of participles, types of complex sentences, connective constructions, constructions with syntactic incompleteness and ellipsis, intertext inclusions. The peculiarity of the representation of textual plot retrospection is the realization of events in the same time space with retrospective excursions, the presence of the main retrospective storyline within the base time, as well as the retrospective interdependence between the novels-trilogies. The relevance of this topic is due to its belonging to the modern direction – the linguistics of the text, as well as the need for a comprehensive analysis of the category of retrospection in Belarusian linguistics. The results of the work done can be used in studying the problems of differentiation and interpretation of categories of literary text, in creating the grammar of the Belarusian language.

SEMANTIC GROUPS OF VERBAL PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS WITH THE MEANING OF A SPECIFIC ACTIVITY

The author explores individual verbal phraseological units’ meanings, the formation of the semantic structure of the subcategory of activity and individual structural and semantic groups. The main method of this study was the method of semantic identification. The methodological base consists of the works of leading Russian and foreign linguists in phraseology and lexicology. The research material consists of factual material from modern phraseographic sources, as well as the author's card-file of verbal phraseological units. The author describes mono-semantic verbal phraseological units with the meaning of social activity, movement and displacement in space, as well as the ones with the meaning of specific physical actions aimed at satisfying the most important physical (physiological) needs. The pattern of nouns with the meaning of a specific object as a product of activity functioning as an object of the studied units is substantiated. It is established that within the framework of structural-semantic groups and semantic subgroups, verbal phraseological units with the meaning of a specific activity have synonymous relationships. The results obtained can be applied in the courses of lectures and seminars on the modern Belarusian language, as well as on the text linguistics and cultural studies.

НОМЕНИ ТВАРИН ВОДНОГО ПРОСТОРУ В СХІДНОСЛОВ’ЯНСЬКИХ ФРАЗЕОСИСТЕМАХ

У статті схарактеризовано фразеологічні одиниці української, російської та білоруської мов з компонентами-назвами на позначення тварин водного простору, репрезентованих у сучасних фразеологічних словниках досліджуваних мов; з’ясовано, що фразеологія східнослов’янських мов фіксує такі назви тварин водного простору, як рак, риба, жаба, черепаха, п’явка; в результаті міжмовного зіставлення фразеосистем обстежуваних мов виокремлено як одиничні, індивідуальні, так і загальні ознаки.

Mapping spatial anomalies of ethnolinguistic dynamics in the results of the 2019 Belarus census

Using the cartographic method, the article analyzes the spatial features of the distribution of ethnolinguistic characteristics of the population of Belarus, published by the National Statistical Committee based on the results of the 2019 population census, as well as the dynamics of these characteristics for the intercensal period 2009–2019. It is shown that a significant number of indicators have pronounced distribution anomalies, which were not observed according to the results of previous censuses – a fairly strict localization of a number of phenomena within the administrative boundaries of the regions, multidirectional dynamics of the same indicator in different regions, slight changes across the republic in the indicators of the shares of Russian and Belarusian languages as native and home for the entire population, as well as for Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians, with very significant and multidirectional changes in these shares within the administrative regions. The anomalous results were mainly related to the increase in the share of the Belarusian language as a native and home language and the decrease in the corresponding shares of the Russian language. Such results allow us to conclude that the census results were deliberately distorted in order to prevent a significant reduction in the spread of the Belarusian language, the trend of which is clearly visible in the results of the 2009 census, and to preserve Belarusian language as a symbol of national ethno-consolidation.

East Slavic Contact Interaction in Primorsky Krai (According to the Linguistic Expedition of 2023)

The paper presents the first results of the field research carried out in June 2023 in the Khorol and Chernigov districts of Primorsky Krai of Russia among the descendants of immigrants from Ukrainian and Belarusian lands. The purpose of the expedition survey was to record the speech of dialect speakers of the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, to study the functioning of dialects in contact with closely related Russian language, to identify the preservation of traditional folk culture. The main problem during field research was related to the difficulties of informants when trying to record spontaneous dialect speech. Relics of Belarusian dialects were not found in this expedition. The utterances in Ukrainian were recorded in cases of quoting speech of older relatives, in memories about childhood and in folklore. The paper presents some transcribed texts, reveals phonetic and morphological features, analyzes individual lexical units. Narratives on the following topics are presented: the linguistic situation among migrants at the micro and macro levels, metalanguage observations, stories about local place names and ethnic nicknames. In addition to audio recordings, a written source is analyzed, the history of the formation of the Khorol village, written in Russian with Ukrainian dialect items. This text reveals all the linguistic features noted in the oral speech of the informants. More-over, it contains valuable information about the daily activities of the first settlers, about their holidays, customs, contacts with neighbors of different ethnicity. In the future, it is planned to work on transcribing the entire corpus of recorded texts for their publication and analysis, as well as to publish a written history of the village of Khorol.

Swedish parallels of Belarusian proverbs: Structural-semantic modeling

The article is devoted to the identification and differentiation of Swedish parallels of the most common Belarusian proverbs according to the nature of interlingual correlation. The goal involves the use of interlingual structural-semantic modeling of proverbs to identify complete proverbial analogues in different languages, identical structural models of proverbs, identical proverbial images and concepts. The material for the study was 320 Swedish proverbs, which are interlingual correlates of Belarusian proverbs. Proverbs-analogues in the Swedish and Belarusian languages are differentiated according to the nature of the interlingual community into two typologically significant groups: universal proverbs and international proverbs. Interlingual correlates of Swedish and Belarusian proverbs, which have the same structural models, are differentiated into several typologically significant groups depending on the nature of the variability of the lexical composition, due to the difference in the conceptual and figurative plan of proverbs. As a result of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that in the Swedish language there are a significant number of proverbs that are full or partial correspondences of the most commonly used Belarusian proverbs. A comparative analysis based on the structural-semantic modeling of proverbs made it possible to differentiate Swedish and Belarusian proverbial parallels into three typologically significant groups of units: similar proverbs, proverbs with identical structural models, proverbs with identical images and concepts. Swedish proverbs containing images and concepts identical to Belarusian proverbs are characterized by partial ethnocultural marking of their content, as well as the absence of a strict connection between the correlation in the content of proverbs in different languages and the presence of identical images and concepts in proverbs. The absence of such a connection indicates the typological similarity of the figurative-conceptual spaces of the Swedish and Belarusian proverbial pictures of the world, in which manifestations of interlingual community and national specificity are deeply mutually determined.

Structure and dynamics of the population of Transcaucasia and Central Asia peoples diasporas in Belarus

The article presents the results of studying the national diasporas of the largest peoples of Transcaucasia and Central Asia in Belarus — Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Tajiks. The dynamics of the urban and rural, male and female population of these nationalities, the number of men per 1000 women in 1959–2019, the ratio of the number in different regions of Belarus, the population structure by education level, marital status, linguistic characteristics and their dynamics between 2009 and 2019 population censuses, the structure of the population of these diasporas by employment status and characteristics of the main job in 2019 and its comparison with similar indicators for the entire population of Belarus are shown. Using cluster analysis, dendrograms showing the similarity of various diasporas in terms of basic characteristics were created. It has been established that the Turkmen diaspora is radically different from the rest in all characteristics, which is due to the fact that the vast majority of its representatives arrived in Belarus to receive an education. The characteristics of the Kazakh diaspora are closest to those of the entire population of Belarus. A sharp increase in the disproportion between men and women among the Transcaucasian peoples can be caused both by the arrival of mainly male population for economic reasons, and the tendency to identify girls in mixed families according to the titular ethnic group, and boys according to the diaspora ethnic group. The maximum relative increase in the number for the period 2009–2019 observed among the Turkmens (almost twice) and Tajiks, the number of Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians also increased, the number of Kazakhs and Uzbeks decreased. In all diasporas, except for the Kazakhs, the share of ethnic languages as native ones increases with a corresponding decrease in the share of Russian and Belarusian languages. The share of ethnic languages as home languages continues to be relatively low — less than 20 % (except for the Turkmens, for whom it is more than 60 %).

ПУТИ СОХРАНЕНИЯ КУЛЬТУРНЫХ НАРОДНЫХ ТРАДИЦИЙ И РОДНОГО ЯЗЫКА НА ПРИМЕРЕ АНАЛИЗА «ЛЕМАНТАРА» И.А. ГЛАДКОГО

The article discusses the issues of preserving the traditions of Belarusian people, transferring knowledge about their culture to the younger generation through textbooks intended for studying the Belarusian language. Using the example of the analysis of “Lemantar” (primer book), compiled by I.A. Gladky (Adam Varlyga, 1890–1972), a professional teacher and enthusiast of the Belarusian language, shows how the teaching of the native language and culture was carried out in families and schools created for children of Belarusian origin living far from their homeland. “Lemantar” consists of two parts, the first of which is written in Latin, and the second in Cyrillic, since Belarusians have used both fonts for a long time. In the primer, the Latin font is the leading or guiding one, since from a scientific point of view it is best suited for reflecting the expressiveness of the sounds of the Belarusian language. Moreover, this teaching order meets pedagogical and methodological requirements, since it is a single complex with a gradual transition from foreign writing to the native language with all its features. A detailed phonetic, grammatical and linguistic analysis of each part of the primer is presented. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the content of the textbook, especially its second part. It is emphasized that teaching the linguistic and cultural realities of the Belarusian people is based on poems, conversations on various topics, folk tales and parables, which contributes to a deeper understanding of the mentality of Belarusians, as well as introducing children to universal values. It is concluded that teaching aids like “Lemantar”, rich in regional studies and linguistic material, conveying the flavor of the life of Belarusian people, their lifestyle, holidays, family and work traditions, are of particular relevance, because, on the one hand, they reproduce ethnic tradition aimed at preserving national culture, on the other hand, include international subjects that are read as existentially important for any person.

Белорусская интеллигенция в пропагандистской деятельности немецких оккупационных властей в 1941 -1944 гг.

Introduction. The article examines the phenomenon of the Belarusian intelligentsia in the conditions of the German occupation of the period 1941-1944. The author defines the types of interaction, motives, and political intentions of this social group in the conditions of war. Materials and methods. The territorial scope of the study is limited to the General District of Belarus, within which the head of the civil administration V. Kube pursued a policy of so-called "Belarusization", aimed, among other things, at attracting the local intellectual elite to interact with the occupation authorities. Representatives of the Belarusian intelligentsia, who chose the path of collaboration, were guided by various motives. Its politically active part sought to implement the Belarusian national project under the Nazi protectorate, the embodiment of which would be the acquisition of sovereignty.Results. Representatives of this group actively participated in the activities of the German occupation authorities at various levels. And representatives of the Belarusian cultural elite saw in cooperation with the German authorities the possibility of creative self-realization in the national language.Conclusion. In both cases, they were the main instrument of German propaganda in the district. Their ethnicity and fluency in the Belarusian language were an additional means of verifying the content of propaganda. For their part, representatives of the Belarusian intelligentsia, who purposefully and consciously interacted with the German authorities, saw them as a means to achieve their own goals, hoping that in the conditions of the Nazi regime, the implementation of a national-state project is possible.

Даўнія спісы беларускае Энеіды

The article analyzes recently discovered manuscripts of the poem Aeneid. First of all, we touch on individual issues related to the expansion of the famous Belarusian work in Vitebsk region and Smolensk region. Recently discovered by V. Martysyuk “ancient lists” (Ya. Karsky) allow to make a number of significant clarifications regarding the origin and attribution of the poem. In our opinion, the work appeared in the era of the formation of the national identity of the East Slavic ethnic groups, when representatives of the then elites of society tried to awaken the national feelings of their compatriots with the help of literary texts. The author of the Belarusian Aeneid is a poet of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His work was preserved only in reproductions in the Mogilev–Vitebsk intelligentsia in the 1830s (I. Mankowski, the Myslowski brothers and others), as well as in the Smolensk entourage of V. Ravinski. What has come down to our time is the remains of an ancient travesty of an unknown Belarusian author. The study draws attention to the distinctive features of Myslovsky’s manuscript, executed in Belarusian Latin. The analysis of manuscripts of the middle of the 19th century allowed us to state that the work was written in an Odic stanza, which was largely lost due to the oral tradition (four correct decimas have survived). The absence of “tsokannya” (a characteristic feature of the Belarusian language of the Smolensk region) in the manuscript, which comes from the house of the Ravinskis, reduces the attribution of the work accepted in Belarusian literary studies to a marginal one.

30 Years of the Belarusian Language Olympiad in Poland

30 Years of the Belarusian Language Olympiad in Poland