Belarus And English: A Spoken Language Relationship

Belarus has two official languages: Belarusian and Russian. However, English is taught in schools as a foreign language, and in 2009, about 12% of the population could speak English. While English is not widely spoken in Belarus, some street and metro signs in Minsk are written in English, and bilingual menus (Russian/English) are available in many central restaurants.

English is taught in schools in Belarus

English teachers in Belarus can expect to earn between US$1,000 and US$2,000 per month, working five days a week. The cost of living is relatively low, with accommodation being affordable, and teachers can generally live comfortably on their earnings.

The school year in Belarus runs from September to June, and while the peak hiring period for English teachers is at the start of the school year, teachers can be hired all year round. It is advantageous to be in the country when applying for jobs, as most teaching positions are filled through word of mouth and connections.

The literacy rate in Belarus is 99.7%, which suggests a willingness to study among citizens. English is becoming increasingly important in the country, with street signs starting to be written in English, and locals who speak other languages beginning to see the need to understand it.

Belarusian and Russian are the official languages of Belarus, and Belarusian is spoken by around 60% of the population. However, Russian is the most widely spoken language, and is the language of instruction in most schools.

English is spoken by 450,000 Belarusians

Belarus has two official languages: Belarusian and Russian. Russian is the main language used by most citizens, with more than 72% of the population able to understand and use it. It is the mother tongue of around 41% of Belarusians and is more commonly spoken in cities than in rural areas. Russian is considered the second official language after Belarusian, though its use in the home is increasing.

Belarusian is the primary official language of Belarus, but it is only spoken by around 11% of the population. It is the mother tongue of 53%, though these figures vary depending on the source. Belarusian only became an official language in 1990, replacing Russian, which was widely spoken under Soviet rule.

In addition to the two official languages, several minority languages are spoken in Belarus, including Polish, Eastern Yiddish, and Ukrainian. Trasianka, a mix of Russian and Belarusian, is also spoken by some Belarusians. It is the result of the local language being influenced by the socially dominant language and became particularly common when rural Belarusian-speaking migrants moved to Russian-speaking cities.

Russian is the main language in Belarus

Russian is one of the two official languages of Belarus, the other being Belarusian. Russian is the de facto most widely spoken language in the country due to its historical dominance in media, education, and other areas of public life. This dominance is a result of the Soviet era and post-Soviet era development.

After the Partitions of Poland and the fall of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, most ethnic Belarusian lands became part of the Russian Empire. The Russian government began to arrest and replace Belarusian officials and church leaders with Russians. In 1772, Catherine the Great signed a decree mandating that sentences, decrees, and orders in the annexed territories be issued exclusively in Russian. The following year, she signed another decree, "On the establishment of local courts," which provided for the mandatory use of Russian in the judicial system.

The Russian Empire also implemented policies of Russification, suppressing the Belarusian language and culture. Belarusian literature was burned, and sacred buildings from the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were destroyed. The influence of Polish language and culture, which had previously been dominant in Belarus, was replaced by Russian, particularly after the November Uprising.

During the Soviet era, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) initially pursued a policy of "Belarusization" in the 1920s, aiming to increase the use of Belarusian in public life. However, this policy was ended in the 1930s, and Russian was declared the language of interethnic communication for the entire Soviet Union in 1934. Russian was also introduced as an obligatory subject in all schools in non-Russian Soviet republics in 1938.

After World War II, most educational institutions in Belarus were converted to using the Russian language. The industrialisation and urbanisation of the BSSR, which included formerly Polish territories with significant Russian influence, further contributed to the spread of Russian. Immigrants from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) often held leadership positions in the post-war BSSR, and Russian became the language of social advancement. As a result, migrants from rural areas adjusted to the Russian-speaking environment in the cities, and the Belarusian-Russian mixed speech "trasianka" spread.

In 1959, a law was passed allowing pupils in schools with Russian as the medium of instruction to opt out of Belarusian as a school subject. In 1978, the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union decided to introduce Russian as a school subject in all first grades of "non-Russian" schools, further weakening the position of Belarusian.

Despite efforts to improve the status of the Belarusian language after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian remains the dominant language in Belarus. In the 1995 Belarusian Referendum, Russian was declared the second official language. According to the 2009 Belarus Census, 70.2% of the population indicated they speak Russian at home, while only 23.4% indicated Belarusian. The census also showed that minorities speak Polish, Ukrainian, and Eastern Yiddish.

Belarusian is the principle official language

Belarusian is the primary official language of Belarus, alongside Russian. It is an East Slavic language, which shares many grammatical and lexical features with other East Slavic languages, such as Russian and Ukrainian. It is spoken in some parts of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine by Belarusian minorities in those countries.

The history of the Belarusian language can be traced back to the 12th century, with the earliest known documents from ethnic Belarusian territories being saints' vitae and sermons written in the Church Slavonic language. In the following centuries, an increasing number of texts, including official records and other documents, exhibited phonetic, grammatical, and lexical characteristics that are typically Belarusian.

In the late 14th and 15th centuries, Church Slavonic religious writings underwent a process of archaization known as "rebulgarisation" to counteract the perceived "falsification" of the divine word by vernacular influences. This, along with the rise of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, contributed to the emergence of a written language based on autochthonous East Slavonic vernaculars. This language, referred to as "ruskij jazyk" in contemporary sources, served as the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and was used by authorities, in offices, and in diplomatic correspondence.

During the 19th century, poets and intellectuals inspired by the Romantic movement contributed to the development of a modern Belarusian literary language, drawing from the language of the peasantry. However, under the Russian Empire, Belarusian was treated as a dialect of Russian, and efforts towards linguistic and cultural emancipation were blocked after the January Uprising of 1863.

Following the 1905 Russian Revolution, bans on printed texts in Belarusian were lifted, and newspapers such as Nasha Niva played a crucial role in the development of literary norms in modern Belarusian. During the German occupation of the district Ober Ost from 1915 to 1918, Belarusian was introduced as a school subject and language of instruction for the first time.

In the early years of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) in the 1920s, a policy of Belarusization was implemented, aiming to integrate the Belarusian language into public life and develop its terminology. However, in the 1930s, Soviet state and party leaders initiated an ideological struggle against "local nationalisms," leading to severe repressions and the elimination of pro-Belarusian intelligentsia. In 1934, Russian was declared the language of interethnic communication for the entire Soviet Union, and it became an obligatory subject in all schools in non-Russian Soviet republics.

After World War II, the industrialisation and urbanisation of the BSSR, along with a high number of immigrants from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, contributed to the dominance of Russian in urban centres. A law passed in 1959 allowed pupils in schools with Russian as the medium of instruction to opt out of Belarusian as a school subject, further weakening its position.

Despite efforts towards linguistic Belarusization in the 1990s, the number of first graders being taught in Belarusian has significantly decreased, and there are currently no Belarusian-language universities in the country. While Belarusian remains an official language, Russian dominates in public life, administration, business, and education in Belarus.

Trasianka is a mix of Russian and Belarusian

Trasianka, derived from the Belarusian word for 'low-quality mixed grains', is a mix of Russian and Belarusian. It is a linguistic variety in Belarus that emerged as a result of long-lasting and intensive Belarusian-Russian language contact. Trasianka is still practised by a large part of the country's population.

The mixing of languages in Belarus is not a recent phenomenon. For a long time, Belarusian territories have been borderlands, where local dialects came into contact with more socially dominant languages like Polish or Russian. However, the mixing of Belarusian and Russian specifically has to do with the changes in Soviet Belarus after World War II. Due to postwar industrialisation, there was substantial labour migration from rural areas to towns. Villagers brought Belarusian, especially dialectal varieties, into towns, where Russian maintained its dominant position. The latter secured its influence due to a long history of Russification, first by the Russian Empire and then by the Soviet Union. The dominance of the Russian language persisted as ethnic Russians from other parts of the Soviet Union moved to Belarus after the war and assumed leadership positions.

People who had recently arrived in towns and cities struggled with linguistic accommodation, and as a result, trasianka emerged. Trasianka later saw its intergenerational transfer as the residents' children grew up speaking the Belarusian-Russian mix.

The linguistic landscape in Belarus is sometimes described as diglossia, where the bilingual community switches between two languages depending on the context. The high variety is used in formal settings and schools, while the low variety is spoken in informal spaces with family and friends. Trasianka, being the low variety, has been stigmatised in favour of the official and 'neutral' high variety of Russian.

While Belarusian is one of the official languages of Belarus, taught in every school, and spoken by 60.8% of citizens with Belarusian nationality, it is not the dominant language in the country. Russian is the language used in most substantial domains of public life, including administration, state media, and government affairs.

Frequently asked questions