Belorussian (also known as Belarusian, Bielorussian, White Russian, and Byelorussian) is an Eastern Slavonic language spoken in the former Soviet republic of Belarus. It is closely related to the other Eastern Slavonic languages such as Russian and Ukrainian, as well as being more distantly related to Polish, Czech, and Slovak, which belong to the Western Slavonic language branch. In addition to speakers in Belarus, there are also a significant number of people who speak Belorussian in Poland.
Modern Belorussian developed out of Old Belorussian, which had in turn developed out of an earlier Proto-Slavic language. The language took on most of its modern form around the end of the eighteenth century. During the Soviet era, the use of the Belorussian language was discouraged in favor of Russian. Nonetheless, the language survived, and has seen increasing use since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Belorussian uses a Cyrillic alphabet, similar but not identical to that of Russian. The modern form of the Belorussian alphabet, which came into use in 1918, has 32 letters, 10 of which are vowels. Each Cyrillic letter has a capital and a lowercase form. Some words are written with apostrophes, which fulfill the same purpose as the hard sign in Russian. Belorussian text is written from left to right, the same as English.
Belorussian shares a number of vocabulary terms with closely related languages like Russian and Ukrainian. Some of these cognates are the result of the shared origins of the languages, while others are the result of more recent borrowings, such as the many Russian terms that entered Belorussian during the Soviet era. Belorussian vocabulary has also been strongly influenced by Polish.
Belorussian grammar differs significantly from that of English. For example, Belorussian nouns have gender, meaning that every noun is considered either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Nouns also have six cases: the nominative case, the accusative case, the genitive case, the dative case, the instrumental case, and the prepositional case. There are no definite or indefinite articles to use with nouns in Belorussian, but adjectives change form to match certain aspects of the nouns they modify.
Belorussian verbs are conjugated to show person and tense. Aspect (whether a verb is imperfective or perfective) also plays a particularly important role in the Belorussian language. Imperfective verbs denote on-going or repeated actions, while perfective verbs denote actions which has been completed in the past or will be completed in the future.
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