Belarusian
Беларуская
Belarusian is the only language to write the letter ў, a short u found in no other Cyrillic alphabet. Its spelling is frankly phonetic: you write what you hear, including unstressed o reduced to a, where Russian keeps the original letter. Its everyday use has receded sharply in favour of Russian, which dominates public life in the country.
- Family
- East Slavic
- Script
- Cyrillic
- Speakers
- ≈ 5 million
- Where
- Belarus
- In the game
- Rare language
How to spot it
The only Cyrillic language with the letter ў (short u). Plenty of а where Russian writes о.
A few sentences
-
Кожную раніцу я п’ю кубак гарбаты перад працай.
Every morning I drink a cup of tea before work.
-
Зімой тут вельмі холадна.
It is very cold here in winter.
-
Мне трэба памыць посуд.
I need to do the washing-up.
-
Малыш заснуў на руках.
The little one fell asleep in my arms.
-
Я не ведаю, дзе мы паставілі машыну.
I do not know where we left the car.