ELL: Re: RE: Belorussian

[Robert Beard]

I think David Harris' proposal is the only one that makes sense in Belarus.
I just spent a month there in the winter of 1997 teaching an advanced
seminar and discussing this very issue with faculty and administration at
the Minsk Linguistic University.  All of them write and conduct their
classes in Russian and consider Belarusan something of a substandard
dialect.  They all speak Belarusan.  One of my closest friends uses it at
her dacha when speaking to her non-academic neighbors. She doesn't use it
when speaking to her brothers and sisters, none of whom are intellectuals.

The situation in Belarus is quite different from the one in Ukraine.  There
is no threat to Belarusan nor any hope of it really becoming the national
language in the near future.  An interesting situation.

--Bob

------------------------------------
Robert Beard, CLO & CTO
yourDictionary.com, Inc.
1002 West 9th Avenue
King of Prussia, PA 19406
Telephone: 570-523-7758
http://www.yourdictionary.com
rbeard at yourdictionary.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Harris" <dharris at las-inc.com>
To: <endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 12:26 PM
Subject: ELL: RE: Belorussian


> I don't know much about the details of language use in Byelorussia, but if
> the situation there is anything like that of other CIS countries, I
suspect
> that colloquial Byelorussian is alive and well. The reason I am writing is
> to suggest that the creation of special Byelorussian-language curricula
in,
> say, the sciences where these have not existed before (or, at least, not
for
> a very long time) might be a less useful expenditure of funding/energy
than
> alternative programs which target cultural and other more appropriate
arenas
> (religious?) in which Byelorussian can be used.
>
> To me, it would make more sense for a rather small country with cultural
and
> historic ties to neighboring Russia and few resources with which to create
a
> wide variety of up-to-date Byelorussian-language educational texts to
> continue using Russian texts so that they can focus their few resources on
> other more pressing needs. Moreover, there would seem to me to be little
of
> value in severing linguistic ties to a neighboring country which is a
giant
> (compared to Byelorussia) in scientific research and development.
>
> I'm not against the preservation of Byelorussian language, I just don't
feel
> it's necessarily in the best interest of Byelorussians to phase out
Russian
> when being educated in Russian is obviously a big plus for a Byelorussian
> citizen, allowing him or her to communicate scientific/technical
> ideas/information from Vladivostok to Prague to Sophia rather than merely
in
> the limited sphere of Lukashenka-controlled Byelorussia.
>
> The situation in the United States might serve as a better example in
making
> this point. Efforts to re-vitalize Native-American speech communities
likely
> do not (certainly should not) focus on creating technical literature and
> vocabulary for these languages. Instead, educated NAs should ideally be
able
> to communicate scientific/technical information and other Western-oriented
> ideas among the outside world in English while maintaining traditional
> communities where daily life and other culture-specific events are
conducted
> in their native languages.
>
> If you don't believe such a thing can work, take a look at northeastern
> Switzerland where German dialects have existed side-by-side with standard
> German for generations. The Rumantsch dialects of Kanton Graubünden, on
the
> other hand, have been losing ground for some time now. So I don't know in
> detail what the answer to such problems is, but I suspect that the
unwieldy
> task of maintaining a wide knowledge base of scientific and other
> information in every language across the globe is not the answer.
>
> David Harris
> Herndon, VA
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Henry Szymonik [mailto:heszy at jetcity.com]
> Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 10:20 AM
> To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
> Subject: ELL: Belorussian
>
>
> [From RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
>           RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 4, No. 126, Part II, 29 June 2000]
>
>  NGO NOTES 'DISASTROUS' SITUATION OF BELARUSIAN-LANGUAGE
>  EDUCATION. The Belarusian School Association has sent a
>  letter to Education Minister Vasil Strazhau deploring the
>  situation of Belarusian-language education, Belapan reported
>  on 27 June. The association argues that the "disastrously
>  low" percentage of schoolchildren in Belarusian-language
>  classes is attributable to the lack of Belarusian-language
>  colleges and universities where they could continue their
>  education in Belarusian. He also pointed to "the open
>  hostility of officials at different levels toward the
>  Belarusian language." The association says it can cite many
>  examples where Belarusian-language schools have been ordered
>  to offer instruction only in Russian. The organization
>  proposes that the government establish a Belarusian National
>  University and open Belarusian-language groups at other
>  institutions of higher education. A 1990 law obliged the
>  government to "Belarusianize" public life in the country by
>  2000, but President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has ignored that
>  bill and strengthened the Russification of Belarus. JM
>
>
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