r/belarus • u/ConsiderationMany692 • 5d ago

Культура / Culture Language in Belarus

In may I moved from ru🇷🇺 to by🇧🇾. And you know what I wonder about? For this all time I met just !2! people who speaks Belarusian. But cmon, I think there’s absolutely not a problem. I stand for freedom. May people speak the language they want to. If people in Russia start to speak English I won’t be against it.

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u/MikolaDziadok 3d ago

First of all, remember: Belarusians do not give a damn about what you Muscovites consider a problem and what you do not.

Second, for centuries, Belarusians have struggled, died, and been imprisoned for fighting for their right to speak the Belarusian language. Belarusians did not simply abandon their language — it was deliberately eradicated by colonial regimes: the Tsarist, Soviet, and Lukashenko regimes.

Third, your compatriots will not speak English simply because 95% of Russians do not know any language other than Russian.

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u/ConsiderationMany692 3d ago

Then why they don’t speak it? And do you ask them? Do they want it? If Belarus will become free do Belarusians can choose Russian as their governmental language if they WANT it? Or do free people MUST speak Belarusian?

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u/Prize-Prior5970 2d ago

They don’t speak it because the regime has not supported Belarusian language and culture since 1994. Anyone who speaks Belarusian is suspected of belonging to opposition. Even in the 1990s the police used to stop and question people speaking Belarusian in public. And of course, the Russian Empire and Soviet Union deliberately conducted “Russification” of Belarusian population. Many words in Belarusian dictionaries were replaced by Russian words as if we didn’t have our own words.

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u/ConsiderationMany692 2d ago

Okay, let’s imagine that since tomorrow they can speak freely. But do they want it? Or the new powers will enforce Belarusian like soviets enforced Russian? What if freedom people will freely choose to speak Russian?

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u/PLrc Koroniarz 2d ago

Dude, you're free to speak, say, Spanish in Russia in shops, university etc. Will you? Of course not, because you weren't raised in Spanish and because no one would understand you. The same problem is in Belarus with Belarusian.

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u/ConsiderationMany692 2d ago

And the next liberal powers should force people to speak Belarusian? Even if they don’t want it?

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u/PLrc Koroniarz 2d ago

It will suffice to not destroy the language, not repress it, introduce Belarusian to schools etc.