Dialekte von Weißrussland

I like but we are called small, but in fact we are 12th in Europe by size. I heard that our retarded ex-president called us “like small Switzerland”, when we are 5 times bigger.

Linguists usually distinguish the following dialects in the Belarusian language:

1. Northeastern dialect – Vitebsk region, the north-east and central part of Mogilev region.

It is quite diverse and includes Vitebsk-Mogilev group of subdialects, which in turn is divided into Vitebsk (the east of Vitebsk region) and Eastern-Mogilev (the east and partly the center of Mogilev region) groups of subdialects, and Polotsk subdialects (the western and central parts of Vitebsk region and the north-west of Mogilev region).

There are also transitional Belarusian-Russian Northeastern subdialect (in Russia linguists call it “Southern Russian “). It connects the areas of the Belarusian Vitebsk-Mogilev group and the South Russian group and are located in a number of areas of Russia bordering Belarus – in the south-west of the Pskov region, in the west of the Smolensk region and in the north of the Bryansk region.

2. Middle Belarusian dialect- a strip through the north of Hrodna, the center of Minsk, southwest of Mogilev and northeast of Homel regions.

It is worth mentioning that it is the Middle Belarusian dialects (mostly, the area around Minsk) that form the basis of the modern literary Belarusian language.

3. Southwestern dialect – Hrodna region, south of Minsk region and Homel region.

It is divided into the Hrodno-Baranovichi group of subdialects (Hrodna region and the north of Brest region) and the Slutsk-Mozyr group of subdialects, which in turn is divided into the Slutsk subdialects (the south and southeast of Minsk region, Homel region) and the Mozyr subdialects (the south of Homel region). It is worth mentioning that this dialect has absorbed a lot of influence from Polish (especially in Hrodno and Brest regions) and Ukrainian (in the Gomel region).

4. West Polesian group of dialects – south-west of Brest region.

The most unique dialect of Belarusian. According to the linguists, it is a transitional Belarusian-Ukrainian, or even a fully dialect of Ukrainian. Some West Polesian dialects are more close to the Ukrainian Volyn-Polesian dialects. However, have being under the influence of the literary Belarusian language since the beginning of the 20th century, the West Polesian dialects are getting closer and closer to the rest of the Belarusian language area.

Unfortunately, we will end on a sad note, as all the dialects without exception are rapidly dying together with their speakers, who are very old. Nowadays they are being replaced by Trasianka, a dialect of Russian having Belarusian linguistic elements in its structure, though even Trasianka is gradually dying out and being replaced by the Moscow dialect of Russian. Many Belarusians who decided to switch to the Belarusian language from Russian use the literary form, so if the Belarusian language is revived in Belarus one day and it finally regains the status of the majority language again, the dialectal difference will be practically zero. Whether this is good or bad is up to you to decide.