Belarusian alphabet

Last updated
Belarusian alphabet
Belarusian alphabet in capital letters.svg
Script type
Time period
10th century to present (Old East Slavic); modern orthography: since 1918
Languages Belarusian
Related scripts
Parent systems
Sister systems
Belarusian Latin
Belarusian Arabic
Russian
Ukrainian
ISO 15924
ISO 15924 Cyrl(220),Cyrillic
Unicode
Unicode alias
Cyrillic
subset of Cyrillic (U+0400...U+04FF)
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.For the distinction between [ ], / / and  , see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

The Belarusian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic script and is derived from the alphabet of Old Church Slavonic. It has existed in its modern form since 1918 and has 32 letters. See also Belarusian Latin alphabet and Belarusian Arabic alphabet.

Contents

Letters

Belarusian Alphabet
CapitalName IPA Unicode
А  аа [a] /a/U+0410 / U+0430
Б  ббэ [] /b/U+0411 / U+0431
В  ввэ [] /v/U+0412 / U+0432
Г  ггэ [ɣɛ] /ɣ/U+0413 / U+0433
Д  ддэ [] /d/U+0414 / U+0434
Е  ее [] /jɛ/, /ʲɛ/U+0415 / U+0435
Ё  ёё [] /jɔ/, /ʲɔ/U+0401 / U+0451
Ж  жжэ [ʐɛ] /ʐ/U+0416 / U+0436
З  ззэ [] /z/U+0417 / U+0437
І  іі [i] [ citation needed ]/i/, /ʲi/, /ji/U+0406 / U+0456
Й  йі нескладовае [inʲɛsklaˈdɔvajɛ] /j/U+0419 / U+0439
К  кка [ka] /k/U+041A / U+043A
Л  лэл [ɛl] /l/U+041B / U+043B
М  мэм [ɛm] /m/U+041C / U+043C
Н  нэн [ɛn] /n/U+041D / U+043D
О  оо [ɔ] /ɔ/U+041E / U+043E
П  ппэ [] /p/U+041F / U+043F
Р  рэр [ɛr] /r/U+0420 / U+0440
С  сэс [ɛs] /s/U+0421 / U+0441
Т  ттэ [] /t/U+0422 / U+0442
У  уу [u] /u/U+0423 / U+0443
Ў  ўу нескладовае [unʲɛsklaˈdɔvajɛ]
у кароткае [ukaˈrɔtkajɛ]
/w/U+040E / U+045E
Ф  фэф [ɛf] /f/U+0424 / U+0444
Х  хха [xa] /x/U+0425 / U+0445
Ц  ццэ [t͡sɛ] /t͡s/U+0426 / U+0446
Ч  ччэ [t͡ʂɛ] /t͡ʂ/U+0427 / U+0447
Ш  шша [ʂa] /ʂ/U+0428 / U+0448
Ы  ыы [ɨ] /ɨ/U+042B / U+044B
Ь  ьмяккі знак
[ˈmʲakʲːiznak]
/ʲ/U+042C / U+044C
Э  ээ [ɛ] /ɛ/U+042D / U+044D
Ю  юю [ju] /ju/, /ʲu/U+042E / U+044E
Я  яя [ja] /ja/, /ʲa/U+042F / U+044F
' апостраф
[aˈpɔstraf]
 U+2019 or U+02BC

Details

Officially, the г represents both /ɣ/ and /ɡ/, but the latter occurs only in borrowings and mimesis. The ґ is used by some for the latter sound but, with the exception of Taraškievica, has not been standard.

A д followed by ж or з may denote either two distinct respective sounds (in some prefix-root combinations: пад-земны, ад-жыць) or the Belarusian affricates дж and дз (for example, падзея, джала). In some representations of the alphabet, the affricates are included in parentheses after the letter д to emphasize their special status: … Дд (ДЖдж ДЗдз) Ее ….

Ў is not a distinct phoneme but the neutralization of /v/ and /l/ when there is no following vowel, like before a consonant or at the end of a word.

Palatalization of consonants is usually indicated through choice of vowel letter, as illustrated here with /p/ and /pʲ/, both written with the letter п:

palatalization/p//pʲ/
finalппь
before /a/папя
before /ɛ/пэпе
before /i/пыпі
before /ɔ/попё
before /u/пупю

When a consonant is not palatalized and precedes /j/, the apostrophe ' is used to separate the iotated vowel: п'я п'е п'і п'ё п'ю/pjapjɛpipjɔpju/. (і is the palatalizing version of ы, and arguably, they represent a single phoneme). The apostrophe is not considered a letter and so is not taken into account for alphabetical order. In pre-Second World War printing, the form was used. When computers are used, the form is frequently substituted by '.

History

The medieval Cyrillic alphabet had 43 letters. Later, 15 letters were dropped, the last 4 after the introduction of the first official Belarusian grammar in 1918. Since four new letters were added, there are now 32 letters.

The new letters were:

The Belarusian alphabet, in its modern form, has formally existed since the adoption of Branislaw Tarashkyevich's Belarusian grammar, for use in Soviet schools, in 1918 [ citation needed ] Several slightly different versions had been used informally. [ citation needed ]

In the 1920s and notably at the Belarusian Academical Conference (1926), miscellaneous changes of the Belarusian alphabet were proposed. Notable were replacing й with ј ((CYRILLIC) JE), and/or replacing е, ё, ю, я with је (or else with јє), јо, ју, ја, respectively (as in the Serbian alphabet), replacing ы with и, introducing ґ (see also Ge with upturn; both proposed changes would match the Ukrainian alphabet) and/or introducing special graphemes/ligatures for affricates: дж, дз etc. Even the introduction of the Latin script was contemplated at one moment (as proposed by Zhylunovich at the Belarusian Academical Conference (1926)). Nothing came of it.

Noted Belarusian linguist Yan Stankyevich in his later works suggested a completely different form of the alphabet:

Layout of the Belarusian alphabet
(Stankyevich, 1962)
ОоАаЭэБбГ㥴Хх
ДдЕеЁёЯяДЗдзДЖджЗз
ЖжІіЙйКкЛлМмНн
ПпРрСсШшТтВвУу
ЎўФфЬьЦцЧчЫыЮю

Note that proper names and place names are rendered in BGN/PCGN romanization of Belarusian.

Keyboard layout

The standard Belarusian keyboard layout for personal computers is as follows:

KB Belarusan.svg

See also

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References

  1. Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 21.