This is the question that is heard over and over. To any normal, educated person, to have to even ask this question is, to put it mildly, strange. "What century are we talking about?" - would be the logical continuation of a dialogue on the matter. Would it be OK or possible to be serious in asking Germans or Italians the same question ? You can imagine what reaction to this sort of inquiry one can expect.
The answer is not pleasant for Belarusians of the 21st century AD.
By first raising the emotional aspect of this story does not detract from further objective and, therefore, useful comments on this issue. Before we decide on who among Belarusians speaks the language and who keeps silent, it is worth identifying the essence of the term Belarusian within its broad and narrow context. In a broad sense of this word the Belarusian language (as any other languages in the world) is known to comprise several layers, i.e. literary Belarusian, language of national accents and dialects and what we call trasianka, i.e. containing unavailing efforts of certain layers of the society to "sound Russian". In a narrow sense, this term comprises only one aspect: the literary variant of the national language. It is applied in this respect when questions, specified in the title of the article, are touched upon. Those, who ask them, mean primarily literary Belarusian that is used in the spheres of academia and culture
To answer this monumental question, let us, first of all, evaluate the structural composition of the population of Belarus from the point of view of the degree of their language expertise and eagerness to apply it in their daily life. There exist several categories of urban and rural population in this country. Representatives of the first category are those 5% of native citizens that speak Belarusian, have mastered its literary variant and use it both in their professional activities and everyday life. The bulk of this group is comprised of writers, poets, people employed in various spheres of culture and academia. As a rule, most of them in addition can speak one or more foreign languages. For example, in the Hrodna province the majority of the local population, along with Belarusian, can speak Polish and Lithuanian. Another 95 per cent of this category of people, residing in Belarus, can and do speak their local dialects. The author of this article spent more than ten years going on numerous dialectological expeditions and studying phonetic peculiarities of the Belarusian dialects; that study ended up as support of the defense of a doctoral thesis in dialectology. Multiple contacts with the actual native speakers enable me to say that the majority of the rural population speaks wonderful Belarusian dialects, which will never die and will always serve as an inevitable source of support and development of the literary national language. Within the frame of this category of speakers we can single out the second category: those that want to speak Belarusian but can not because of their heightened sensitivity about their ability to speak a proper, literary variant of the language As a result they prefer to speak the so-called Russian (which is, definitely, far from being the natural Russian language; very often it becomes the target for numerous offensive jokes on the part of the Russian stand-up comedians). They, obviously, need some kind of additional support, which could help them to become masters of Belarusian and prove the simple fact: a mother tongue always sounds splendid.
The third category unites the people who can but do not want to speak Belarusian. These are the young people who originate from the rural areas and move to towns and cities. At that point they apply all their efforts to forget about their provincial roots; and they end up speaking a version of trasianka, which has never been appreciated by speakers of both literary Russian and Belarusian. Through proper promotion of the national language these people can change their attitude to their mother tongue and return to the form of the language they were accustomed to from their childhood. This will mean a shorter way for them to switch to the literary form of the language and join the first category of speakers of Belarusian.
The fourth category of the inhabitants of Belarus cannot and does not want to speak Belarusian. Most of such persons comprise former military men (high rank retired Russian-speaking officers) who chose as the most suitable place for them to spend the rest of their lives a country with tolerant and pliable (pamiarkounyja) people. In most of the cases their unwillingness to learn the local language is explained by human nature and the fact that Russian is already widely in use. Therefore, it is easy to avoid the hard work of mastering a foreign language (Russians are like Englishmen: why should they bother about learning any other language if the people around them can always understand their grand mother tongues), and so, do everything possible not to get involved in it. It was mainly this category of people that presented the strongest opposition to former attempts of democrats to introduce Belarusian as the only state language in this country.
The above specification of categories of inhabitants of Belarus enables us to address one more question: Who among them has a real choice of what language to speak? To have a choice in Belarus means to be bilingual. And it appears that only the fourth category has deprived itself from being linguistically treated as an equal within the territory of Belarus (hopefully, on the temporary basis). And, can we expect that such category of people will wake up some morning and start conversing in Belarusian? Do they have a real choice?
It is worth analyzing the way in which the first three categories use their knowledge of Belarusian in everyday life. The majority of intellectuals of the first category seem to treat the literary language as a means of self-expression and in the conduct of business. It means that they use it 100 per cent at their places of work and among their colleagues, mates as well as in the situations when they need to protect their professional image. Many of them switch to the local Russian in their everyday life while socializing with their neighbors and in the street. However, there is a growing number of people who use Belarusian both at work and in everyday life, no matter what linguistic environment they happen to find themselves. People, residing in rural areas of this country, speak Belarusian on an everyday basis, no matter whether they do it in their villages or on visits to their children in towns and cities: or when selling their produce at the town markets. Representatives of the second category speak their mother tongue presumably when they happen to be in their natural environment, i.e. on return to their rural settlements and smaller provincial towns where the majority of people also speak Belarusian. The same idea can be attributed to speakers of the third category who, in the majority of cases, have to switch to their native dialects as in their home environment where there is a different kind of incentive. In this instance, in the homecoming, the rural inhabitants do not appreciate those people who moved to urban areas and, when occasionally coming back, try to speak the "perverted" language. They are forced to simply speak pa-liudzku (in a human, civilized way).
Being a representative of the first category (the whole family speaks Belarusian in any linguistic environment, be it at home or in public places), I would like to share my personal impressions on how the Belarusian word is perceived by the inhabitants of Hrodna. In the 1990s those people who spoke Belarusian in the streets were associated with nationalists and in the majority of cases they were treated with a kind of suspicion. Later on, when the opposition weakened its efforts, it seemed to have become unstylish for most of the "democrats" to use the language in the streets and they reduced its application to narrow circles of their associates, clubs, organizations etc. The people, who continue nowadays to speak literary Belarusian in the streets, in spite of any current conditions, are treated with respect. Often the regular man in the street is now trying to take advantage of the situation, will join short conversations and can also speak a pretty good Belarusian. We haven't experienced any more cases of disrespectful attitude on the part of the local people because of us speaking our mother tongue. On the contrary, very many people now confess that they adore Belarusian and would love to also speak the same pure literary language but they cannot and, therefore, prefer to use trasianka in everyday life. Some of the people are honest enough to say that someone needs to spur them on to speak the language and in this case they will do it with pleasure.
So, if we apply a narrow sense of the term Belarusian and use it in the initial question, it will sound as logical as it were asked in any other country of Europe. In Great Britain, for example, the cradle of English, no more than 5 per cent of the population speaks Received Pronunciation (Queen's English) - or "RP." These are not the people that you can meet in the street in any given minute of the day and can engage in intellectual discussions. The rest of the native speakers are known for speaking multiple smaller and bigger local accents and dialects. Sometimes they sound so different that even the inhabitants of the British Isles, with origins in different corners of the country, find it difficult to understand each other. Forget about Scottish, Irish or Welsh English that are far from being identical to RP. If that is true, then do the British speak English in the street?
Another issue, which arises out of the above logic, is the following: let us consider such a trivial situation that could happen in any large family. Nine out of eleven children are happy about everything that is going on in their family and only two children keep complaining about the policies of their parents, that is to say the way they are brought up and taken care of. Question: who is "abnormal" in such a family? On the national scale: some eight million Belarusians are happy about their present day life, in general; particularly in terms of the linguistic situation. They speak the variety of the language that is current in their environment and they are happy about it. And only about two million of intellectuals keep raising the issues of their mother tongue - its status, ways to support it, etc. So, who is right and who is wrong in Belarus?
I guess failure at answering this question led to the inability of the former Belarusian democrats of 90s to achieve their goals. It also resulted in loss of the opportunity to have changed the linguistic situation. They wanted to do everything at once and on the highest level. The dream and expectation was every single citizen mastering and using literary Belarusian (within a short period of time) in everyday life. Never mind the opposition's constant inner struggle between good Belarusian (Tarashkievica) and the sovietized one (Krapiunica).
Last but not least, we need to address one more idea: who is interested nowadays in posing the question in the way it has been specified in the title of this article? It is a given that there is real interest in the existence of the situation when the Belarusians would admit that they do not speak their native language in everyday life. It would enable those, who are striving for the "Brotherhood of Slavs" to proclaim in a loud voice: "See, we even speak the same language!" Educated Belarusians do realize, that whatever language one can speak (i.e. other than the native one), he/she will still be treated as an outsider in the eyes of another nation. Something similar happened to the inhabitants of the Belarusian lands that became a part of Lithuania and Poland. No matter how hard the population tried to get rid of their national label or identity and assimilate with the indigenous population of those countries, they were and still are treated as uschodnija or zachodnija kresy (eastern or western annexes).
In summary, these are some brighter thoughts to share with the reader: as for the future of Belarusian in Belarus, the situation and outlook is encouraging. The day will definitely come when the knowledge of Belarusian will not only be an instrument of making money or expressing one?s own political posture and ambitions, or whatever. Changes in governmental policy (that will definitely come one day (!), and be wise, well-balanced, not straightforward and destructive) towards the status of the national language will enable the latter to serve as an indicator of patriotism, high standard of education and national consciousness. The government should serve as a guarantor of security for the national language and not close the educational institutions that have enough courage to teach the Belarusian children in Belarusian. When all political leaders of this country will become truly bilingual and will use the national language as a routine tool in their daily activities, this will signify a new era for the Belarusians and their mother tongue.
Source: Annus Albaruthenicus, (Poland), 2003
This article appeared in
Belarusian Review, Vol. 16, No 1
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Copyright 2004 Belarusian Review
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20 april 2004
Author: Ivan Burlyka