Belorussianism

• belorussianism

From Belorussian +‎ -ism.

• IPA^(key): /ˌbɛləˈɹʌʃənɪzəm/

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Belorussianism (countable and uncountable, plural Belorussianisms)

1. (linguistics) An expression or characteristic peculiar to the Belarusian language.
   • 1987, Moshe Taube, Hugh M. Olmstedt, ““Povest' o Esfiri”: The Ostroh Bible and Maksim Grek's Translation of the Book of Esther”, in Harvard Ukrainian Studies‎^[1], volume 1, number 1/2, page 102 fn. 14:

     KUL 378 is early among Burcev manuscripts (see Appendix, no. A-1). Variation is largely expected to be restricted to phonetic and orthographic Ukrainianisms and Belorussianisms such as […]

   • 1992, Paul Wexler, ““Diglossia et schizoglossia perpetua – the fate of the Belorussian language””, in Sociolinguistica‎^[2], volume 6, number 1, →DOI, page 46:

     Belorussian thus constitutes a unique phenomenon among the Slavic literary languages: here is a language in a perpetual state of diglosso-schizoglossia involving three related Slavic languages (and two simultaneously – Polish and Russian). The result ofthese conditions was that the first literary language in the Belorussian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania shared the scene with a variant of Church Slavic saturated to varying degrees with belorussianisms, while the modern Belorussian literary language, based, to be sure, on native dialects with a varying number of isoglosses extending into Russian territory, with or without a flood of elements from Polish and/or Russian in its spoken and written forms, had to compete with Russian and Polish for written functions.

   • 1999, Gennady Estraikh, Soviet Yiddish: Language-Planning and Linguistic Development‎^[3], Oxford University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, section 2.5:

     In fact, however, almost all neologisms originally came into the literary Soviet Yiddish from Russian rather than Ukrainian or Belorussian. Ukrainian and, especially even less developed (in terms of modern termonology) Belorussian, played a negligible role as donor languages. Thus the Yiddish verb derkenen zikh, a loan translation of the Belorussian spaznatstsa (to meet), is a rare example of modern Belorussianisms (listed in Plavnik and Rubinshtejn 1932 and in Rokhkind and Shkljar 1940).

2. (politics) Support for hegemony of Belorussian identity.
   • 1956, Nicholas Vakar, Belorussia: The Making of a Nation, Harvard University Press, pages 132, 150:

     As long as Belorussianism had been a movement away from Russia, it was welcome. But as soon as it had become a movement away from Poland, it could not be tolerated. […] the Soviets had been up against men, and not against symbols of Belorussianism.