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104-472: The common consensus is that Belarusian , Russian and Ukrainian are the extant East Slavic languages. Some linguists also consider Rusyn a separate language, although it is sometimes considered a dialect of Ukrainian. The modern East Slavic languages descend from a common predecessor spoken in Kievan Rus' from the 9th to 13th centuries, which later evolved into Ruthenian , the chancery language of

208-449: A coordinate possessive construction has two personal pronouns, the normal possessive inflection is used, and there is no apostrophe (e.g., "his and her children"). The issue of the use of the apostrophe arises when the coordinate construction includes a noun (phrase) and a pronoun. In this case, the inflection of only the last item may sometimes be, at least marginally, acceptable ("you and your spouse's bank account"). The inflection of both

312-482: A dollar's worth , five pounds' worth , one mile's drive from here . This is like an ordinary possessive use. For example, one hour's respite means a respite of one hour (exactly as the cat's whiskers means the whiskers of the cat ). No apostrophe is used in the following possessive pronouns and adjectives: hers , his , its , my , mine , ours , theirs , whose , and yours . All other possessive pronouns do end with an apostrophe and an s . In singular forms,

416-493: A duality between the Church Slavonic language used as some kind of 'higher' register (not only) in religious texts and the popular tongue used as a 'lower' register for secular texts. It has been suggested to describe this situation as diglossia , although there do exist mixed texts where it is sometimes very hard to determine why a given author used a popular or a Church Slavonic form in a given context. Church Slavonic

520-638: A mixture of Russian and Belarusian, known as Trasianka ). Approximately 29.4% of Belarusians can write, speak, and read Belarusian, while 52.5% can only read and speak it. Nevertheless, there are no Belarusian-language universities in Belarus. The Belarusian language has been known under a number of names, both contemporary and historical. Some of the most dissimilar are from the Old Belarusian period. Although closely related to other East Slavic languages , especially Ukrainian , Belarusian phonology

624-467: A number of radical changes. A fully phonetic orthography was introduced. One of the most distinctive changes brought in was the principle of akanye (Belarusian: а́канне ), wherein unstressed "o", pronounced in both Russian and Belarusian as /a/ , is written as "а". The Belarusian Academic Conference on Reform of the Orthography and Alphabet was convened in 1926. After discussions on the project,

728-517: A perception that Belarusian was a "rural" and "uneducated" language. However, the census was a major breakthrough for the first steps of the Belarusian national self-awareness and identity, since it clearly showed to the Imperial authorities and the still-strong Polish minority that the population and the language were neither Polish nor Russian. The rising influence of Socialist ideas advanced

832-402: A punctuation mark, an apostrophe and an s are still added in the usual way: " Westward Ho! 's railway station"; " Awaye! ' s Paulette Whitten recorded Bob Wilson's story"; Washington, D.C.'s museums . (assuming that the prevailing style requires full stops in D.C. ). An apostrophe is used in time and money references in constructions such as one hour's respite , two weeks' holiday ,

936-595: A sibilant sound, have possessive forms with an extra s after the apostrophe so that the spelling reflects the underlying pronunciation. Examples include Oxford University Press , the Modern Language Association , the BBC and The Economist . Such authorities demand possessive singulars like these: Bridget Jones's Diary ; Tony Adams's friend; my boss's job; the US's economy . Rules that modify or extend

1040-486: A silent x , z or s , the few authorities that address the issue at all typically call for an added s and suggest that the apostrophe precede the s : The Loucheux's homeland is in the Yukon ; Compare the two Dumas's literary achievements . The possessive of a cited French title with a silent plural ending is uncertain: " Trois femmes 's long and complicated publication history", but " Les noces ' singular effect

1144-427: A stadium called St James' Park , and Exeter City at St James Park , London has a St James's Park (this whole area of London is named after the parish of St James's Church, Piccadilly ). Modern usage has been influenced by considerations of technological convenience including the economy of typewriter ribbons and films, and similar computer character "disallowance" which tend to ignore past standards. Practice in

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1248-412: A study that found that only 40% of the possessive forms were used to indicate actual possession. The modern spelling convention distinguishes possessive singular forms ("Bernadette's", "flower's", "glass's", "one's") from simple plural forms ("Bernadettes", "flowers", "glasses", "ones"), and both of those from possessive plural forms ("Bernadettes ' ", "flowers ' ", "glasses ' ", "ones ' "). For example,

1352-508: Is a phonemic orthography that closely represents the surface phonology, whereas Russian orthography represents the underlying morphophonology . The most significant instance of this is found in the representation of vowel reduction, and in particular akanje , the merger of unstressed /a/ and /o/, which exists in both Russian and Belarusian. Belarusian always spells this merged sound as ⟨a⟩ , whereas Russian uses either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩ , according to what

1456-460: Is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for three basic purposes: It is also used in a few distinctive cases for the marking of plurals , e.g. "p's and q's" or Oakland A's . It is also used informally to indicate the units of foot and minutes of arc , although in these uses,

1560-406: Is a case of fooling oneself with one's own terminology. After the 18th-century grammarians began to refer to the genitive case as the possessive case, grammarians and other commentators got it into their heads that the only use of the case was to show possession   [...] Simply changing the name of the genitive does not change or eliminate any of its multiple functions. This dictionary also cites

1664-614: Is a common grammatical error in present times. Each of these four phrases (listed in Steven Pinker 's The Language Instinct ) has a distinct meaning: Kingsley Amis , on being challenged to produce a sentence whose meaning depended on a possessive apostrophe, came up with: Some singular nouns are pronounced with a sibilant sound at the end: /s/ or /z/. The spelling of these ends with -s , -se , -z , -ze , -ce , -x , or -xe . Most respected authorities recommend that practically all singular nouns, including those ending with

1768-540: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility among the Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian languages. Within East Slavic, the Belarusian language is most closely related to Ukrainian . The modern Belarusian language was redeveloped on the base of the vernacular spoken remnants of the Ruthenian language , surviving in the ethnic Belarusian territories in the 19th century. The end of the 18th century (the times of

1872-485: Is a lack of consensus and certainly the use of an apostrophe continues, legitimately, in which "the apostrophe of plurality occurs in the first word but not the second". The Oxford Companion to the English Language notes that "a plural s after a set of numbers is often preceded by an apostrophe, as in 3's and 4's ..., but many housestyles and individuals now favour 3s and 4s ". Most style guides prefer

1976-486: Is chiefly characterized by the "soft sounding R" ( мякка-эравы ) and "strong akanye " ( моцнае аканне ), and the South-Western dialect is chiefly characterized by the "hard sounding R" ( цвёрда-эравы ) and "moderate akanye" ( умеранае аканне ). The West Polesian dialect group is separated from the rest of the country by the conventional line Pruzhany – Ivatsevichy – Tsyelyakhany – Luninyets – Stolin . There

2080-468: Is distinct in a number of ways. The phoneme inventory of the modern Belarusian language consists of 45 to 54 phonemes: 6 vowels and 39 to 48 consonants , depending on how they are counted. When the nine geminate consonants are excluded as mere variations, there are 39 consonants, and excluding rare consonants further decreases the count. The number 48 includes all consonant sounds, including variations and rare sounds, which may be phonetically distinct in

2184-408: Is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of Minsk - Vilnius region. Historically, there have been several other alternative standardized forms of Belarusian grammar. Belarusian grammar is mostly synthetic and partly analytic, and overall quite similar to Russian grammar . Belarusian orthography, however, differs significantly from Russian orthography in some respects, due to the fact that it

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2288-749: Is more than one neighbour owning the garden) is standard rather than "the neighbours's garden". Compound nouns have their singular possessives formed with an apostrophe and an added s , in accordance with the rules given above: the Attorney-General's husband ; the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports 's prerogative ; this Minister for Justice's intervention ; her father-in-law's new wife . For two nouns (or noun phrases) joined by and , there are several ways of expressing possession, including: Some grammars make no distinction in meaning between

2392-750: Is mostly pronounced as /i/ (identical with the Ukrainian І), while in Ukrainian it's mostly pronounced as /ɪ/ (very similar to the Russian Ы). Other examples: B. ваўчыца (vaŭčyca) U. вовчиця (vovčyc’a) ”female wolf” B. яшчэ /jaˈʂt͡ʂe/ U. ще /ʃt͡ʃe/ “yet” /u̯/ (at the end of a closed syllable) B. стэп /stɛp/, U. степ /stɛp/ "steppe" B. Вікторыя (Viktoryja) U. кобзар (kobzár (nominative case) кобзаря (kobzar’á (genetive case) R. кровь (krov’), кровавый (krovávyj) B. кроў (kroŭ), крывавы (kryvávy) U. кров (krov), кривавий (kryvávyj) ”blood, bloody” B. скажа (skáža) U. скаже (skáže) ”(he/she) will say” After

2496-409: Is normally preferred (e.g. Jack's and your dogs), but there is a tendency to avoid this construction, too, in favour of a construction that does not use a coordinate possessive (e.g. by using "Jack's letters and yours"). Where a construction like "Jack's and your dogs" is used, the interpretation is usually "segregatory" (i.e. not joint possession). If the word or compound includes, or even ends with,

2600-508: Is often a policy of leaving off the additional s on any such name, but this can prove problematic when specific names are contradictory (for example, St James' Park in Newcastle [the football ground] and the area of St James's Park in London). However, debate has been going on regarding the punctuation of St James' Park (Newcastle) for some time, unlike St James's Park (London) which

2704-553: Is one of the most important written sources of the Ruthenian language. Due to the influence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth over many centuries, Belarusian and Ukrainian have been influenced in several respects by Polish, a Lechitic West Slavic language. As a result of the long Polish-Lithuanian rule, these languages had been less exposed to Church Slavonic , featuring therefore less Church Slavonicisms than

2808-549: Is spoken in some parts of Russia , Lithuania , Latvia , Poland , and Ukraine by Belarusian minorities in those countries. Before Belarus gained independence in 1991, the language was known in English as Byelorussian or Belorussian , or alternatively as White Russian . Following independence, it became known as Belarusian , or alternatively as Belarusan . As one of the East Slavic languages, Belarusian shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of

2912-442: Is the less contentious version. For more details on practice with geographic names, see the relevant section below . Some writers like to reflect standard spoken practice in cases like these with sake : for convenience' sake , for goodness' sake , for appearance' sake , for compromise' sake , etc. This punctuation is preferred in major style guides. Others prefer to add 's : for convenience's sake . Still others prefer to omit

3016-435: Is truffle ; His pince-nez 's loss went unnoticed ; "Verreaux('s) eagle, a large, predominantly black eagle, Aquila verreauxi ,..." ( OED , entry for "Verreaux", with silent x ; see Verreaux's eagle ); in each of these some writers might omit the added s . The same principles and residual uncertainties apply with "naturalised" English words, like Illinois and Arkansas . For possessive plurals of words ending in

3120-613: The Belarusian Democratic Republic , Belarusian was used as the only official language (decreed by Belarusian People's Secretariat on 28 April 1918). Subsequently, in the Byelorussian SSR , Belarusian was decreed to be one of the four (Belarusian, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish) official languages (decreed by Central Executive Committee of BSSR in February 1921). A decree of 15 July 1924 confirmed that

3224-604: The Divisions of Commonwealth ) is the usual conventional borderline between the Ruthenian and Modern Belarusian stages of development. By the end of the 18th century, (Old) Belarusian was still common among the minor nobility in the eastern part, in the territory of present-day Belarus, of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (hereafter GDL). Jan Czeczot in the 1840s had mentioned that even his generation's grandfathers preferred speaking (Old) Belarusian. According to A. N. Pypin,

East Slavic languages - Misplaced Pages Continue

3328-649: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Dnieper river valley, and into medieval Russian in the Volga river valley, the language of the Russian principalities including the Grand Duchy of Moscow . All these languages use the Cyrillic script , but with particular modifications. Belarusian and Ukrainian , which are descendants of Ruthenian , have a tradition of using Latin-based alphabets —the Belarusian Łacinka and

3432-591: The Hebrew alphabet (by Belarusian Jews ). The Glagolitic script was used, sporadically, until the 11th or 12th century. There are several systems of romanization of Belarusian written texts. The Belarusian Latin alphabet is rarely used. Standardized Belarusian grammar in its modern form was adopted in 1959, with minor amendments in 1985 and 2008. It was developed from the initial form set down by Branislaw Tarashkyevich (first printed in Vilnius , 1918), and it

3536-550: The Russian Academy of Sciences refused to print his submission, on the basis that it had not been prepared in a sufficiently scientific manner. From the mid-1830s ethnographic works began to appear, and tentative attempts to study the language were instigated (e.g. Shpilevskiy's grammar). The Belarusian literary tradition began to re-form, based on the folk language, initiated by the works of Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich . See also : Jan Czeczot , Jan Barszczewski . At

3640-472: The Turkic and Uralic languages. For example: What's more, all three languages do also have false friends , that sometimes can lead to (big) misunderstandings. For example, Ukrainian орати ( oraty ) — "to plow" and Russian орать ( orat́ ) — "to scream", or Ukrainian помітити ( pomityty ) — "to notice" and Russian пометить ( pometit́ ) — "to mark". The alphabets of the East Slavic languages are all written in

3744-630: The Ukrainian Latynka alphabets, respectively (also Rusyn uses Latin in some regions, e.g. in Slovakia ). The Latin alphabet is traditionally more common in Belarus, while the usage of the Cyrillic script in Russia and Ukraine could never be compared to any other alphabet. Modern East Slavic languages include Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian. The Rusyn language is sometimes considered

3848-456: The plural "s" (as in "girls' dresses"). However, this was not universally accepted until the mid-19th century. Plurals not ending in -s keep the -'s marker, such as "children's toys, the men's toilet", since there was no risk of ambiguity. The apostrophe is used in English to indicate what is, for historical reasons, misleadingly called the possessive case in the English language. This case

3952-490: The prime symbol is generally preferred. The word apostrophe comes from the Greek ἡ ἀπόστροφος [προσῳδία] (hē apóstrophos [prosōidía], '[the accent of] turning away or elision'), through Latin and French . The apostrophe was first used by Pietro Bembo in his edition of De Aetna (1496). It was introduced into English in the 16th century in imitation of French practice. Introduced by Geoffroy Tory (1529),

4056-418: The "underlying" phoneme is (determined by identifying the related words where the vowel is being stressed or, if no such words exist, by written tradition, mostly but not always conforming to etymology). This means that Belarusian noun and verb paradigms, in their written form, have numerous instances of alternations between written ⟨a⟩ and ⟨o⟩ , whereas no such alternations exist in

4160-431: The 1897 Russian Empire census , about 5.89 million people declared themselves speakers of Belarusian (then known as White Russian). The end of the 19th century, however, still showed that the urban language of Belarusian towns remained either Polish or Russian. The same census showed that towns with a population greater than 50,000 had fewer than a tenth Belarusian speakers. This state of affairs greatly contributed to

4264-603: The 20th century, today "the apostrophe of plurality continues in at least five areas": abbreviations, letters of the alphabet/small words, numbers, family names, and in non-standard use. For abbreviations, including acronyms, the use of s without an apostrophe is now more common than its use with an apostrophe. Most modern style guides disparage the use of apostrophes in all plural abbreviations. Some references continue to condone their use, or even recommend their use in some abbreviations. For example, The Canadian Style states "Add an apostrophe and  s  to form

East Slavic languages - Misplaced Pages Continue

4368-562: The Belarusian grammar. In 1915, Rev. Balyaslaw Pachopka had prepared a Belarusian grammar using the Latin script. Belarusian linguist S. M. Nyekrashevich considered Pachopka's grammar unscientific and ignorant of the principles of the language. But Pachopka's grammar was reportedly taught in an unidentified number of schools, from 1918 for an unspecified period. Another grammar was supposedly jointly prepared by A. Lutskyevich and Ya. Stankyevich, and differed from Tarashkyevich's grammar somewhat in

4472-496: The Belarusian language is declared as a "native language" by about 55,000 Belarusians, which comprise about 19.7% of Belarusians living in Ukraine. In Poland , the Belarusian language is declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 40,000 inhabitants According to a study done by the Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home, while Belarusian is actively used by only 11.9% of Belarusians (others speak

4576-458: The Belarusian language was spoken in some areas among the minor nobility during the 19th century. In its vernacular form, it was the language of the smaller town dwellers and of the peasantry and it had been the language of oral folklore. Teaching in Belarusian was conducted mainly in schools run by the Basilian order . The development of Belarusian in the 19th century was strongly influenced by

4680-550: The Belarusian language, the North-Eastern and the South-Western. In addition, there is a transitional Middle Belarusian dialect group and the separate West Polesian dialect group. The North-Eastern and the South-Western dialects are separated by a hypothetical line Ashmyany – Minsk – Babruysk – Gomel , with the area of the Middle Belarusian dialect group placed on and along this line. The North-Eastern dialect

4784-706: The Belarusian, Russian, Yiddish and Polish languages had equal status in Soviet Belarus. In the BSSR, Tarashkyevich's grammar had been officially accepted for use in state schooling after its re-publication in unchanged form, first in 1922 by Yazep Lyosik under his own name as Practical grammar. Part I , then in 1923 by the Belarusian State Publishing House under the title Belarusian language. Grammar. Ed. I. 1923 , also by "Ya. Lyosik". In 1925, Lyosik added two new chapters, addressing

4888-554: The Commission had actually prepared the project for spelling reform. The resulting project had included both completely new rules and existing rules in unchanged and changed forms, some of the changes being the work of the Commission itself, and others resulting from the resolutions of the Belarusian Academic Conference (1926), re-approved by the Commission. Notably, the use of the Ь (soft sign) before

4992-663: The Conference made resolutions on some of the problems. However, the Lyosik brothers' project had not addressed all the problematic issues, so the Conference was not able to address all of those. As the outcome of the conference, the Orthographic Commission was created to prepare the project of the actual reform. This was instigated on 1 October 1927, headed by S. Nyekrashevich, with the following principal guidelines of its work adopted: During its work in 1927–29,

5096-400: The Cyrillic script, however each of them has their own letters and pronunciations. Russian and Ukrainian have 33 letters, while Belarusian has 32. Additionally, Belarusian and Ukrainian use the apostrophe (') for the hard sign , which has the same function as the letter Ъ in Russian. Some letters, that are not included in the alphabet of a language, can be written as digraphs . For example,

5200-443: The Russian language and literature department of St. Petersburg University, approached the board of the Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva with a proposal that a Belarusian linguist be trained under his supervision in order to be able to create documentation of the grammar. Initially, the famous Belarusian poet Maksim Bahdanovič was to be entrusted with this work. However, Bahdanovič's poor health (tuberculosis) precluded his living in

5304-537: The United Kingdom and Canada is not so uniform. Sometimes the apostrophe is omitted in the names of clubs, societies, and other organizations, even though the standard principles seem to require it: Country Women's Association , but International Aviation Womens Association ; Magistrates' Court of Victoria , but Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union . Usage is variable and inconsistent. Style guides typically advise consulting an official source for

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5408-459: The United Kingdom has Bishop's Stortford , Bishop's Castle and King's Lynn (among many others) but St Albans , St Andrews and St Helens . London Underground's Piccadilly line has the adjacent stations of Earl's Court in Earl's Court and Barons Court . These names were mainly fixed in form many years before grammatical rules were fully standardised. While Newcastle United play football at

5512-545: The all-Russian " narodniki " and Belarusian national movements (late 1870s–early 1880s) renewed interest in the Belarusian language (See also: Homan (1884) , Bahushevich , Yefim Karskiy , Dovnar-Zapol'skiy , Bessonov, Pypin, Sheyn, Nasovič). The Belarusian literary tradition was also renewed ( see also : F. Bahushevich ). It was in these times that F. Bahushevich made his famous appeal to Belarusians: "Do not forsake our language, lest you pass away" (Belarusian: Не пакідайце ж мовы нашай, каб не ўмёрлі ). The first dictionary of

5616-621: The ancestor of modern Belarusian and Ukrainian, was the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as "Chancery Slavonic" until the end of the 17th century when it was gradually replaced by the Polish language. It was also the native language of the Cossack Hetmanate until the end of the 18th century, when the Ukrainian state completely became part of the Russian Empire in 1764. The Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk from 1710

5720-462: The apostrophe comes first, e.g. one's ; everyone's ; somebody's , nobody else's , etc., while the apostrophe follows the s in plural forms as with nouns: the others' complaints . The possessive of it was originally it's , in contrast to the modern its . The apostrophe was dropped by the early 19th century. Authorities are now unanimous that it's can be only a contraction of it is or it has . Despite this, adding an unnecessary apostrophe

5824-420: The apostrophe of plurality only for lowercase letters. Sometimes, adding just s rather than 's may leave meaning ambiguous or presentation inelegant. However, an apostrophe is not always the preferred solution. APA style requires the use of italics instead of an apostrophe: p s, n s, etc. In the phrase dos and don'ts , most modern style guides disparage spelling the first word as do's . However, there

5928-456: The apostrophe originally marked the loss of the old "e" (for example, lambes became lamb's ). Its use for indicating plural "possessive" forms was not standard before the middle of the 19th century. For most singular nouns the ending " 's" is added; e.g., "the cat's whiskers". When the noun is a normal plural, with an added "s", no extra "s" is added in the possessive, and it is pronounced accordingly; so "the neighbours' garden" (there

6032-408: The apostrophe was used in place of a vowel letter to indicate elision (as in l'heure in place of la heure ). It was also frequently used in place of a final "e" (which was still pronounced at the time) when it was elided before a vowel, as in un' heure . Modern French orthography has restored the spelling une heure . From the 16th century, following French practice, the apostrophe

6136-442: The apostrophe when there is an s sound before sake : for morality's sake , but for convenience sake . The English possessive of French nouns ending in a silent s , x , or z is addressed by various style guides. Certainly a sibilant is pronounced in examples like Descartes's and Dumas's ; the question addressed here is whether s needs to be added. Similar examples with x or z : Sauce Périgueux 's main ingredient

6240-584: The apostrophe. Names based on a first name are more likely to take an apostrophe, but this is not always the case. Some business names may inadvertently spell a different name if the name with an s at the end is also a name, such as Parson. A small activist group called the Apostrophe Protection Society has campaigned for large retailers such as Harrods, Currys , and Selfridges to reinstate their missing punctuation. A spokesperson for Barclays PLC stated, "It has just disappeared over

6344-584: The beginning of the 1860s, both the Russian and Polish parties in Belarusian lands had begun to realise that the decisive role in the upcoming conflicts was shifting to the peasantry, overwhelmingly Belarusian. So a large amount of propaganda appeared, targeted at the peasantry and written in Belarusian; notably, the anti-Russian, anti-Tsarist, anti-Eastern Orthodox "Manifesto" and the first newspaper Mužyckaja prauda ( Peasants' Truth ) (1862–1863) by Konstanty Kalinowski , and anti-Polish, anti-Revolutionary, pro-Orthodox booklets and poems (1862). The advent of

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6448-496: The climate of St. Petersburg, so Branislaw Tarashkyevich , a fresh graduate of the Vilnya Liceum No. 2 , was selected for the task. In the Belarusian community, great interest was vested in this enterprise. The already famous Belarusian poet Yanka Kupala , in his letter to Tarashkyevich, urged him to "hurry with his much-needed work". Tarashkyevich had been working on the preparation of the grammar during 1912–1917, with

6552-402: The combinations "consonant+iotated vowel" ("softened consonants"), which had been previously denounced as highly redundant (e.g., in the proceedings of the Belarusian Academic Conference (1926)), was cancelled. However, the complete resolution of the highly important issue of the orthography of unstressed Е ( IE ) was not achieved. Apostrophe The apostrophe ( ' or ’ )

6656-411: The consonant /tsʲ/ does not exist in the Russian language, while in Ukrainian and especially Belarusian, on the contrary, it is relatively common (Ukrainian ць etymologically corresponds to Russian and Belarusian ц; Belarusian ць etymologically corresponds to Russian and Ukrainian ть). Moreover, the letter Щ in standard Russian is always pronounced softly ( palatalization ). Standard Ukrainian, unlike all

6760-604: The conversion of the East Slavic region to Christianity the people used service books borrowed from Bulgaria , which were written in Old Church Slavonic (a South Slavic language ). The Church Slavonic language was strictly used only in text, while the colloquial language of the Bulgarians was communicated in its spoken form. Throughout the Middle Ages (and in some way up to the present day) there existed

6864-439: The corresponding written paradigms in Russian. This can significantly complicate the foreign speakers' task of learning these paradigms; on the other hand, though, it makes spelling easier for native speakers. An example illustrating the contrast between the treatment of akanje in Russian and Belarusian orthography is the spelling of the word for "products; food": Besides the standardized lect , there are two main dialects of

6968-474: The educational system. The Polish and Russian languages were being introduced and re-introduced, while the general state of the people's education remained poor until the very end of the Russian Empire. In summary, the first two decades of the 19th century had seen the unprecedented prosperity of Polish culture and language in the former GDL lands, and had prepared the era of such famous Polish writers as Adam Mickiewicz and Władysław Syrokomla . The era had seen

7072-526: The effective completion of the Polonization of the lowest level of the nobility, the further reduction of the area of use of contemporary Belarusian, and the effective folklorization of Belarusian culture. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the 19th century "there began a revival of national pride within the country ... and a growth in interest [in Belarusian] from outside". Due both to the state of

7176-465: The elision of the "e" from the Old English genitive singular inflection "-es". The plural genitive did not use the "-es" inflection, and since many plural forms already consisted of the "-s" or "-es" ending, using the apostrophe in place of the elisioned "e" could lead to singular and plural possessives of a given word having the exact same spelling. The solution was to use an apostrophe after

7280-427: The emancipation of the Belarusian language even further ( see also: Belarusian Socialist Assembly , Circle of Belarusian People's Education and Belarusian Culture , Belarusian Socialist Lot , Socialist Party "White Russia" , Alaiza Pashkevich , Nasha Dolya ). The fundamental works of Yefim Karsky marked a turning point in the scientific perception of Belarusian. The ban on publishing books and papers in Belarusian

7384-506: The fourth living language of the group, its status as an independent language being the subject of scientific debate. The East Slavic territory exhibits a linguistic continuum with many transitional dialects. Between Belarusian and Ukrainian there is the Polesian dialect , which shares features from both languages. East Polesian is a transitional variety between Belarusian and Ukrainian on one hand, and between South Russian and Ukrainian on

7488-470: The group. To some extent, Russian, Ukrainian , and Belarusian retain a degree of mutual intelligibility . Belarusian descends from a language generally referred to as Ruthenian (13th to 18th centuries), which had, in turn, descended from what is referred to as Old East Slavic (10th to 13th centuries). In the first Belarusian census in 1999, the Belarusian language was declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens (36.7% of

7592-558: The help and supervision of Shakhmatov and Karskiy. Tarashkyevich had completed the work by the autumn of 1917, even moving from the tumultuous Petrograd of 1917 to the relative calm of Finland in order to be able to complete it uninterrupted. By the summer of 1918, it became obvious that there were insurmountable problems with the printing of Tarashkyevich's grammar in Petrograd: a lack of paper, type and qualified personnel. Meanwhile, his grammar had apparently been planned to be adopted in

7696-823: The modern Belarusian language authored by Nasovič was published in 1870. In the editorial introduction to the dictionary, it is noted that: The Belarusian local tongue, which dominates a vast area from the Nioman and the Narew to the Upper Volga and from the Western Dvina to the Prypiac and the Ipuc and which is spoken by inhabitants of the North-Western and certain adjacent provinces, or those lands that were in

7800-548: The modern Belarusian language. The Belarusian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic script , which was first used as an alphabet for the Old Church Slavonic language. The modern Belarusian form was defined in 1918, and consists of thirty-two letters. Before that, Belarusian had also been written in the Belarusian Latin alphabet (Łacinka / Лацінка), the Belarusian Arabic alphabet (by Lipka Tatars ) and

7904-400: The modern Russian language, for example: Additionally, the original East Slavic phonetic form was kept in many words in Ukrainian and Belarusian, for example: In general, Ukrainian and Belarusian are also closer to other Western European languages, especially to German (via Polish). At the same time Russian was being heavily influenced by Church Slavonic (South Slavic language), but also by

8008-528: The orthography of compound words and partly modifying the orthography of assimilated words. From this point on, Belarusian grammar had been popularized and taught in the educational system in that form. The ambiguous and insufficient development of several components of Tarashkyevich's grammar was perceived to be the cause of some problems in practical usage, and this led to discontent with the grammar. In 1924–25, Lyosik and his brother Anton Lyosik prepared and published their project of orthographic reform, proposing

8112-451: The other Slavic languages (excl. Serbo-Croatian ), does not exhibit final devoicing . Nevertheless, this rule is not that clear when listening to colloquial Ukrainian. It's one of the typical deviations that occur in the Ukrainian spoken language. Besides the differences of the alphabets, some letters represent different sounds depending on the language. For example, the letter И (romanized as I for Russian and Y for Ukrainian) in Russian

8216-615: The other hand. At the same time, Belarusian and Southern Russian form a continuous area , making it virtually impossible to draw a line between the two languages. Central or Middle Russian (with its Moscow sub-dialect), the transitional step between the North and the South, became a base for the Russian literary standard. Northern Russian with its predecessor, the Old Novgorod dialect , has many original and archaic features. Ruthenian,

8320-422: The particularities of different Belarusian dialects. The scientific groundwork for the introduction of a truly scientific and modern grammar of the Belarusian language was laid down by the linguist Yefim Karsky. By the early 1910s, the continuing lack of a codified Belarusian grammar was becoming intolerably obstructive in the opinion of uniformitarian prescriptivists. Then Russian academician Shakhmatov , chair of

8424-567: The past settled by the Kryvic tribe , has long attracted the attention of our philologists because of those precious remains of the ancient Ruthenian language that survived in that tongue. In 1891, in the preface to the Belarusian Flute , Francišak Bahuševič wrote, "There have been many peoples, which first lost their language… and then they perished entirely. So do not abandon our Belarusian language, lest we perish!" According to

8528-453: The people's education and to the strong positions of Polish and Polonized nobility, it was only after the 1880s–1890s that the educated Belarusian element, still shunned because of "peasant origin", began to appear in state offices. In 1846, ethnographer Pavel Shpilevskiy prepared a Belarusian grammar (using the Cyrillic alphabet) on the basis of the folk dialects of the Minsk region. However,

8632-462: The plural of abbreviations containing more than one period", so G.M.'s is preferred to G.M.s . The Oxford Companion to the English Language condones V.I.P.'s , VIP's , and VIPs equally. For single lowercase letters, pluralization with 's is usual. Many guides recommend apostrophes whether the single letters are lowercase (as in " minding your p's and q's ") or uppercase (as in "A's and S's"). The Chicago Manual of Style recommends

8736-470: The political conflict in the territories of the former GDL, between the Russian Imperial authorities, trying to consolidate their rule over the "joined provinces", and the Polish and Polonized nobility, trying to bring back its pre-Partitions rule (see also Polonization in times of Partitions ). One of the important manifestations of this conflict was the struggle for ideological control over

8840-419: The population). About 6,984,000 (85.6%) of Belarusians declared it their "mother tongue". Other sources, such as Ethnologue , put the figure at approximately 3.5 million active speakers in Belarus. In Russia , the Belarusian language is declared as a "familiar language" by about 316,000 inhabitants, among them about 248,000 Belarusians, comprising about 30.7% of Belarusians living in Russia. In Ukraine ,

8944-408: The present day, but significant changes have been made to the possessive and plural uses. By the 18th century, an apostrophe with the addition of an "s" was regularly used for all possessive singular forms, even when the letter "e" was not omitted (as in "the gate's height"). This was regarded as representing not the elision of the "e" in the "-e" or "-es" ending of the word being pluralized, but

9048-605: The resolution of some key aspects. On 22 December 1915, Paul von Hindenburg issued an order on schooling in German Army-occupied territories in the Russian Empire ( Ober Ost ), banning schooling in Russian and including the Belarusian language in an exclusive list of four languages made mandatory in the respective native schooling systems (Belarusian, Lithuanian , Polish , Yiddish ). School attendance

9152-414: The sound values of the letter Ё, which doesn't exist in the Ukrainian alphabet, can be written as ЙО (ЬО before and after consonants), while the letter Щ in Russian and Ukrainian corresponds to ШЧ in Belarusian (compare Belarusian плошча and Ukrainian площа ("area")). There are also different rules of usage for certain letters, e.g. the soft sign (Ь) cannot be written after the letter Ц in Russian, because

9256-573: The standard form of the name (as one would do if uncertain about other aspects of the spelling of the name); some tend towards greater prescriptiveness, for or against such an apostrophe. As the case of womens shows, it is not possible to analyze these forms simply as non-possessive plurals, since women is the only correct plural form of woman . Where a business name is based on a family name it should in theory take an apostrophe, but many leave it out (contrast Sainsbury's with Harrods ). In recent times there has been an increasing tendency to drop

9360-507: The standard principle have included the following: Although less common, some contemporary writers still follow the older practice of omitting the second s in some cases ending with a sibilant, but usually not when written -x or -xe . The Associated Press Stylebook recommends or allows the practice of omitting the additional "s" in proper nouns ending with an "s", but not in words ending with other sibilants ("z" and "x"). The 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style had recommended

9464-420: The traditional practice, which included providing for several exceptions to accommodate spoken usage such as the omission of the extra s after a polysyllabic word ending in a sibilant, but the 16th edition no longer recommends omitting the possessive "s". Similar examples of notable names ending in an s that are often given a possessive apostrophe with no additional s include Dickens and Williams . There

9568-434: The two forms. Some publishers' style guides, however, make a distinction, assigning the "segregatory" (or "distributive") meaning to the form "John's and Mary's" and the "combinatorial" (or "joint") meaning to the form "John and Mary's". A third alternative is a construction of the form "Jack's children and Jill's", which is always distributive, i.e. it designates the combined set of Jack's children and Jill's children. When

9672-552: The use of possessive apostrophes since 1890 so as not to show ownership of the place. Only five names of natural features in the US are officially spelled with a genitive apostrophe: Martha's Vineyard ; Ike's Point , New Jersey; John E's Pond , Rhode Island; Carlos Elmer's Joshua View , Arizona; and Clark's Mountain , Oregon. Some municipalities, originally incorporated using the apostrophe, have dropped it in accordance with this policy; Taylors Falls in Minnesota, for example,

9776-531: The word "glass's" is the singular possessive form of the noun "glass". The plural form of "glass" is "glasses" and the plural possessive form is, therefore, "glasses ' ". One would therefore say "I drank the glass's contents" to indicate drinking a drink, but "I drank the glasses' contents" after finishing the second drink. For singular forms, the modern possessive or genitive inflection is a survival from certain genitive inflections in Old English, for which

9880-437: The workers' and peasants' schools of Belarus that were to be set up, so Tarashkyevich was permitted to print his book abroad. In June 1918, he arrived in Vilnius , via Finland. The Belarusian Committee petitioned the administration to allow the book to be printed. Finally, the first edition of the "Belarusian grammar for schools" was printed ( Vil'nya , 1918). There existed at least two other contemporary attempts at codifying

9984-461: The years. Barclays is no longer associated with the family name." Further confusion can be caused by businesses whose names look as if they should be pronounced differently without an apostrophe, such as Paulos Circus, and other companies that leave the apostrophe out of their logos but include it in written text, such as Cadwalader's . An apostrophe is commonly used to indicate omitted characters, normally letters: Following an evolution in usage in

10088-590: Was 'exotic primitive' ..." (with nearby sibilants -ce- in noces and s- in singular ). Compare treatment of other titles, above . Guides typically seek a principle that will yield uniformity, even for foreign words that fit awkwardly with standard English punctuation. Place names in the United States do not use the possessive apostrophe on federal maps and signs. The United States Board on Geographic Names , which has responsibility for formal naming of municipalities and geographic features, has deprecated

10192-493: Was a major factor in the evolution of modern Russian, where there still exists a "high stratum" of words that were imported from this language. Belarusian language Belarusian ( endonym : беларуская мова , romanized :  bielaruskaja mova , pronounced [bʲɛɫaˈruskaja ˈmɔva] ) is an East Slavic language . It is one of the two official languages in Belarus , alongside Russian . Additionally, it

10296-469: Was called the genitive until the 18th century and, like the genitive case in other languages, expresses relationships other than possession . For example, in the expressions "the school's headmaster", "the men's department", and "tomorrow's weather", the school does not own/possess the headmaster, men do not own/possess the department, and tomorrow does not/will not own the weather. In the words of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage : The argument

10400-584: Was not made mandatory, though. Passports at this time were bilingual, in German and in one of the "native languages". Also at this time, Belarusian preparatory schools, printing houses, press organs were opened ( see also: Homan (1916) ). After the 1917 February Revolution in Russia, the Belarusian language became an important factor in political activities in the Belarusian lands ( see also: Central Council of Belarusian Organisations , Great Belarusian Council , First All-Belarusian Congress , Belnatskom ). In

10504-462: Was officially removed (25 December 1904). The unprecedented surge of national feeling in the 20th century, especially among the workers and peasants, particularly after the events of 1905, gave momentum to the intensive development of Belarusian literature and press (See also: Nasha Niva , Yanka Kupala , Yakub Kolas ). During the 19th and early 20th century, there was no normative Belarusian grammar. Authors wrote as they saw fit, usually representing

10608-545: Was often used to mark a plural; specifically, the Oxford Companion to the English Language notes that: There was formerly a respectable tradition (17th to 19th centuries) of using the apostrophe for noun plurals, especially in loanwords ending in a vowel (as in   [...] Comma's are used , Philip Luckcombe , 1771) and in the consonants s , z , ch , sh , (as in waltz's and cotillions , Washington Irving , 1804)... The use of elision has continued to

10712-410: Was originally incorporated as "Taylor's Falls". On the state level, the federal policy is not always followed: Vermont 's official state website has a page on Camel's Hump State Forest . Australia's Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping also has a no-apostrophe policy, a practice it says goes back to the 1900s and which is generally followed around the country. On the other hand,

10816-483: Was used when a vowel letter was omitted either because of incidental elision ("I'm" for "I am") or because the letter no longer represented a sound ("lov'd" for "loved"). English spelling retained many inflections that were not pronounced as syllables , notably verb endings ("-est", "-eth", "-es", "-ed") and the noun ending "-es", which marked either plurals or possessives, also known as genitives (see Possessive apostrophe , below) . An apostrophe followed by "s"

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