Byelorussian Keyboard Layout

Frontype is a virtual on-screen keyboard for fast typing.

Belarusian/Belorussian беларуская мова BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova
Spoken in:	Belarus, Poland, in 14 other countries
Total speakers:	4 to 9 million
Ranking:	79
Language family:	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Belarusian/Belorussian
Writing system:	Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in:	Belarus, several communes of the Podlaskie Voivodeship of Poland Minority language:[1] Ukraine
Regulated by:	National Academy of Sciences of Belarus
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	be
ISO 639-2:	bel
ISO 639-3:	bel

Belarusian language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Belarusian language, or Belorussian (беларуская мова, BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: belaruskaja mova) is the language of the Belarusian people and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. Prior to Belarus gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1992, the language was called “Byelorussian” or “Belorussian” (in accordance with the ethnicity and country names: Byelorussians, Byelorussia, the latter being a transliteration from the Russian language.). It belongs to the group of the East Slavonic languages, and shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group. Its predecessor was the Old Belarusian language (up to the 19th cent., conventionally).

In Belarus, the Belarusian language is declared as a “language spoken at home” by about 3,686,000 people (36.7% of the population) as of 1999. By less strict criteria, about 6,984,000 (85.6%) of Belarusians declare it their “mother tongue”. Other sources put down the “population of the language” as 6,715,000 in Belarus and 9,081,102 in all countries.

Alphabet

The Belarusian alphabet is a form of the Cyrillic alphabet, which was first used for the Old Church Slavonic language. The modern Belarusian form was determined in 1918, and consists of thirty-two letters. The Glagolitic script had been used, sporadically, until 11th or 12th century. In the past Belarusian has also been written in the Belarusian Latin alphabet (Łacinka / Лацінка) and the Belarusian Arabic alphabet.