Talk:Belarusian language/Archive 3

Lakhva

 * If anyone can provide the Belarusian spelling of Lakhva, it would be much appreciated. Skeezix1000 13:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Alphabets/Łacinka
(copied from User talk:Buncic) Thanks for grammar corrections. However, I disagree with your edits of factuals and will revert them after 24h on my 2 edits runs out. It was pointed out that B.A. generates from Old... because, as far as I know, there are Cyrillic-script alphabets generating (based on) from Russian alphabet. Then, you are saying "deleted too much", however, the material on Belarusian Latin alphabet is superfluous here and is already duplicated in other articles (actually, I'm preparing to enhance it!) Not to mention that both your version and version before my edit are sort of blowing the significance of this, rather marginal (and that can be proved!), phenomemon out of all proportion. I could even say those versions were weasel-wording something quite out of touch with facts. So, possibly you'd just revert your edit -- excepting the corrections of grammar?.. —Yury Tarasievich 07:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Information to include

 * I don't quite understand what ideological struggle is behind this. I just think that this version contains in a very short form all the information needed at first glance:
 * a complete list of the letters used
 * a short sentence (less than a line) about the apostrophe, which is not counted as a letter (so one would not just include it in the list) but nonetheless an important part of the Belarusian orthography
 * a sentence about the alphabets used in history (note that nothing is said about Łacinka being used today; I doubt that there are more than a handful of people who do so)
 * --Daniel Bunčić 13:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * But that info is already in other articles! Why duplicate it here? Let's have just the lead "here" (with note pointing to the pecularities) with full info "there" (in this case, in alphabet series). Actually, I'm going to continue the clearing the structure of this article. ---Yury Tarasievich 14:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, why write anything here? Let's just give a link to the main article and that's it. No? No, because there has to be some basic information in this article. For example, an inventory of the characters used for Belarusian; but if one wants to include it, then it should be complete. One of the characters is the apostrophe. Another information usually included is a short note about historical writing systems: see Ukrainian language, Russian language, Bulgarian language, Serbo-Croatian, German language, Azerbaijani language, Arabic language, Hebrew language and many others. --Daniel Bunčić 19:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I've missed your replies somehow. Yes, why write anything that seems appropriate or even remotely-related here? This is the plague of the projects like this -- the un-ceasing duplication of the info, with following differentiation. The result is un-manageable mess, hardly comprehensible -- such approach wouldn't fly in paper encyclopaedia! The only info which would undoubtedly merit duplication here (in language article) would be references to the other writing systems. The article on alphabet would carry the rest. ---Yury Tarasievich 09:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Origin of the Belarusian alphabet

 * "The Belarusian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic script and generates from the alphabet of the Old Church Slavonic language."
 * I know that it is painful for Belarusians to acknowledge this, but of course their alphabet has been developed from the Russian alphabet; the letters ё, э, й, and ў did not exist in the alphabet used for Church Slavonic, but the first three do exist in the Russian alphabet, and the fourth is clearly modelled on й, specially for Belarusian. Apart from this ў, there is not a single letter in the Belarusian alphabet that was not used in pre-1918 Russian. None of the letters used in Church Slavonic but come out of use for Russian until around 1750, i.e. before the Russian alphabet was adapted to Belarusian in the 19th century, was ever revived for Belarusian. Furthermore, the letter forms used for Belarusian are clearly not the ones on the right but rather the ones on the left, introduced by Peter I of Russia. --Daniel Bunčić 13:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Humorously, it's somewhat of opposite. :) Russian "Grazhdanka", introduced by Peter I, was styled on the work of Kopiyevich, which work, in its turn, was originating from fonts of the contemporary Belarusian books. Look into the newly created "Belarusian alphabet", too. Yes, YO was taken from Russian (in form with diacritics, not as suggested digraph "IO'), but EH is local invention, SHORT I (in form of IZHE with TITLO) is seen, e.g., in 1588 Statute. Another humorousness is that "original" SHORT U was invented by Russian linguist. :))
 * Did I convince you? :) ---Yury Tarasievich 14:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * If letter forms used for Ruthenian (not Church Slavonic!) prints of the 16th/17th centuries (which are in turn inspired by the Bosančica) are taken as an inspiration for making other letter forms for Russian and they are afterwards taken over for Belarusian: Is that what one would call "generated from the alphabet of the Old Church Slavonic language"? I doubt it.
 * In how far is э a "local invention"? On the right is Peter's alphabet. Do you have э prior to that in Ruthenian texts?
 * Where do you find й in a non-accented text before 1735? The problem is that all accents were removed by Peter, including the breve (not titlo), and it was reintroduced as a separate letter in 1735 at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
 * Please believe me that one has not to be 'pro-Russian' to state this fact. The contemporary English orthography owes a lot to the French orthography. So what? --Daniel Bunčić 19:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Post-factum remark. I'm not "fighting" anybody. Just that I would not like to see here at WP the derivatives of the "15+1 years" concept (misconcept) of the Belarusian history. I hope my contributions answered (some) of your questions here. More will follow. Cheers. ---Yury Tarasievich 09:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I have never heard of such a concept. See East Slavic languages for my concept of Belarusian language history. --Daniel Bunčić 14:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Why, that's quite an adequate page, albeit you miss important point or two. Compare with my today's (not complete yet!) contributions in Belarusian_language. What do you plan in the East Slavic languages -- a section per each of them, all put togethyer in one article or separate mini-articles on each? I have some material on Old Belarusian.
 * As for "15+1", it's deciphered as "15 post-1991 years and one year in 1918 (of Belarusian history)". Horribly common here in WP (esp. on talk pages). ---Yury Tarasievich 21:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Language of chancellery

 * moved here from Articles_for_deletion/Myetrika_of_Grand_Duchy_of_Lithuania ---Yury Tarasievich 21:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I see you touched Volynian (Luck), but I feel duty to expand and a bit and adjust your comments. It is linguistically proven (Ch. Stang; Z.Zinkevičius; etc.) that Ruthenian lang. used in chancellery of Grand Duchy of Lithuania was dominated by Volynian until mid XVI century ( some linguist say that Volynian dominated until end of XVIc.). This conclusion was drown after analysis of Ruthenian documents  issued by Grand Duchy of Lithuania chancellery. Second decisive moment is that when central dialect of present-day Belarus territory (roughly) was used – chancellery and spoken languages remain with notable differences; so it should be also clear division between chancellery and spoken languages – so it is another issue why terms with “old” can’t be applied without tremendous exceptions when talking about chancellery issues. M.K. 14:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC) p.s. when talking about languages of metrica don’t exclude Latin (German as minor).

So, couple of questions: I hope you'll excuse this soliciting for the hard work on your part... ---Yury Tarasievich 21:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Is there an English or Russian translation of the work? At least, what's the reference to it?
 * 2) What was the scope of the archive which had been examined? Moscow part, Warsaw part?..
 * 3) I didn't quite understand the part on the "second decisive moment". Could you rephrase?
 * 4) I don't see any conclusions here, actually. That mutual influences between Old-anything languages were there, is well known. So what? What were they here, in the researched case? Why were they important and how?
 * ...let me remind you - wp:cite your personal mystical autritah Karskyi. Have a good day.--Lokyz 22:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

History
The exact relationship between the Baltic and Slavic languages, common ancestry from a Baltic-Slavic proto-language or simple areal convergence, is one of the major controversies of comparative Indo-European linguistics. As a result, I've changed the History section from mentioning a common Baltic-Slavic ancestor as a certain fact, to showing both sides of the issue. I've also changed the British "Slavonic" to the America "Slavic" in a few places, since unfortunately Wikipedia adheres to American nomenclature and orthographic norms in articles not directly related to Britain. CRCulver 02:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No problem -- and thanks. I've just re-included the alternative term "Proto-Russian", as there were, ans still are, some sources hugely in favour of it. ---Yury Tarasievich 10:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Vilnya?
The article is Vilnius. The official name was (Russian) Vilna, later Polish Wilno. Xx236 07:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Just an outcome of uncertainty what to use when referring to the city in Medieval times. On contemporary maps it is named, alternatively, Wilno, Wilna, Vilna, pick one. :) Would take a separate effort to clarify this, really. Yury Tarasievich 08:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I mean Grammar section, 20th century. Xx236 10:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * For event in 1918, same applies. I've added actualising links for a time being, where absent. Yury Tarasievich 12:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

O.K., but the name Vilnya wasn't official. I believe that in X language articles general naming rules apply rather than X rules. Eventually original Belorusian names could be quoted, like Białystok (Беласток in Belarusian). Vilnya isn't one, it's an English version. Xx236 13:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Err, don't quite see your point here. "Вільня" is traditional Belarusian and "Vil'nya" is its BGN/PCGN rendition. And I rather don't know just whose rules would apply in 1918. The book mentioned had "Вільня" on the cover, anyway. Could you please clarify? Yury Tarasievich 13:49, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Belarusian National Republic claimed it's rights to Vilnia, which is another form. What does Wiki say about claims and reality? Xx236 10:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I may be especially dense these days, I have trouble understanding -- what's your suggestion, exactly? To change occurences of word Vilnya (=Vilnia) in this section to something else? Yury Tarasievich 11:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Xx236 14:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC) Naming conventions (geographic names) contains several lines about Vilnius/Wilno. If you believe you are right, you could present your opinion there. Xx236 07:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Did Wilno belong to the BNR at the time when the book was printed?
 * 2) * AFAIR, it was under the German 10th army administration, war was continuing and nobody of the 4 factions emancipated by the German commander-in-chief decree (Belarusians, Lithuanians, Poles, ...Jews(??)) could claim the city in a real sense of the word. BNR was, like, tolerated by German authorities in the moment. Yury Tarasievich 08:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) I believe that Belarusian name of Wilno should be the same in any article (if it's usage is legitimate, see above).
 * 1) * Quite probably, it would lead to violent rows with Lithuanians and Poles over every occasion. :) Yury Tarasievich 08:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, that's an interesting option as it is, it'll have to wait, though. Way too busy now. Yury Tarasievich 08:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Please simplify
I have just seen this article for the first time. I am not Slavic nor a historical linguist; I want a simple outline of the main features of the history, characteristics, and linguistic relationships of the language. But the existing article is highly technical and excessively detailed and is incomprehensible to a layperson. For one example, the letters "GDL" appear without explanation. This is a sign of writing for specialists instead of the general reader.

Some other language articles are much shorter but manage to give basic information in a simple way in the first few sentences or paragraphs (see Uzbek language, Turkmen language, Kazakh language, which I happened to be looking at recently, as models).

My plea: Let's have a very, very simple and nontechnical opening of a few paragraphs for this article. Then, a concise description of the phonology and grammar, the main points only. After that, it would seem reasonable to have more details. But English Wikipedia is not the place for an advanced treatise, which is how the article seems to me. Please, write for English speakers, not Belarusians. Thank you. Zaslav 23:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * To User:Crculver (or anyone else): Please do not remove this comment.  It is not "soapboxing", it is a legitimate suggestion and request from an ordinary Wikipedia user for an article that is more readable to most users.  Zaslav 18:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * While your comments are quite valid, and I, for myself, am going to address them ASAP, I still think you're deceiving yourself somewhat in the matter of possibility of "dumbing down" of the highly tumultous and contested topic as the history of Belarusian language. Several paragraphs on the actual structure etc., moved to the article's beginning -- sure thing, can do. With history, won't be so easy, and personally I'm quite unwilling to separate it into article of its own...


 * For starters, could you point to the especially difficult passages in the current text version? Yury Tarasievich 22:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Confession: I didn't read much of the article. I found it so technical that I was lost. (The first paragraph wasn't so bad but it didn't give the information I wanted.) I did read much of the talk page and found that Belarusian is very controversial. This helped me to understand why there is so much technical detail about the history. I'm not sure it's necessary, but I understand why it's there.

I'm glad you want to improve the article. I'm not suggesting it be "dumbed down". I believe there is a way of writing about highly technical questions that makes them accessible to more people. You write in layers. The first layer, at the beginning, is the simplest possible presentation of basic information, and is short. The next layer gives more detail but avoids being technical. And so on. The number of layers depends on the difficulty of the topic and how long you want the article to be.

I will try to be more specific despite my ignorance of Slavic language and history. I came to this article because of the Tadjik language article, which says Tadjik is a dialect of Persian. I wondered who decided that, since the difference between language X being a dialect of Y or being a sister language is often subjective. Then I remembered I had once heard that "White Russian" is a dialect of Russian. (I apologize if this offends anyone. I report what I heard once.)  I wondered if Wikipedia would tell me whether this is true or not. What I found was an article from which it was hard to extract much idea of just how closely related Russian and Belarusian are. Instead, there was a very technical and argumentative discussion of history and language comparison, which seemed not well organized.

An example: One apparently important question in the article: Which Bible in which Slavic language was first? The first, simple treatment, in Layer 2 could say something like: "There is controversy over which East Slavic dialect/language was the first to have a translation of the Bible." Then in Layer 3, more detail: "There are two early Slavic Bibles, the X Bible in an early form of Belarusian and the Y Bible in Old Church Slavonic. The X Bible has been variously dated between 696 and 969.  The Y Bible has been reliably dated to around 720." Then in Layer 4, a discussion of the evidence. (Obviously, I made up all these "facts". This is just to explain my idea of reader-friendly presentation.)

Another example: The stages of language development. A short summary (made up, since I don't know the facts): "Belarusian can (or cannot?) be traced as a distinct dialect back to the early stages of differentiation of what became the East Slavic languages.  One can distinguish 8 main stages of development.  This is a remarkably large number for any language, within a period of less than 1500 years.  [N.B.  English has only 3 main stages despite a complex history.  Thus, I suspect the Belarusian article has too many distinctions.]  ...  In the 18th century Late Middle Belarusian had become an artificial literary/aristocratic speech, much influenced by neighboring Slavic languages and French.  [I told you I'm making this up.  Don't believe a word!]  However, the vernacular had developed independently with comparatively little outside influence, and it is this speech that formed the basis of modern Belarusian." I hope this shows you the kind of presentation I would find helpful and readable.

How to organize all the layers? Have sections called (these are ideas for titles): (no title: the introduction; this is Layer 1)  (Then in Layer 2)  Summary of the language and its history. (Then in Layer 3 with moderate detail) Description of the language. History of the language. (Then in Layer 4) Detailed description; comparison with related and neighboring languages. Arguments/Controversy about the history.

I hope these comments are not a waste of your time. Organizing this article is obviously a very big job. Best wishes to all those who help. Zaslav 07:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * So because you are too stupid to read, the article has to change? Get some training and come back. I was right to remove your first post as soapboxing, you're just moaning about how you are incapable of reading even elementary material. CRCulver 10:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Now, let's don't get nasty on readers. Authors are under some moral, if informal, obligation to write comprehensibly, in fact, it's in authors' best interest to do so. In Zaslav's post, I see several quite valid points, told from "outsider's" perspective which, I believe, would actually help in making article better. Yury Tarasievich 18:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Yury Tarasievich. I'm glad if I'm being helpful.  Zaslav 20:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

No IPA in this article
I don't know if ць is pronounced like in Ukrainian or like ć in Polish. This is because it relies on the Cyrillic alphabet. It would be better if IPA was added for each letter as well as the soft consonants. -iopq 11:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Quite possibly you're right, esp. w/r to Polish pronounciation, which I may observe live. However, the access to some good academic edition of Belarusian grammar would be required, as "common" editions of grammar usually contain only cyrillic transcriptions. Yury Tarasievich 12:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I looked it up and no, [ц'] is not pronounced either like the Russian or Polish equivalents, "and it's official". Its place of art. (пярэднепаднябенны) is moved more to the back w/r to Russian (sounding "softer" than those), but no so much back as Polish (not so much "lisping"). Yury Tarasievich 07:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup Tag
Although i didn't place the cleanup tag myself I feel that it is warranted in the most general sense. The article is messy in its presentation of information and it is very difficult to get an overview of the information. It abuses bold text which also causes confusion rather than provide the intended focus. It has too many bulleted lists that should be transformed to prose. What it really needs is a cleanup turning it in to smoothly flowing prose. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 12:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the work on this article is far from completed. Many instances of bold text are just the side-effect of using the template, and I don't like those myself. But remove the template?.. I don't know... The point on the bulleted lists is duly noted. I won't promise the "smooth flow prose", however. :)
 * You are right on the phonology bit, this is in plans, and would you please check the places of articulation translation, like noted in Talk:Belarusian grammar? Yury Tarasievich 14:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't remove the template just remove the bold text unless it is really needed - many of them should really be wikilinks. I can't really help with the places of articulation I have never heard belarusian and cannot possibly know how those sounds in question differ from their russian or polish counterparts - the safest thing to do would be to find a book with IPA transcriptions of Belarusian as a reference.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 14:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Furthermore several sections are completely useless to people who do not already know belarusian for example the vocabulary section - since there are no translations or transliterations (if there are several latin transliterations why not use one of them?)provided for the words written in cyrillic the entire section might as well be written in belarusian to me. The Entire article lacks images - not every one mihgt know where the "conventional" line from pruzhany to stolin runs exactly, nor what is conventional about it. Some might not even be entirely sure where Belarusia is. Also some sections can be made much shorter without losing too much valuable information.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments! Quite a new perspective on some of the issues, some of these I'd never guess by myself. As for the template "Belarusian language", which scatters lots of "bolded" Belarusian, well, it somehow gets so automatically, by token of having the displayed string equal to the name of the article or something. On other pages it's displayed as a wikilink to this article, as intended. Yury Tarasievich 07:33, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

the article has other problems than just misplaced boldface. It appears to focus on history and for some reason treats the various names of the language in excessive detail, but avoids discussing the language itself. Export the inflated history section to History of Belarusian as a first step, and try to follow WP:SS. Refer to Russian language for an example of a well-organized (Featured, in fact) language article. dab (𒁳) 11:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

There exist two Belarusian wikipedias
Is this a mystery?Xx236 07:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I support removal of this. Totally small issue, and irrelevant for the subject. How come this is more important than the pending project of amendments to the norms orthography and punctuation? Yury Tarasievich 08:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The article informs that the Belarusian Wikipedia is be. It's not true, there are two of them. If you don't like my way, do it better, but don't hide the other one.
 * small issue? One language has two totally different Wikipedias, it's a big issue from outside.
 * this is more important - where do I say something like this?Xx236 08:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I didn't even notice the information you are talking about. Go ahead and correct the information about wikipedias, then. This doesn't relate to the matter of language or its development, though.


 * That's TWO languages, or language variants (with different alphabets, even) which have two different wikipedias. Nothing big, and quite like, e.g., Bokmal and Nunorsk in Norvegian.


 * where do I say something like this? -- now, I didn't say you said that. But you insist on including that irrelevant trivia in the article. Yury Tarasievich 08:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Why is it a mystery:
 * That's TWO languages, or language variants (with different alphabets, even)

compare this article and the Norwegian language. The difference is obvious from outside.

I'm not always right, buty I try at least to do something.Xx236 09:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW - there is no Taraszkiewicz article here, yet. Xx236 09:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

See also dab's statement (April), nothing done yet. Even no answer - we know better.Xx236 09:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know who's supposed to know better. I didn't notice the dab statement then. I asked him for clarification now.
 * No Tarashkyevich article -- because it's not easy to write about him. Unbeknownst by most, he's controversial figure. I want to write about him one day, but that requires serious effort and material buildup. Internet sources are shoddy, mostly.
 * Your referring to "mystery" compared with Norwegian is incomprehensible to me. If you are not happy with the way the article is written and are not in posession of information -- please, by all means, tell you concerns here. This article is far from finished yet. Yury Tarasievich 09:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

As I have written ''compare this article and the Norwegian language. The difference is obvious from outside.''. This article doesn't inform that there are TWO languages, or language variants (with different alphabets, even). The alphabets are discussed in an another article.~A short summary should be included in this article.Xx236 09:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC) You were quite active in creation of the new Wikipedia. You may be biased when removing any information about the be-x-old. Xx236 09:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you making fun of me? I expanded this article with relevant and sourced info, severalfold. Some issues just do not fit -- e.g., alphabets are separated and short summary is provided.
 * The work on article isn't finished yet, esp. on modern times, where there's dearth of sourced information, but plenty of political crap.
 * So, that's me being investigated now?
 * To cut it short -- prove me removing relevant information -- with diffs. Otherwise, please care to apologise. Yury Tarasievich 10:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Yury, I suggest you don't take this editor too seriously. Please consult what WP:TROLL has to say on the issue. --Ghirla-трёп- 12:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I had to ask, to sort of complete the formalities. :) And thanks for the concern! :)) Yury Tarasievich 12:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You haven't contributed here since March.
 * You know that there exist two Belarusian language Wikipedias, but you don't inform the readers and you remove my information as trivia. This information is however relevant for me and for many readers writing Interlinks to be: and be-x-old:.
 * The problem of two Wikipedias is ununderstanable on the basis of this article. You certainly know the subject, but the authors should not only know, but also explain to ignorants, like me. The Norwegian language can be an example how to do it. It's not the problem of quantity of informations, which certaionly are available here, but of their organisation. Xx236 14:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * So much for apologies.
 * This information is trivia w/r to the scope of the article. The infobox is okay, however.
 * The explanation of the problem of two variants of language won't boil down to "four legs good, two legs bad", and won't be done overnight. Yury Tarasievich 15:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

So we have different opinions and you won removing my phrase from the article. So much about apologies.Xx236 07:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't make personal allegations, so I owe you nothing. Yury Tarasievich 09:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Is Belarusian an East Slavic language?

 * Pasted from User_talk:Ghirlandajo

First thing: thanks! The quantity of weakly structured material was intimidating me already.

However, some of your moves are highly controversial, like moving out the alternative names section (I assume you didn't really read it beforehand), and moving in of the inter-language influences (which true place is in the East Slavonics).

I'd be the first to admit that the article in its current form isn't very comprehensible and is overloaded with supporting info. However, that's the forced consequence of the current confused state of the matters in the other related articles, Ruthenian language etc.

I'm not competent to rework all of those alone, so until someone else steps in to help, so, until those are reworked, the assisting info in Belarusian language which you removed ought to stay.

Now, your comments on wp:fringe and crackpotship are both in bad taste and badly informed. Your highlights on dubiousness and Ruthenian are "just" badly informed and seem like plain WP:OR to me.

Overall, you are disputing the one century worth developments of Slavistics, beginning with Karskiy, and Hujer, Stang, Lyosik, Stankevich, Zhuravskiy, Bulyka and others.

I very much hope you won't take a hardcore stance on these issues. I'm not going to go counter-editing outright and right now (and have some work to do anyway).

Mind telling whether you're going to involve yourself in the further development of the article (all those articles, really)? Yury Tarasievich 06:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yury, Buncic's persistant attempts to legitimize his favourite nationalist theory about Belarusian as a direct descendant of Common Slavic, without genetic links to Old East Slavic, let alone to represent it as a mainstream view, is pure crackpotship.  Could you imagine our article about French language claiming that it did not descent from Latin, but directly evolved from Proto-Italic? Such assertions should be removed on sight, lest they bring Wikipedia into disrepute. The same goes for his extensive treatment of the so-called "Old Belarusian" which actually belongs to our article about that dialect (Ruthenian language). I may easily call into question almost every pseudoscientific assertion from the article, such as the postulated Celtic origin of "tyn" (a view abandoned in the 19th cent., see Vasmer IV, 132), or the "Daco-Thracian" origin of "kanopli" (see Vasmer II, 312). When I see cranky claims, especially those with obvious nationalist motivations, I'm not going to beat about the bush. My policy in such cases is strict. --Ghirla-трёп- 07:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Andrey, I strongly resent these insinuations. And I'm definitely contending the changes you did as unwarranted.
 * I'm the author of most edits in this article last year, and didn't add a word of my own invention or interpretation. Academics whose texts were chiefly added were Karskiy, Hujer (indirectly, via Stankevich), Stang (indirectly, via Zhuravskiy), Lyosik, Stankevich, Zhuravskiy, Bulyka.
 * The material on Ukrainian language influences comes directly from text on Ukrainisms in Belarusian by Bulyka, and it's much better to keep it in article dealing with both languages than to replicate it, e.g., across 2 articles.
 * E.g., when you are denouncing "so-called Old Belarusian" (BTW, on basis of whose texts?) you are disputing 100-years old seminal work of Karskiy.
 * I agree that the section on names is quite pertinent to the Ruthenian as well, but I insist it needs to be here, too.
 * The notion of descendancy directly from Common Slavic dialects raises no eyebrows today, and exists since at least 1920s (?). See what non-USSR/post-USSR sources tell. E.g. (just what I have at hand!): Будзько І. Гістарычная лінгвістычная тэрміналогія: генезіс, дублетнасць і перспектывы развіцця // Гістарычны альманах. Том 9. 2003. — Гродна, 2003. С.164—168.
 * Now, I wanted to keep politics out of that, but the theory of Proto-Russian/Old East Slavic/Common East Slavic (per the suggestion of N. I. Tolstoy) is just as easily abolished nowadays, as an unbased ideological invention. You certainly noticed how there were no ideology in article.
 * Primarily, the things like "pre-Belarusian", "proto-Belarusian", etc. -- these may are just shoddy translations from Zhuravskiy text. Also, the structure and style of referencing in article is shoddy, because I wasn't yet proficient with WP technology in 2006. Ditto with links to Old Church Slavic etc., no ill will there.
 * I don't know who Buncic is. Yury Tarasievich 08:51, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Andrey, I provided some explanations in the preceding entry. I'd greatly appreciate at least your acknowledgement of seeing those, please. Yury Tarasievich 17:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry for delay, we've been waiting for news from Guatemala. Yury, let's move this longish discussion to Talk:Belarusian language. An obscure publication from Hrodna will not make me question what the Britannica and every academic source has to say on the issue. Frankly, I don't believe in peer-reviewed publications that may throw into question the language's descent from Old East Slavic. No peer review, no screen time on Wikipedia. If the view is supposed to have some currency in western academia, I wonder how its proponents classify what was universally believed to be a dialect of Russia just a century ago. Surely they don't regard Belarusian as an East Slavic language, if they reject the idea of its descent from Old East Slavic? Do they view Belarusian as a West Slavic dialect? This is a riddle for me. --Ghirla-трёп- 00:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Let's finish the business here. Only couple of things left to said.
 * Those "obscure publication from Hrodna" is sort of brief summary made by PhD in philology working in the Institute of lingustics (Academy of Sciences) and informing of the current (like, "by 2000") state of the matters regarding the historical stages of development of Belarusian language and on the terminology and denotations used.
 * Yes, the objective existence of the Common East Slavic language phase is being put to question, since 1920s (I know only about materials of O.Hujer and Stankevich, 1930).
 * Yes, by that concept the Old Belarusian language is considered to be formed directly from East Slavic tribes' dialects (not unlike the other Slavic languages). Like Hujer put it, there is no scientific need in Common East Slavic concept (emphasis is mine).
 * So, that concept is unfamiliar to you, and you don't believe it. Also, you claim there are "no Western sources" (are there not? possibly, just unknown to you and me? btw, is Czech Hujer "Western"?). Well, so West doesn't care. So... what?
 * The wikipedia process does not demand "shown presence of peer-review" or "belief" of the participators. In fact, putting of one's own beliefs in it is explicitly forbidden as WP:OR.
 * The only things really required are: expertise of the authors of material added (Stankevich and Hujer -- check) and proper references.
 * I'm rewriting the piece on the no Common East Slavic concept now, clearing languge, adding references etc. This ought to go back in, and as for those other two pieces, 1st on historical names and 2nd on ukrainisms, 1st ought to go back as important historical reference, and 2nd (from Ukrainisms text by prof. Bulyka) ought to go out, as off-topic. Seeing the current confusion of the materials on these subjects in WP, I will maintain at least B.L. in the decent condition, as I have no time and energy to address the whole span single-handedly.
 * BTW, re "universally believed a century ago" -- yes, science develops. Just little more than a century ago the development of physics was believed to stop forever.
 * The genetic identity of Old and Modern Belarusian was proved by prof. and acad. Karskiy in 1890s/1900s and the scientifical term "Old Belarusian" was introduced by him in 1893.
 * I sincerely hope I addressed all of your doubts on the matter and there won't any more trouble over that. Yury Tarasievich 08:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As per WP:FRINGE, I admit that we may briefly mention Hujer's unorthodox opinion that Old East Slavic is a fantasy of modern scholars, noting that his singular view is not endorsed by the academic mainstream, either in the West or in Belarus. It would be alright, as long as we don't represent a stray nationalist claim as a mainstream view. --Ghirla-трёп- 21:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it seems that in order to make sense of B.L., I'll have to rework parts of those other articles anyway. There's lots of outright nonsense there, and nobody cares. Yury Tarasievich 10:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * What "outright nonsense" do you have in mind? I can't readily see any. --Ghirla-трёп- 21:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * For starters, identification of Old Belarusian with Old/Common East Slavic. Whatever scientific school, recognizing concept OES or not, such identification is nonsense. The practical merge of terms of Ancient (древне-) and Old (старо-) Russian doesn't seem to be mentioned (I didn't find it in a glance?).
 * And, like I suspected, after re-checking with sources, some pieces of current B.L. old history actually happened to be botched in translation, important nuances lost. I'm rewriting these now, and, like I said, I am now pondering the re-working of all pertinent history sections -- in Belarusian, Ruthenian, Old East Slavic, Old Slavic, Old Church Slavonic etc. Yury Tarasievich 07:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Belarusian (Tarashkevitsa)
I was looking for information about Tarashkevitsa but the link goes here. There is no mention of this Belarusian in the article, or - what I was looking for - the reason why there is two Belarusian Wikipedias. Could it be possible to add information on this issue within the article.

Staatenloser 20:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * There definitely will be the info on that here. Just allow for taking care of this Old Belarusian business first. Yury Tarasievich 08:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Vocative case in Belarusian language.
Does Belarusian language have vocative case? I was surprised this edit because it required some efforts to explain one of my Belarusian friend, what is vocative case.--AndriyK 17:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It existed, in times of Old Belarusian language stage. However, with development its use was supplanted with use of nominative. It still exists, outside the scope of codified rules, as a mean of expression, esp. in poetry etc. Yury Tarasievich 21:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * My exact source for the previous reply is "Сучасная беларуская мова", Мінск, 2006. If you need better references please let me know. Yury Tarasievich 21:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The unsourced edit in question is, of course, bogus, and describes its author's "what ought to be" opinion instead of "what is". Well, I remember some attempts (or suggestions?) to re-introduce this into the alternative grammar, but the Modern Belarusian simply hasn't enough linguistical material to have this codified.

Yury Tarasievich 21:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC) Moved part of my own remark up one paragraph, to avoid unexpected ambiguity. Yury Tarasievich 21:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks.--AndriyK 09:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Scientific transliteration
I wonder, is Scientific transliteration system important enough to be included in the first sentence? As I see now, almost nobody uses it, and I've never heard of it before. I suppose that it shouldn't be there because of its insignificance. BTW, the transliteration by the rules of the system, it should be "belaruskaja mova", no "j". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monkbel (talk • contribs) 05:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I didn't add this translit, and I have no stake in it, but I'd risk a guess that scientists in non-Cyrillic world use the Scientific transliteration, when dealing with Cyrillic, inluding the Belarusian. Yury Tarasievich 06:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

"History"
Just read through the Belarusian language page as a casual browser. Very interesting but ouch... some of the English! As this is a page about a language in an English-language on-line reference work it might be an idea to tidy it up; see Western Belarus, Second World War and Post-1991 in particular. Chunkymonkey2 01:02, 28 October 2007 (UTC)