>From: Neil T Pothecary
>Sent: Saturday, July 17, 1999 3:10 AM
>Subject: Possible error in language name 'Byelorussian'
>
>Dear Sir
>
>I visited your web site and looked at page 'Language Codes: ISO 639,
>Microsoft and Macintosh', it is my belief that the word 'Byelorussian'
>is an exonym, ie a foreign language name for a geographical place, the
>'foreign' language being Russian. As long as this country was part of
>the Soviet Union, 'Byelorussian' was correct since the national language
>of the USSR was Russian, but now that this country is now the
>independent Republic of Belarus, I suggest that the language name should
>be 'Belarusian'.
Dear Mr Pothecary,
Lots of languages have lots of names. The language of Belarus has been
called in English, for various reasons, at various periods of history, and
in various systems of transliteration from various languages, "Belarusian",
"Belarussian", "Belorussian", "Bielorussian", "Byelorussian", "White
Russian", and "White Ruthenian".
Strictly speaking, "White Russian" would probably be the most satisfactory
name since that is what it means, and it relieves one of transliteration
problems. The thing is, all those transliterations have to be reckoned
with. Indeed there is no avoiding the fact that the name of this language
entered into the English language via Russian. There are millions of
references to this language in linguistic sources, etc. I have a dictionary
published in 1992 by Alexander Ushkevich and Alexandra Zezulin, called
"Byelorussian-English English-Byelorussian Dictionary", and it defines
"belaruski" as "Byelorussian". What is one to do?
Personally, for what it's worth, I dislike "Belarusian" because it looks
like a cheap way to get us to pronounce the name of the language
differently, with a long /u/ or something. On the other hand, I do dislike
the -y- in the transliteration. So for good or for ill, I choose to follow
the spelling of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English:
"Belorussian. n. & adj. (also Byelorussian). n. 1. a native of Belarus in
eastern Europe. 2. the East Slavonic language of Belarus.adj. of or
relating to Belarus, its people, or its language. [Russian Belorussia from
belyi 'white' + Russiya 'Russia']"
-- Michael Everson * Everson Gunn Teoranta * http://www.indigo.ie/egt 15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland Guthán: +353 1 478 2597 ** Facsa: +353 1 478 2597 (by arrangement) 27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:48 EDT