How endangered is Belarusian actually?
Is it true that even in Belarus less and less people get the chance to speak it (like in the cities?) even though they have a decent command of it?
Groetjes
Is it true that even in Belarus less and less people get the chance to speak it (like in the cities?) even though they have a decent command of it?
I have quite a decent command of Belarusian, although I don't get to speak it a lot.
the knowledge of Belarusian is quite poor in Belarus.
Belarusian has, apart from the standard language, two main dialects. The subdialects may have some Ukrainian, Polish influence but all of them are heavily influenced by Russian to the point that people are not able to separate what's Russian, what's Belarusian.
As regards Belorussian and Ukrainian, on the printed page they look rather like forms of Russian that have acquired Polish vocabulary. Spoken Belorussian, more than Ukrainian, sounds like Russian to me, but listening carefully it is possible to detect sounds you would not get in Russian.
Groetjes