Stages of development of Old Belarusian language in contact with languages of neighbouring nations

Abstract

The theory positing the existence of an All-Rus’ian language was opposed as early as the 1920’s by Belarusian, Russian and Western linguists alike. Already in 1931, Jan Stankiewicz compared the development of 43 traits in individual languages of the East, West and South Slavic groups to demonstrate that these traits did not follow the division but crossed over between the groups. Present-day researchers (e.g. Ivan Kramko, Grigoriy Pivtorak) point to political motives that underlay the concept of a Proto-Russian phase in the history of Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian. The main reason for the emergence of these three languages was a regrouping in two dialectal zones: Kiev-Polesia and Polotsk-Ryazan. According to Paul Wexler, the evelopment of the Belarusian language can be divided into three main periods: pre-written Proto-Belarusian (6–12th c.), written Proto-Belarusian (13–15th c.) and Belarusian with written texts (since 15th c.). The conditions of development of Belarusian deteriorated towards the end of the 16th century with an increasing role of Polish in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, Polish and Belarusian influenced each other, as shown by the works of Polish and Belarusian writers of the 18th–20th centuries born on what is now Belarusian territory.