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  Languages of the Republic of Belarus

The Belarusian language is the language of the native population of the Republic of Belarus.

According to the data of the 1989 census of the population Belarusian was considered as the native tongue by 66 per cent of the citizens of the Republic. The Belarusian language uses Cyrillic letters.


Over 14th to 17th centuries the language of Belarusians was the state language of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. Following three divisions of the Commonwealth of Poland (Rzecz Pospolita) in 1772, 1793 and 1795 and the inclusion of the territory of Belarus into the Russian empire the Russian language began to spread in Belarus.

To preserve the vital space for the Belarusian language, the Law on Languages in the Republic of Belarus was passed in 1990, which proclaimed Belarusian the state language.

The national referendum held on 14 May 1995 resulted in that the Russian language was given the equal status alongside Belarusian.

The Law on National Minorities in the Republic of Belarus guarantees the right of each of the ethnic minority living in the Republic to learn and use its native languages.

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