Taraškievica or Belarusian Classical Orthography[1][2][3] ([taraʂˈkʲɛvʲit͡sa]; Belarusian: тарашкевіца, клясычны правапіс[4][5][6]) is a variant of the orthography of the Belarusian language, based on the literary norm of the modern Belarusian language, the first normalization of which was made by Branisłaŭ Taraškievič in 1918, and was in official use in Belarus until the Belarusian orthography reform in 1933.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] After 1933 Taraškievica has been used informally in Belarus and by Belarusian diaspora abroad. In more common sense sometimes Taraškievica is considered to be a linguistic norm.[17][18]
Taraškievica name intended to emphasize the similarity of the orthography to the work of Branisłaŭ Taraškievič and may have appeared before World War II.[10]
Around 1994, an alias, Classical Orthography, was introduced by Vincuk Viačorka, the promoter and author of the modern codification of the Taraškievica.[19]
In 2005 with the publishing of the Belarusian Classical Orthography was made the modern normalization of Taraškievica. In 2007 Taraškievica got from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority its own language subtag "tarask" (full language tag of Belarusian in the Classical orthography is "be-tarask").[20]
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In 1918 before independence of Belarus was declared a need of codifying of the Belarusian language raised. The leading linguists made several proposals:
As the result, Taraškievič's proposal was considered to be more preferable. This was based on the following reasons: orthography proposal by Taraškievič was the most well-grounded; it covered the majority of orthographic collisions; it proceeded with the Belarusian orthography which was in use in the prior period; it included exercises what was useful in teaching purposes; was created on the request of Belarusian political leaders of that time.[14]
The work of Taraškievič appeared to be very good experience of creating the list of main features of Belarusian. All the following proposals and reforms of the Belarusian language based on exactly this codification.[22]
| Official orthography | Taraškievica |
| Alphabet | |
| The variant from 1918. | In the variant of the 2005 normalization of Taraškievica, an optional letter is introduced: ґ, indicating a plosive [g]. |
| The notation of assimilating 'softness' of consonants | |
| The orthoepical norm does not determine it. Examples: снег, з’ява, дзве. |
Determined using the soft sign. Examples: сьнег, зьява, дзьве. |
| The phonetic principle in spelling | |
| Generally limited to unstressed vowels. Examples: стагоддзе, не толькі, тэатр. |
Widespread, including consonants and at morpheme boundaries. Examples: стагодзьдзе, ня толькі, тэатар. |
| Transliteration of foreign words | |
| The syllables [la], [lo], [lu] | |
| Transliterated mostly with a 'hard' [l]. Examples: план, логіка, Платон, клон, дысплей. In 1933 scholars of the Institute of Linguistics called the proposal for the introduction of these standards "Great Power tendencies", pointing out that it is a characteristically Russian pronunciation. |
Transliterated with a 'soft' (palatalized) [lʲ] in words of Western European origin except for Anglicisms where the 'hard' (non-palatalized) [l] is used in most cases. In borrowing from other languages, words are transliterated according to the hardness or softness of the sound in the source language. Examples: плян, лёгіка, Плятон, клон, дысплэй The phonetic tradition developed with the newspaper "Наша ніва". The authors of the academic projects of 1930 and 1933 propose to maintain the this norm. The transliteration of the Central European [l] with [lʲ] has been fixed in the forms of the Old Belorussian language (17th-18th centuries) (люнатык, лaбиринт, капалaнъ, каппеллѧ), as well as in the Belorussian forms of the 19th century (ляўр(ы), кляс(а)). The transliteration of the Arabic [l] with [lʲ] has been fixed in the Old Belorussian forms of the 17th century (корабеля < the city Kerbela). According to E. Potekhina, it is now difficult to say with certainty whether such pronunciation was widespread or if it was a characteristics of the intelligentsia's peculiar argot. |
In 1926 in Minsk an international conference on the reform of the Belarusian orthography was held, where some orthography issues were discussed. In 1927 a Linguistic Committee was formed which consisted of the Belarusian academicians and linguists, which worked on the problems of the Belarusian language and mainly developed the orthography norm by Taraškievič. In 1929 with the end of Belarussification the work of the Committee was stopped. Despite this the results of its work was published in 1930.
In 1930 a group of scientists from the Belarusian Linguistic Institute started working on another proposal of Belarusian orthography reform. The authors of the proposal declared rejection of the ideas of "national democracy", which were, according to their beliefs, the base of the work by Linguistic Committee in 1927–1929.[14] As a result the group in 1933 proposed a deep revision of the Belarusian language, but kept the ideas of Taraškievič for loanwords in Belarusian and almost entirely reproduced the results of 1930 proposal.
Despite this, the proposal was rejected by the USSR authorities because of too low loyalty of approaching of the Belarusian language to Russian.[10][23] On 5 May 1933 Central Committee of the Communist Party of the BSSR formed a special Political Committee for revision of the Russian-Belarusian dictionary and new orthography rules of the Belarusian language.[24] The Committee primarily consisted of politicians, and no linguist was included in it.
Till 21 July 1933 a decree of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the BSSR was published which stated the end of the work on the Belarusian language reform.[25] On 27 August 1933 the proposal was approved by the decree of the Belarusian Central Committee of the Communist Party without any public discussion.
The Belarusian orthography reform of 1933 adopted all the changes of the Academical 1933 proposal which approached the Belarusian language to Russian.[23] The reform introduced both phonetic and morphological changes, as well as vocabulary of Belarusian, where the words with no direct equivalents in the Russian language were excluded and some Russian words introduced.[26] After the reform the manuscripts of the ready academic Belarusian dictionaries were destroyed.[27]
As a result of Belarusian orthography reform of 1933 more than 30 phonetic and morphological features of the Russian language were introduced in Belarusian.[28]
The legitimacy of the reform of grammar in 1933 was never adopted by certain political groups in West Belarus, unlike, e.g., KPZB, neither by the emigrants, who left Belarus after 1944. This rejection was made an issue of ideology, and presented as anti-Russification.[29] One of the most vocal critics was Jan Stankievič, beginning with his 1936 publication.
However, rejecting all post-1933 official developments, the community was left with all the problems of the pre-1933 grammar virtually unaddressed[30] and effectively with no unified grammar to use.[31]
After 1930s Taraškievica was primarily used by the Belarusian diaspora abroad. The only wide-scale use of the pre-1933 grammar on the territory of Belarus after the 1930s took place during the German occupation of Belarus in 1941–1944.
During the perestroika period of the late 1980s, the movement for the return of Taraškievica in Belarus was initiated. At the beginning of 1990s Taraškievica was used in Belarus along with the so-called “Narkamauka,” the official variant of Belarusian. On 14 June 1992 a conference of journalists and publishers who used the Classical orthography was held in Vilnius.
To solve the problem of standardization the Orthography Improvement Committee (Belarusian: Камісія па ўдасканаленьні правапісу) was created. The Committee worked in 1991–1992 and in 1993 published its proposals for orthographic changes.
In 2005 to standardize Taraškievica a working group of four people (consisting of Juraś Bušlakoŭ, Vincuk Viačorka, Źmicier Sańko and Zmicier Saŭka) work proposed codification of Taraškievica called Belarusian Classical Orthography (Belarusian: Беларускі клясычны правапіс) as a result of intensive discussions and several years'. This proposal was adopted by major Taraškievica-using media, including the newspaper Naša Niva[32], Belarusian ARCHE magazine, the Belarusian editions of Radio Free Europe and Radio Polonia. As well, this variant of orthography became preferable for use in the Belarusian Wikipedia in Taraškievica orthography (be-x-old:).
On 27 April 2007 the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority assigned language subtag "tarask" to Taraškievica. The full language tag of Belarusian in the Classical orthography is "be-tarask".[20]