Belarusian language

Belarusian
беларуская мова biełaruskaja mova
Native to	Belarus, in 14 other countries
Ethnicity	8 million Belarusians in Belarus (2009 census)
Native speakers	3.2 million (2.2 million in Belarus) (ca. 2009 census)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Belarusian
Early forms	Old East Slavic Ruthenian Belarusian
Writing system	Cyrillic (Belarusian alphabet) Belarusian Braille Belarusian Latin alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Belarus  Poland (in Gmina Orla, Gmina Narewka, Gmina Czyże, Gmina Hajnówka and town of Hajnówka)
Recognised minority language in	Czech Republic  Ukraine  Lithuania  Russia
Regulated by	National Academy of Sciences of Belarus
Language codes
ISO 639-1	be
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	bela1254
Linguasphere	53-AAA-eb < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eba to 53-AAA-ebg)
Belarusian-speaking world Legend: Dark blue - territory, where Belarusian language is used chiefly
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Belarusian (/bɛləˈruːsiən/;беларуская мова bielaruskaja mova [bʲelaˈruskaja ˈmova]) is an official language of Belarus, along with Russian, and is spoken abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. Before Belarus gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the language was known in English as Byelorussian or Belorussian, transliterating the Russian name, белорусский язык, or alternatively as White Ruthenian (/ruːˈθiːniən/) or White Russian (with the meaning Rus' but not Russia). Following independence, it also became known as Belarusian.

Belarusian is one of the East Slavic languages and shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group. To some extent, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian are mutually intelligible. Its predecessor stage is known as Old Belarusian (14th to 17th centuries), in turn descended from Old East Slavic (10th to 13th centuries).