Belarusian Latin Alphabet

Pre-presentation Quiz

📝 Reading Exercise: Belarusian Łacinka (Latin Script) 🔤

History of Belarusian Łacinka 📜

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Belarusian was written using both Cyrillic and Łacinka (the Belarusian Latin alphabet). For example, the first Belarusian newspaper, “Nasha Niva,” published issues typeset in both Cyrillic and Łacinka.

The first editions of Branislau Taraškievič’s “Belarusian Grammar for Schools” were published in both Cyrillic and Łacinka. January 21st is celebrated as Łacinka Day.

Today, Łacinka in its modern form is used by some writers, by manufacturers in product design and logos, and by internet users. On the basis of Belarusian Łacinka, an official Instruction for the transliteration of geographical names of the Republic of Belarus was created.

Alphabet 🔠

An important fact: Łacinka is based on the rules of the classical orthography (Taraškievica).

Let’s learn to write and read in Łacinka! 📘

Basic rules

“Easy” letters:

How iotated vowels are written 🔁

Е, Ё, Ю, Я are written as je, jo, ju, ja when they represent two sounds: zdaroŭje, johurt, maju, jaskravy.

Е, Ё, Ю, Я are written as ie, io, iu, ia when they represent one sound: vietlivy, miod, piure, miata.

But “J” is not written in these combinations after L l (because L already indicates a soft sound). To show a hard sound, Ł ł is used: levy, los, ludzi, niemaŭla.
Unstressed initial I after a preceding word ending in a vowel is replaced by J j: jana jšła, ty j ja.

How the remaining consonants are written 🔊

When Г г represents the fricative sound, it is written as H h; when it represents the plosive sound — as G g: heta, biełaha, guzik, ganak, mazgi, lezginka.

If after С, З, Ц, Дз and Н there is a soft sign, they are written as Ś, Ź, Dź, Ń: śnieh, źmiaja, budź, zadańnie.

In other cases, С, З, Дз and Н are written as S, Z, Dz, N: siemia, ziamla, pendzal, noč.

The apostrophe is omitted: padjezd, adjeści.