Languages

Belarus has two official languages: Russian and Belarusian. Both Sudovian and Sudavia, a Baltic language, served as the region's pre-Slavic language and as both its geographic and linguistic names. The Sudovian is thought to have vanished somewhere in the 17th century. The only official languages of Belarus are currently Belarusian and Russian, as can be seen in the table below. Multiple linguistic codes coexist in Belarus, which is defined by its language situation. Russian, Belarusian, and the so-called Trasianka, a hybrid language in which Belarusian and Russian parts and structures interchange arbitrarily, are the three most widely used codes.

The Belarusian language law remained in effect following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991, and a Belarusization campaign was launched with the goal of linguistically Belarussifying the most significant spheres of public life within ten years. The educational system received a lot of attention. However, a significant portion of the population rejected this approach, which led Alexander Lukashenko to raise the topic of purportedly "forceful Belarusization" during his first presidential campaign in 1994.