Belarusian alphabet


The Belarusian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic script and is derived from the alphabet of Old Church Slavonic. It has existed in its modern form since 1918 and has 32 letters. See also Belarusian Latin alphabet and Belarusian Arabic alphabet.

Letters


CapitalNameUnicode
А аа U+0410 / U+0430
Б ббэ U+0411 / U+0431
В ввэ U+0412 / U+0432
Г ггэ U+0413 / U+0433
Д ддэ U+0414 / U+0434
Е ее , U+0415 / U+0435
Ё ёё , U+0401 / U+0451
Ж жжэ U+0416 / U+0436
З ззэ U+0417 / U+0437
І іі ,, U+0406 / U+0456
Й йі нескладовае U+0419 / U+0439
К кка U+041A / U+043A
Л лэл U+041B / U+043B
М мэм U+041C / U+043C
Н нэн U+041D / U+043D
О оо U+041E / U+043E
П ппэ U+041F / U+043F
Р рэр U+0420 / U+0440
С сэс U+0421 / U+0441
Т ттэ U+0422 / U+0442
У уу U+0423 / U+0443
Ў ўу нескладовае
у кароткае 		U+040E / U+045E
Ф фэф U+0424 / U+0444
Х хха U+0425 / U+0445
Ц ццэ U+0426 / U+0446
Ч ччэ U+0427 / U+0447
Ш шша U+0428 / U+0448
Ы ыы U+042B / U+044B
Ь ьмяккі знак
U+042C / U+044C
Э ээ U+042D / U+044D
Ю юю , U+042E / U+044E
Я яя , U+042F / U+044F
ʼапостраф
 –U+02BC

Details

Officially, the represents both and, but the latter occurs only in borrowings and mimesis. The is used by some for the latter sound but, with the exception of Taraškievica, has not been standard.
A followed by or may denote either two distinct respective sounds or the Belarusian affricates and . In some representations of the alphabet, the affricates are included in parentheses after the letter to emphasis their special status:.
is not a distinct phoneme but the neutralization of /v/ and /l/ when there is no following vowel, like before a consonant or at the end of a word.
Palatalization of consonants is usually indicated through choice of vowel letter, as illustrated here with and, both written with the letter :
When a consonant is not palatalized and precedes, the apostrophe is used to separate the iotated vowel: . The apostrophe is not considered a letter and so is not taken into account for alphabetical order. In pre-Second World War printing, the form was used. When computers are used, the form is frequently substituted by.

History

The medieval Cyrillic alphabet had 43 letters. Later, 15 letters were dropped, the last 4 after the introduction of the first official Belarusian grammar in 1918. Since four new letters were added, there are now 32 letters.
The new letters were:
The Belarusian alphabet, in its modern form, has formally existed since the adoption of the Branislaw Tarashkyevich's Belarusian grammar, for use in Soviet schools, in 1918 Several slightly different versions had been used informally.
In the 1920s and notably at the Belarusian Academical Conference, miscellaneous changes of the Belarusian alphabet were being proposed. Notable were replacing with , and/or replacing,,, with ,,,, respectively, replacing with, introducing and/or introducing special graphemes/ligatures for affricates:, etc. Even the introduction of the Latin script was contemplated at one moment. Nothing came of it.
Noted Belarusian linguist Yan Stankyevich in his later works suggested a completely different form of the alphabet:
ОоАаЭэБᥴГгХхДдЕеЁё
ЯяДЗдзДЖджЗзЖжІіЙйКкЛлМм
НнПпРрСсШшТтВвУуЎўФф
ЬьЦцЧчЫыЮю-----

Note that proper names and place names are rendered in BGN/PCGN romanization of Belarusian.