West Polesian microlanguage
The West Polesian microlanguage or dialect of Ukrainian is spoken in Southwestern Belarus, in Northwestern Ukraine and in the bordering regions of Poland. It is also considered a Slavic microlanguage by one Russian linguist.
Its composition is estimated to be 40 percent Ukrainian, 5 percent Belarusian, 5 percent Polish, and 50 percent Polesian.
West Polesian dialects are mostly used in everyday speech, though attempts have been made in 1990s by efforts of Nikolai Shelyagovich to develop a standard written language for the dialect.. However, his efforts received almost no support and the campaign eventually melted away. In particular, writer Nil Hilevich and some others spoke against him, claiming threat to the national integrity of Belarus, which was labelled as "Yotvingian separatism".
