러시아ㆍ유라시아

The Belarusian language has earned UNESCO's vulnerable label in 2014, meaning the language is still in active use but rarely and not in all social contexts. Even though UNESCO urged the expansion of the Belarusian conservation and education programs, in the most recent census taken in 2009, approximately 53% of Belarus's population said that Belarusian was their mother tongue and a quarter of population use Belarusian at home. Then a question arises why it is a linguistic crisis as UNESCO informs. This paper explores that their mother tongue is not literary Belarusian, but Trasjanka, which is a mixed language with Belarusian pronunciation and Russian vocabulary. Trasjanka is used in rural, non-normative, low social class and Belarusian elites consider it as an ugly market language. However, the elites could not revive the Belarusian standard language, because literary Belarusian has never functioned as an oral language through the modern history of Belarus. Thus the status of Trasjanka changes to be recognized as an oral form of Belarusian. Also when we see the mixed language Trasjanka becomes gradually russified, not far in the future, it would be considered a mother tongue in Belarus.