Belarussian language

Belarussian—also written Belarusian, formerly called in English Byelorussian, Belorussian—(in its own language: беларуская мова / biełaruskaja mova) is a Slavic language mainly spoken in Belarus.

It is one of the two official languages of Belarus, the other one being Russian. Albeit Belarus has been an independent country since 1991, Russian is still the dominant language of the country.

Belarussian may be written with the Cyrillic alphabet, which is official, or with the Latin alphabet, which is used by a part of the population. It is very easy to switch from one to another writing system thanks to a simple system of correspondence. This coexistence of two alphabets resembles the situation of Serbian.