Prominent Belarusian foreign diplomats take dictation in Belarusian at Belarusian Language

Prominent Belarusian cultural figures, journalists and foreign diplomats took dictation in Belarusian at the Minsk office of the Francisak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society (BLS) on Saturday in the framework of a nationwide dictation campaign on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Belarusian National Republic.

Participants wrote the introduction by great Belarusian poet Francisak Bahusevic (1840-1900) to his book Dudka Belaruskaya at the dictation of BLS Deputy Chair Lyudmila Dzitsevich, a professor at Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts with more than 30 years’ experience in teaching the language.

“This event is a manifestation that people like and respect Belarusian, and that it is a living language,” said political analyst Uladzimir Padhol, the initiator of the campaign. According to him, a Belarusian language dictation test will be massively taken every hour from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on March 23. Its winners are to be awarded various prizes. An exhibition of photographs about the dictation campaign is to be displayed in Belarus and foreign countries where Belarusians live, as well as at the UN Headquarters in New York.

“The Belarusian language has not only withstood all hardships and survived but also continues developing according to its laws that no authorities can abolish,” said BLS Chair Aleh Trusaw.

Stefan Eriksson, head of the Minsk office of the Swedish embassy in Russia, said that he likes Belarusian very much and was taking the dictation test to show his attitude to the language. “I’ll be very glad if my attitude to the Belarusian language inspires anyone,” he said.

Ukrainian Ambassador Ihor Likhovyy; Slovak Charge d'Affaires Lubomir Rehak; Monika Sadkowska, spokeswoman for the Polish embassy; and Darius Vytkauskas, counselor at the Lithuanian embassy, read out Belarusian translations of verses by their countries’ poets. Nigel Gould-Davies, the British charge d’affaires to Belarus, read out an English translation of a sonnet by Yanka Kupala. //BelaPAN