Belarusian is a Eastern Slavic language and is one of the two official languages of Belarus (the other is Russian). The language

has its origins in the early medieval period when the ancestors of modern Belarusians spoke Old East Slavic. Over time, the language evolved through influences from Old Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian, with notable divergence occurring during the formation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where Belarusian developed a distinct identity. During the 16th to 18th centuries, the language was primarily written using the Latin script, though the Cyrillic script later became dominant.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Belarusian faced significant decline as Russian language and culture spread under the Russian Empire. Attempts to revive the language occurred in the early Soviet period, where Belarusian was promoted as the national language. However, Soviet policies increasingly marginalized it in favor of Russian. Despite this, efforts to preserve and revitalize Belarusian continued, especially after Belarus gained independence in 1991. Today, Belarusian is one of the official languages of Belarus, but it faces challenges in daily use, as Russian remains the dominant language of government, media, and education.

It is spoken by about 6.4 million speakers (L1 and L2). Throughout its history, the language has undergone name changes typically politics changed. Belarusian's predecessor is actually a group of closely-related East Slavic linguistic varieties called Ruthenian (13th - 18th Centuries), which evolved from of Old East Slavic (10th - 13th Centuries).

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