In a recent blog post the Belarusian programmer Ihar Makhanëk explains the challenges of writing Belarusian on a Russian keyboard. As should be known the Cyrillic Belarusian alphabet is distinguished from the Russian Cyrillic one by several letters. The “Latin” “і”, the unique “ў” (u karotkae), the obligatory “ё”, as well as the absence of the Russian letters “щ” and “ъ” (Belarusian uses the diagraph “шч” and an apostrophe respectively).

The solution for many Belarusians (and, possibly Ukrainians as well) when they need to enter the Belarusian “i”, Makhanëk suggests in his highly informative post, is to switch to an English keyboard set up. The problem, however, is that the Belarusian “і” and the Latin “i” have different positions in the Unicode system. The Belarusian “і” holds the position U+0456 (lower-case) and U+0406 (upper-case), while the Latin “i” holds positions U+0069 (lower-case) and U+0049 (upper-case).

As a result of this the use of the Latin “i” as a replacement for the Belarusian creates problems when you want to search for a word, or to make alphabetical lists, since the words you want to search for have been coded incorrectly. Makhanëk’s post shows that the challenges connected with computer-mediated communication are not only related to the available technical solutions, but also to the individual choices of the users.

English – I love you.

A
Afrikaans – Ek het jou lief.
Albanian – Te dua.
Arabic – Ana behibak (to male)
Arabic – Ana behibek (to female)
Armenian – Yes kez sirumen

B
Bambara – M’bi fe.
Bangla – Aamee tuma ke bhalo aashi
Belarusian – Ya tabe kahayu.
Bisaya – Nahigugma ako kanimo.
Bulgarian – Obicham te.

C
Cambodian – Soro lahn nhee ah.
Cantonese Chinese – Ngo oiy ney a.
Catalan – T’estimo.
Cheyenne – Ne mohotatse.
Chichewa – Ndimakukonda.
Corsican – Ti tengu caru (to male).
Creol – Mi aime jou.
Croatian – Volim te.
Czech – Miluji te.

D
Danish – Jeg Elsker Dig.
Dutch – Ik hou van jou.

E
Esperanto – Mi amas vin.
Estonian – Ma armastan sind.
Ethiopian – Afgreki’

F
Faroese – Eg elski teg
Farsi – Doset daram
Filipino – Mahal kita
Finnish – Mina rakastan sinua
French – Je t’aime, Je t’adore

G
Gaelic – Ta gra agam ort
Georgian – Mikvarhar
German – Ich liebe dich
Greek – S’agapo
Gujarati – Hoo thunay prem karoo choo

H
Hiligaynon – Palangga ko ikaw
Hawaiian – Aloha wau ia oi
Hebrew – Ani ohev otah (to female)
Hebrew – Ani ohev et otha (to male)
Hiligaynon – Guina higugma ko ikaw
Hindi – Hum Tumhe Pyar Karte hae
Hmong – Kuv hlub koj
Hopi – Nu’ umi unangwa’ta
Hungarian – Szeretlek

I
Icelandic – Eg elska tig
Ilonggo – Palangga ko ikaw
Indonesian – Saya cinta padamu
Inuit – Negligevapse
Irish – Taim i’ ngra leat
Italian – Ti amo

J
Japanese – Aishiteru

K
Kannada – Naanu ninna preetisuttene
Kapampangan – Kaluguran daka
Kiswahili – Nakupenda
Konkani – Tu magel moga cho
Korean – Sarang Heyo

L
Latin – Te amo
Latvian – Es tevi miilu
Lebanese – Bahibak
Lithuanian – Tave myliu

M
Malay – Saya cintakan mu / Aku cinta padamu
Malayalam – Njan Ninne Premikunnu
Mandarin Chinese – Wo ai ni
Marathi – Me tula prem karto
Mohawk – Kanbhik
Moroccan – Ana moajaba bik

N
Nahuatl – Ni mits neki
Navaho – Ayor anosh’ni
Norwegian – Jeg Elsker Deg

P
Pandacan – Syota na kita!!
Pangasinan – Inaru Taka
Papiamento – Mi ta stimabo
Persian – Doo-set daaram
Pig Latin – Iay ovlay ouyay
Polish – Kocham Ciebie
Portuguese – Eu te amo

R
Romanian – Te ubesk
Russian – Ya tebya liubliu

S
Scot Gaelic – Tha gra\dh agam ort
Serbian – Volim te
Setswana – Ke a go rata
Sindhi – Maa tokhe pyar kendo ahyan
Sioux – Techihhila
Slovak – Lu`bim ta
Slovenian – Ljubim te
Spanish – Te quiero / Te amo
Swahili – Ninapenda wewe
Swedish – Jag alskar dig
Swiss-German – Ich lieb Di

T
Tagalog – Mahal kita
Taiwanese – Wa ga ei li
Tahitian – Ua Here Vau Ia Oe
Tamil – Nan unnai kathalikaraen
Telugu – Nenu ninnu premistunnanu
Thai – Chan rak khun (to male)
Thai – Phom rak khun (to female)
Turkish – Seni Seviyorum

U
Ukrainian – Ya tebe kahayu
Urdu – mai aap say pyaar karta hoo

V
Vietnamese – Anh ye^u em (to female)
Vietnamese – Em ye^u anh (to male)

W
Welsh – ‘Rwy’n dy garu

Y
Yiddish – Ikh hob dikh
Yoruba – Mo ni fe

Belarusian I

even our mothers have no idea how we were born
how we parted their legs and crawled out into the world
the way you crawl from the ruins after a bombing
we couldn’t tell which of us was a girl or a boy
we gorged on dirt thinking it was bread
and our future
a gymnast on a thin thread of the horizon
was performing there
at the highest pitch
bitch

we grew up in a country where
first your door is stroked with chalk
then at dark a chariot arrives
and no one sees you anymore
but riding in those cars were neither
armed men nor
a wanderer with a scythe
this is how love loved to visit us
and snatch us veiled

completely free only in public toilets
where for a little change nobody cared what we were doing
we fought the summer heat the winter snow
when we discovered we ourselves were the language
and our tongues were removed we started talking with our eyes
when our eyes were poked out we talked with our hands
when our hands were cut off we conversed with our toes
when we were shot in the legs we nodded our heads for yes
and shook our heads for no and when they ate our heads alive
we crawled back into the bellies of our sleeping mothers
as if into bomb shelters
to be born again

and there on the horizon the gymnast of our future
was leaping through the fiery hoop
of the sun
…………………………
by Valzhyna Mort
Translated by Franz Wright and Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright

Flazzle Languages Free is a multi-language dictionary and flashcard program. It has free vocabulary lists and dictionaries for Japanese, Mandarin, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and dictionaries for Arabic, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

http://www.ohaysoft.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=11&Itemid=292&limit=3&limitstart=12

Flazzle Languages Free is a multi-language dictionary and flashcard program. It has free vocabulary lists and dictionaries for Japanese, Mandarin, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and dictionaries for Arabic, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

http://www.ohaysoft.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=11&Itemid=292&limit=3&limitstart=12

Flazzle Languages Free is a multi-language dictionary and flashcard program. It has free vocabulary lists and dictionaries for Japanese, Mandarin, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and dictionaries for Arabic, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

http://www.ohaysoft.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=11&Itemid=292&limit=3&limitstart=12

Flazzle Languages Free is a multi-language dictionary and flashcard program. It has free vocabulary lists and dictionaries for Japanese, Mandarin, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and dictionaries for Arabic, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

http://www.ohaysoft.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=11&Itemid=292&limit=3&limitstart=12

Flazzle Languages Free is a multi-language dictionary and flashcard program. It has free vocabulary lists and dictionaries for Japanese, Mandarin, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and dictionaries for Arabic, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

http://www.ohaysoft.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=11&Itemid=292&limit=3&limitstart=12

Flazzle Languages Free is a multi-language dictionary and flashcard program. It has free vocabulary lists and dictionaries for Japanese, Mandarin, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and dictionaries for Arabic, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

http://www.ohaysoft.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=11&Itemid=292&limit=3&limitstart=12

Flazzle Languages Free is a multi-language dictionary and flashcard program. It has free vocabulary lists and dictionaries for Japanese, Mandarin, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and dictionaries for Arabic, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

http://www.ohaysoft.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=11&Itemid=292&limit=3&limitstart=12

Flazzle Languages Free is a multi-language dictionary and flashcard program. It has free vocabulary lists and dictionaries for Japanese, Mandarin, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and dictionaries for Arabic, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

http://www.ohaysoft.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=11&Itemid=292&limit=3&limitstart=12

Belarus said it isn’t negotiating with Russia about placing short-range Iskander missiles inside the former Soviet state as a counter to the U.S. missile-shield project.

Belarus has no plans to deploy the missiles as part of Russia’s response to the U.S. missile-shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site late yesterday. The country may acquire the missiles as part of modernizing its military, according to the statement.

By Paul Abelsky, Bloomberg

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko supported Russia’s plan to deploy Iskander missiles in its Baltic Kaliningrad exclave and was negotiating to place them inside Belarus, the Wall Street Journal said on Nov. 14. citing an interview with Lukashenko.

The Belarusian government is in discussion with Russia on deploying missiles in Belarus that could strike targets in Europe, the country’s president said.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told The Wall Street Journal he would like to see closer relationships with Western countries but he sympathizes with Russia on two points — the Georgian conflict and U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Europe.

UPI

Lukashenko said he supports Russia’s plans to place Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Lithuania and Poland, to target the U.S. missile system.

Russia opposes the U.S. plan to deploy missiles and a radar system in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying the plan threatens Russia’s national security. The United States says the shield is needed to protect Europe against attacks from rouge states.

Russia also had proposed putting Iskander missiles in Belarus, Lukashenko said. If no deal is reached, Belarus would consider deploying missiles itself, he said.

“Even if Russia does not offer these promising missiles, we will purchase them ourselves,” Lukashenko told the Journal. “Right now we do not have the funds, but it is part of our plans — I am giving away a secret here — to have such weapons.”

As i was driving around Catalonia i listened to iCat.fm all the time. They play great music, and the lovely accent of the DJ’s on that station was probably the main reason that i decided to learn Catalan seriously.

They played a lot of Catalan music there, and i didn’t remember any artists names, except for Mazoni. They are a modern pop-rock band, quite similar to Super Furry Animals, but without most of the Furries’ sonic tricks. Their album “Si els dits fossin xilòfons” (“If Fingers Were Xylophones”) was one of the CD’s that i bought in my last day in Barcelona. There’s one song there, called “La granja de la Paula”, which is a translated version of Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm”. There’s an excellent music video for this song, which is available on YouTube: Mazoni – La granja de la Paula. (Seriously, this is the best music video that that i saw since Radiohead’s “There There” from 2003.)

Now, if you search YouTube for “La granja de la Paula”, the first result is original Mazoni’s video, and the second result is a goofy video of a guy called Ganxito lipsynching to the song in a record store: Ganxito – La granja de la Paula.

Now, finally, the linguistic part: The first line is “No penso treballar a la granja de la Paula mai més” (“I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more”). When Ganxito sings this line, he clearly pronounces the word “treballar” (“work”) as /treβa’ʎar/, while Mazoni’s singer Jaume Pla pronounces /trəβə’ʎa/. Ganxito’s pronunciation appears more intuitive to people who know some Spanish or Italian, but haven’t studied Catalan, because the e is pronounced as the Spanish e and both a’s are pronounced as the Spanish a, and he also pronounces the final r as in Spanish. However, Pla’s pronunciation is the one that is taught as the standard literary Catalan pronunciation, which is based on the speech of Barcelona. In this standard pronunciation non-stressed a’s and e’s both sound as /ə/ and the final r of infinitives is not pronounced.

At first i thought that Ganxito’s main spoken language is Spanish, and he just pronounces Catalan incorrectly, reading it from a lyrics sheet as if it was written in Spanish. I quickly dismissed this thought, because it appeared that he writes a lot of Catalan at his website. My next thought was that he lives in an area where the pronunciation is different from that of Barcelona, most likely Valencia. Since he didn’t write where he lives, i just asked him through a comment on the video. And he replied! And yes, he lives in Valencia!

Not bad – after less than half a year of studying this language, without any formal training in its dialectology, and without ever having met anyone from Valencia, i pulled a Professor Higgins and guessed the origin of his accent.

This phenomenon is somewhat similar to the contrast of “okanye” and “akanye” in Russian and its sister languages. This refers to the pronunciation of non-stressed o: When a word is supposed to have an /o/ sound for etymological reasons, but the syllable is not stressed, the vowel of that syllable tends is. So in standard Russian the word that is written борода (beard) is pronounced /bara’da/, as if it was written барада, but it is pronounced /boro’da/ in some dialects of Russian outside of Moscow. In standard Ukrainian this word is written the same way as in Russian, but pronounced /boro’da/, and in Belarusian it is written барада and pronounced accordingly, as in standard Russian. (I don’t mean to say that Ukrainian and Belarusian are dialects of Russian.)

Uładzimier Katkoŭski, a.k.a. Rydel23 and BR23, passed away yesterday after about a year in coma caused by a road accident. Katkoŭski was the webmaster of Radyjo Svaboda – the Belarusian branch of Radio Liberty, one of the editors of Pravapis – a site dedicated to Belarusian language, and a popular figure in Belarusian Internet culture. I knew him personally through the web and we exchanged some emails. While some people accused him of Belarusian nationalism and Russophobia, he was just a guy who wanted to speak his own language and tried to convince the world to give a little respect to the history of his country, which is considered by nearly everyone as just a bunch of counties in Western Russia.

May his soul rest in peace.

See also:

• Вянок памяці: Уладзімер Каткоўскі – an article in the memory of Katkoŭski at Radyjo Svaboda. It is written in Belarusian; if you know Russian or some other Slavic language, you will understand at least some of it.
• br23 blog. He won a national award for it.
• Rydel’s user page at Wikipedia – he got into heated arguments with Russian editors, at least some of whom were outright Russian nationalist, who did everything to promote the Moscow version of history.
• My older post about br23, with a pretty big discussion.

Oh (edit): The spelling of his name is inconsistent, because there are several contradicting spelling systems for Belarusian. -mier (-мер) is probably influenced by Polish, while -mir (-мір) leans more towards Russian. And of course i could just call him in the “simple” Russian-influenced form Vladimir Katkovski, but that would totally miss the point – he would certainly like the spelling of his name to be as Belarusian as possible.

This just in: Vodka goes very well with ice cream. Makes sense – it’s like a five dollar milkshake.

I’m writing a paper about languages of three peoples that have a long historical argument about the very hard question, “Who invented vodka?” I’m talking about Russian, Belarusian and Lithuanian. I may throw Polish in at some stage, too.