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Civil society activists in Homyel discuss promotion of Belarusian lanugage

Civil society activists in Homyel held a “roundtable” discussion on July 25 to discuss efforts to promote the Belarusian language, BelaPAN reports.

Organized by the youth organization Civilization and titled “The Belarusian language in the family of European languages, the discussion also featured opposition activists among its participants.

Young opposition activist Alyaksandr Zhuleha submitted a report on UNESCO`s Red Book of Endangered Languages that lists the Belarusian language among them because of its very low usage.

Leanid Kuzmich, a professor of philology at Francisak Skaryna Homyel State University, focused in his speech on famous Belarusian-born artists, writers and scholars. “The debate about countries to which famous people belong is eternal,” he said. “But we do have people to be proud of. Many of our fellow countrymen have made a significant contribution to the culture of other countries. For instance, Belarusian-born Eduard Pyakarski played a prominent role in the development of the Chukchi language.”

The professor called on participants to love their history and native tongue.

The program of the discussion also included a role-playing game requiring participants to think up a brief story about Belarus for a foreigner, as well as the reading of Belarusian poetry and the performance of old Belarusian songs.