Belarus: "Belarusian" and "Belarusan" the correct adjective forms

[Whiteruthenian]

The nicest thing in your post is you believe that Troki is (or should be) a Belarusian town, not a Lithuanian one. I may only agree.

We already discussed “Tatar” question. There is no point in discussing the Jewish question, because after WWII the Jewish question doesn’t exist in Belarus any more. Let it be forgotten what is covered by ground.

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

Melting pot seems to work well in Belarus.

Yep. Things might have been much worse - fortunately we have to boil in this pot Russians and Ukrainians mostly. Poles are harder to boil but I hope we’ll manage.

Hehe, having said these words I feel like a real devil from hell.

Now about Ruthenian and Russian. (Yes, again!) There is a clear difference between the words Ðóñü, Ðóñ³í and Ðîññèÿ, ðóññêèé, right? I do believe that this difference in the meanings should be saved in translations into English. That’s all. My point of view is close to this comrade’s one (her name is Ewa M. Thompson). I agree with every word she wrote. But her words are more solid because she is a professor and I am not:

http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/ewt/1.html

The English words "Russia" and "Russian" translate more than a dozen Russian terms and expressions. The Russian language has the word Rossiia, or the Russian nation and state (this word was given prestige by Nikolai Karamzin's History). The Russian language also has the more ancient word Rus', the state that existed in Kiev before the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century. The word Rus' is sometimes used in Russian in a poetic way, to embrace all East Slavs -- it may include Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians; in some cases it designates Ukrainians and Belarusians only. In this last case, Rus' echoes the old English word "Ruthenia," which designates contemporary Belarus and Ukraine taken together but not "Muscovy," or Russia. Thus, to translate the word Rus' as "Russia" is fraught with ambiguities, yet this is routinely done by American historians.. .

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

It will be correct to translate it "in Russian" and call the language in which it is written "Old Belarusian".

This statement is wrong. Have a look in Wikipedia, please: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenian_language The term “the Ruthenian language’ appeared to exist. (To be honest I began to think that it is me who invented it. ). So indeed, that medieval clerk had to write “in Ruthenian”, not in Russian.

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

We are discussing your quaint insistence on being called by the name of a South French Gallic tribe.

It’s strange that you accuse me of causing a mess by insisting on being called “by the name of a South French Gallic tribe”. It wasn’t me who applied this term to inhabitants of our lands. I just tried to show you that there is no need to make a tragedy from it. At least Slovaks and Slovenes, Serbs and Lusatian Serbs take similar “problems” easy. So do I.

[Austrvegr]

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

The nicest thing in your post is you believe that Troki is (or should be) a Belarusian town, not a Lithuanian one. I may only agree.

I never said that. In fact, I couldn't care less how you deal with Lithuanians about it. My point was, the residence of the GD of Lithuania, which Belarusians believe was a Belarusian state, had a predominantly Tatar-Jewish population.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

We already discussed “Tatar” question.

Yes, I remember. You are proud of Belarusians' Tatar blood.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

There is no point in discussing the Jewish question, because after WWII the Jewish question doesn’t exist in Belarus any more. Let it be forgotten what is covered by ground.

Belarusians lived side by side and intermixed with Jews for many centuries. This is an important part of Belarusian history and identity. It should not be forgotten.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

Yep. Things might have been much worse - fortunately we have to boil in this pot Russians and Ukrainians mostly. Poles are harder to boil but I hope we’ll manage.

Even if you have boiled in so many Tatars and Jews, that doesn't mean that you will manage to boil in any Russians.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

Now about Ruthenian and Russian. (Yes, again!) There is a clear difference between the words Ðóñü, Ðóñ³í and Ðîññèÿ, ðóññêèé, right? I do believe that this difference in the meanings should be saved in translations into English. That’s all. My point of view is close to this comrade’s one (her name is Ewa M. Thompson). I agree with every word she wrote. But her words are more solid because she is a professor and I am not:This statement is wrong. Have a look in Wikipedia, please: Ruthenian language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The term “the Ruthenian language’ appeared to exist. (To be honest I began to think that it is me who invented it. ).

Sure it did. It was the Celtic language the Rutheni spoke.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

So indeed, that medieval clerk had to write “in Ruthenian”, not in Russian. It’s strange that you accuse me of causing a mess by insisting on being called “by the name of a South French Gallic tribe”. It wasn’t me who applied this term to inhabitants of our lands.

This term was also applied to inhabitants of our land. So what?

«Item caslrum Ysborch Ruthenorum expugnavit. Rutheni vero Plescowenses cremata civitate corum se illi subdiderunt. Reliquit aulem idem magister duos fratres cum paucis ibi pro conservacione castri ad augmentandum numerum conversorum. Sed Nogardenses hoc intelligentes relictos fratres cum familia subito amoverunt».

" ÕÐÎÍÈÊÀ ËÈÂÎÍÈÈ " ÃÅÐÌÀÍÀ ÂÀÐÒÁÅÐÃÀ Î ËÅÄÎÂÎÌ ÏÎÁÎÈÙÅ.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

I just tried to show you that there is no need to make a tragedy from it.

I am making no tragedy.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

At least Slovaks and Slovenes, Serbs and Lusatian Serbs take similar “problems” easy. So do I.

They don't have similar problems.

[Whiteruthenian]

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

Yes, I remember. You are proud of Belarusians' Tatar blood.

No, I am proud of Tatars’ Belarusian blood.

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

Belarusians lived side by side and intermixed with Jews for many centuries. This is an important part of Belarusian history and identity. It should not be forgotten.

What’s eating you, Austrvegr? I absolutely don’t care about Russians’ neighbours. (Btw, what is the English for “äî ëàìïî÷êè”, “to a bulb”? ) Jews lived all over Europe. Belarus was a part of Europe so they lived in Belarus too. They were closed cultural group and lived separately from Belarusians. To prove your ideas you should try to find some anthropological or genetic evidences, I think. God help you!

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

Even if you have boiled in so many Tatars and Jews, that doesn't mean that you will manage to boil in any Russians.

Let’s see.

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

Sure it did. It was the Celtic language the Rutheni spoke.

Read the link again. Twice. Attentively.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

Looks like you've happened to forget that the north-eastern part of Belarus is called Black Russia. That is what White Russia is contradistinguished from.

Originally Posted by svin

North-eastern? Rather western part of Belarus.

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

Yes, it was a mistake. I meant north-western, around Novogrudok, the place where the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was born.

Sorry to meddle here. I've been looking for information about the terms White Russian and Black Russian. I had never heard of Black Russians before. Traditionally, I had always seen White Russians to refer either to Tzarists or to Belarusians.

But apparently the ambiguity doesn't end here and further it extends to the term Black Russian.

I've found another definition for White and Black Russian.

In Israel they're sometimes called the "black Russians" to distinguish them from the "white Russians," a phrase that doesn't mean exactly what it used to.

The "white Russians" are the Ashkenazi Jews from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the other Slavic republics of the former Soviet Union. The "black Russians" come from farther east, in the predominantly Muslim former Soviet republics: Tadjikistan, Dagestan, Chechnya, Uzbekistan--and they come from ancient Jewish communities that were largely invisible to the Jewish world for eighty years, through a combination of government repression and obscure location.

Black Russians

Also, this is an interesting piece about the origins of the term White Russians:

According to some scholars white colour stood for freedom and independence. In the case of White Russia it could indicate independence from either Lithuania, or the Tartars (c.f. Mykhailo Dragomaniv, Matviei Liubawskii, A. Potebnia, Mitrafan Downar-Zapolski and others). To the same category of explanations belongs the opinion advanced by a Belarusian poet from the turn of the nineteenth century, Frantsishak Bahushevich, that Belarus is white because it is „clean: it had not oppressed or subjugated anyone, but had only defended itself”. This particular theory had been elevated to the status of a school handbook truth in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. Unfortunately, it does not explain at all why the name „White Russia” was used in the past in reference to territories very remote from modern Belarus.

Most interesting, here they use the term Black Russia again, but this time refering to the Duchy of Muscovy:

In Turkish languages white colour represents the west. Thus, „White Russia” is Western Russia from the point of view of the Tartars (A. Trubachiev, A. Agieieva, I. Griekov). W. Maczak developed this theory, arguing that Tartars called the western part of Russia located within the borders of Grand Duchy of Lithuania „White Russia”, the southern part of Russia located within the borders of the Kingdom of Poland „Red Russia” and the northern Russian lands , i.e. Muscovy under the sway of the Golden Horde, „Black Russia”. West European authors were hypothesized to have subsequently borrowed this division from the Tartars. To the above theory Viacheslav Ivanov added the hypothesis that the three-colour division of Russia was rooted in Old Slavonic symbolism which was only later modified under the influence of the Eurasian traditions. The colour theory of the four parts of the world is highly speculative since there is absolutely no written evidence which could explain how west European authors adopted Tartar terminology and, furthermore, why Black Russia, which hypothetically should comprise the northernmost Russian provinces, ended up to the west of White Russia, hypothetically the westernmost part of Russian lands.

The entire text is here: ÊÀÌÓͲÊÀÒ

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

No, I wouldn't. Why would I call you by the name of a Celtic tribe in South France

The rutheni, the gallic tribe of Rodez

In Spain, at school, we they used taught that the country was Bielorusia and their people were Bielorusos (Belarusians) or Rusos Blancos (White Russians). We don't have a word to define Rus and Russian separately, only Ruso.

I had never heard of something like Rutenia to refer to the area before WR used it here. So I was wondering. The word Ruteno exists in the dictionary of the Royal Academy as:

1. adj. It used to refer to the Ukrainian people.
2. adj. Belonging or related to this people.
3. adj. It used to refer to the Churches of the Orthodox liturgy which, in these regions, accepted the authority of the Pope.
4. m. Ukrainian dialect of Galitzia and Bukovina, in Central Europe.

Searching further I find that Ruthenia is the Latin term for Rus. So Ruthenia Alba would be Belarus. Consequently, Belarusian does not mean White Russian as I've always believed, but White Rus. Western Rus?

References:
Pravapis.org - Belarusian language - Belarus Ethnographic Map (1953)
Pravapis.org - Belarus - adjectives "Belarusian" and "Belarusan" - correct form

[Austrvegr]

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

No, I am proud of Tatars’ Belarusian blood.

And ashamed of Belarusians' Tatar blood?

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

What’s eating you, Austrvegr? I absolutely don’t care about Russians’ neighbours. (Btw, what is the English for “äî ëàìïî÷êè”, “to a bulb”? ) Jews lived all over Europe.

No, they were barred from entering Russia till 1917. They were also barred for a long period of time to enter England, Spain and other European countries.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

Belarus was a part of Europe so they lived in Belarus too.

They were specially invited to Belarus by its Lithuanian rulers starting from Gedimin and granted the most favored nation treatment.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

They were closed cultural group and lived separately from Belarusians.

No, they lived side by side with Belarusians and actively interacted with them. For example, Lithuanian rulers of Belarus leased their Belarusian serfs out to Jews.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

To prove your ideas you should try to find some anthropological or genetic evidences, I think. God help you! Let’s see.Read the link again. Twice. Attentively.

I have. My point once again: the erroneous terms Ruthenia and Rutheni was also applied to Russia and Russians.

[Whiteruthenian]

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

And ashamed of Belarusians' Tatar blood?

You are talking as if you can prove your statements.

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

No, they were barred from entering Russia till 1917. They were also barred for a long period of time to enter England, Spain and other European countries. They were specially invited to Belarus by its Lithuanian rulers starting from Gedimin and granted the most favored nation treatment.

No, they lived side by side with Belarusians and actively interacted with them.

There were a lot of things which had successfully prevented Jews from assimilation - their own belief, their racial consciousness, class barriers, kahals which provided self-isolation more than anything etc. When I said that they lived separately I meant that they lived in towns (it’s hard to imagine a Jew being peasant) and as separate communities.

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

For example, Lithuanian rulers of Belarus leased their Belarusian serfs out to Jews.

What terrible things you are saying! Could you provide a link so that I could read about it with my own eyes?

Again: what is eating you, Austrvegr? Something like a national inferiority complex or what? Could you explain?

Originally Posted by Austrvegr

I have. My point once again: the erroneous terms Ruthenia and Rutheni was also applied to Russia and Russians.

Do you mean the Latin terms? Because I mean the old English word ‘Ruthenia’, the meaning of which is very close to the meaning of the Old Belarusian word “Ðóñü”. And this Old Belarusian word (just like the old English word “Ruthenia”) was hardly applied to Muscovy, by the way.

This discussion is getting senseless. Probably it is possible for me to add a poll to this thread with the question “How should the word ‘Belarus’ be translated into English literally?”. Frankly I’m sure that the option “I don’t care” will get the vast majority of votes but it’s possible not to add this option to the poll.

[Ariets]

Białoruś, Białaruś