Editing Belarusian language (section)

=== Post Second World War ===

After the Second World War, several major factors influenced the development of the Belarusian language. The most important was the implementation of the "[[russification|rapprochement and unification of Soviet people]]" policy, which resulted by the 1980s in the Russian language effectively and officially assuming the role of the principal means of communication, with Belarusian relegated to a secondary role. The post-war growth in the number of publications in the Belarusian language in BSSR drastically lagged behind those in Russian. The use of Belarusian as the main language of education was gradually limited to rural schools and humanitarian faculties. The BSSR counterpart of the USSR law "On strengthening of ties between school and real life and on the further development of popular education in the USSR" (1958), adopted in 1959, along with introduction of a mandatory 8-year school education, made it possible for the parents of pupils to opt for non-mandatory studying of the "second language of instruction," which would be Belarusian in a Russian language school and vice versa. However, for example in the 1955/56 school year, there were 95% of schools with Russian as the primary language of instruction, and 5% with Belarusian as the primary language of instruction.<ref>{{cite book |author=Станкевіч С. |title=Русіфікацыя беларускае мовы ў БССР і супраціў русіфікацыйнаму працэсу [1962]. / Прадмова В. Вячоркі. |publisher=Навука і тэхніка |year=1994 |isbn=5-343-01645-6 |place=Мн.}}</ref><ref name="Pereltsvaig">{{cite web |last1=Pereltsvaig |first1=Asya |date=8 September 2014 |title=Belarusian Language |url=https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/language-policy/belarusian-language.html |access-date=28 January 2024 |website=Languages Of The World}}</ref> The Belarusian was mostly used as a language of instruction in Belarusian rural schools or [[humanities]] faculties and was popularly regarded as an "uncultured, rural language of rural people".<ref name="Pereltsvaig" /> Consequently, Belarusian cities became Russian-speaking in the 1960s due to the lack of education in Belarusian language in schools and universities.<ref>{{cite web |title=Are Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians "one people"? |url=https://www.voiceofbelarus.org/article/are-russians-belarusians-and-ukrainians-one-people/ |access-date=26 May 2022 |website=Voice of Belarus}}</ref>

That was the source of concern for the nationally minded and caused, for example, the series of publications by [[Barys Sachanka]] in 1957–61 and the text named "Letter to a Russian Friend" by [[Alyaksyey Kawka]] (1979). The BSSR Communist party leader [[Kirill Mazurov]] made some tentative moves to strengthen the role of Belarusian language in the second half of the 1950s.<ref>See ''Modern history of Belarus'' by Mironowicz.</ref>

After the beginning of Perestroika and the relaxing of political control in the late 1980s, a new campaign in support of the Belarusian language was mounted in BSSR, expressed in the "Letter of 58" and other publications, producing a certain level of popular support and resulting in the BSSR Supreme Soviet ratifying the "Law on Languages" ("{{lang|be|Закон аб мовах}}"; 26 January 1990) requiring the strengthening of the role of Belarusian in state and civic structures.

==== 1959 reform of grammar ====

A discussion on problems in Belarusian orthography and on the further development of the language was held from 1935 to 1941. From 1949 to 1957 this continued, although it was deemed there was a need to amend some unwarranted changes to the 1933 reform. The Orthography Commission, headed by [[Yakub Kolas]], set up the project in about 1951, but it was approved only in 1957, and the normative rules were published in 1959.<ref>The BSSR Council of Ministers approved the project of the Commission on Orthography "On making more precise and on partially changing the acting rules of Belarusian orthography" ({{lang|be|«Аб удакладненні і частковых зменах існуючага беларускага правапісу»}}) on 11 May 1957. The project served as a basis for the normative ''Rules of the Belarusian Orthography and Punctuation'' ({{lang|be|«Правілы беларускай арфаграфіі і пунктуацыі»}}), published in 1959.</ref> These rules had been accepted as normative for the Belarusian language since then, receiving minor practical changes in the 1985 edition.

A project to correct parts of the 1959 rules was conducted from 2006 to 2007.