Cyrillic Alphabet: Difference between revisions

A fun thing: despite the name, in most of the [[Useful Notes/Belarus|Belarus]], Russian is the native language. Most people speak it both at home and in official settings, Belorussian being now mostly associated with poor farmers and the like, despite the government stating that both languages are official. In fact, up until the beginning of the 20th century Belorussian wasn't considered a language on its own at all, but was seen as a particularly rustic (and Polonized) dialect of Russian. One of the constant points of ridicule about Belorussian president Alexander Lukashenko is that being a country bumpkin he speaks neither Russian, nor Belorussian, but rather a common pidgin known as ''trasyanka'', which is widespread in the rural areas. Since the beginning of the 20th century Belorussian nationalists try to reinvent it as an elite language, but given that their chief activity seems to be more [[We ARE Struggling Together!|squabbling with each other]], the result is nowhere in sight, and their involvement actually seems to make the situation worse: now there are two separate literary dialects, and ''three'' writing systems, two using Cyrillic and third Latin.

[[Useful Notes/Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] was a member of the [[Warsaw Pact]] during the [[Cold War]], but is now a member of [[NATO]] and the [[European Union]] (as are the rest of the "buffer states"). It was also the country where the Cyrillic alphabet was created and first taught and used.