Perception of the Ukrainian Traditions in Belarus Terminology
Authors: Skopnenko Oleksandr 
Published: March 2020

The development of the terminology of each language depends on the socio-cultural conditions in which the carriers of this idiom live. This is a major factor affecting the configuration of the entire terminology system, and the features of its individual parts, and the general tradition of terminology, serving as one of the parties to standardize the literary language. An example of such a establishedness can be the difficult and controversial formation of terminology in the language of the colonized people, which by any cultural acts, even at first glance, the capitulatory, hides the general idea of its resistance to the dominant language and culture. In the social typology of languages, national terminology plays a prominent role, since it affects the characterization of several relevant attributes of the idiom. Terminology directly depends and at the same time to a certain extent determines the power of foreign-language influences, the communicative sphere of language, and also indirectly determines the degree of tradition of the idiom. In other words, it affects half of the parameters required to create a language characteristic by the methods of social typology. Certainly, throughout all history these parameters do not remain constant, vary depending on cultural-historical conditions.
Belarusian linguistics has a long tradition of studying the principles and methods of creating terminology. However, terminology in Belarus as an independent scientific discipline was formed only in the second half of the twentieth century. Based on various sources, researchers analyzed botanical, grammatical, entomological, agricultural, philosophical, legal, automotive, water transport, and others varieties of terminology in the Belarusian language. However, the problem of the perception of Ukrainian traditions in the Belarusian terminology has still little studied.
In the scientific level, the issues of foreign-language influences on the lexical subsystem of the new Belarusian literary language (respectively, and on the Belarusian terminology) were first raised in the 1920’s when there were active processes of codification of the idiom. Purposeful and scientifically substantiated Belarusian terminology was initiated in 1921-1922, since it was at this time that the first (mathematical) dictionary from the series “Belarusian Scientific Terminology”, as well as 8 terminological collections containing materials on grammar, logic, arithmetic, algebra, botany, geometry, trigonometry. However, the general codification, and hence the beginning of the terms of the Belarusian language, was initiated in 1918, during the First World War, when under the auspices of the occupation headquarters of the German Army in the East, was printed “Sieben-Sprachen Wörterbuch: Deutsch, Polnisch, Russisch, Weißruthenisch, Litauisch, Lettisch, Jiddisch”, is also known in the history of lexicography as “The Lexicon of the Belarusian Language in German Processing”, or the Seven-language Glossary.
Vilnius (in the Belarusian tradition for the name of this city was used exonym Vilna) played the role of the leading cultural centre in the Belarusian national revival until the 1930s. In the first half of the 20’s of the twentieth century the study literature originally came out in Vilnius, but only later – in Minsk, which was separated from the western Belarusian lands by the state Polish-Soviet border (in fact since 1919, legally since 1921 – after the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty). Terminology created in the western Belarusian lands during the 1920’s was freely used in Soviet Belarus.
Ukrainian influences on Belarusian terminology were not limited to only one era, alternating throughout the period of the formation and development of a new Belarusian literary language. Let’s say they are quite expressive in the nineteenth century, in the 20’s and 30’s of the twentieth century. As a result, a number of elements of Ukrainian origin have been consolidated in the Belarusian linguistic terminology.
After the language reform of 1933 and up to our time, the researchers of Belarus mostly focused on studying the role of the Russian language as the main source of borrowing in the field of Belarusian terminology. The influence of Ukrainian tradition on the terminological system of the Belarusian language from the second half of the twentieth century gradually weakens, but it does not fade well in our time. The study of this problem in a wide range of Belarusian texts will allow us to show in which groups of lexicon the perception of Ukrainian traditions are most entrenched.