Belarusian Wikipedia is the Belarusian language version of Wikipedia. There are two Belarusian Wikipedias (;

Taraškievica Taraškievica (, ) or Belarusian Classical Orthography () is a variant of orthography of the Belarusian language, based on the literary norm of the modern Belarusian language, the first normalization of which was made by Branislaŭ Taraškiev ...

: Беларуская Вікіпэдыя, ''Bielaruskaja Vikipedyja''): one in the

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

of the

Belarusian language Belarusian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language. It is one of the two Languages of Belarus, official languages in Belarus, the other being Russian language, Russian. It is also spoken in parts of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Polan ...

which is official in modern

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

(''

Narkamaŭka Narkamaŭka (, or , ) is a colloquial name for the reformed Belarusian orthography. The name is derived from the Belarusian word ''narkam'' (), which was a short form for the early Soviet name for a people's commissar, '' narodny kamisar'' () in ...

'', prefix "be:"), and another one in the pre-reform of 1933, classical orthography (''Taraškievica'', prefix "be-tarask:", formerly "be-x-old:"). As of October 2023, the most popular editions of Wikipedia within Belarus are the

Russian Wikipedia The Russian Wikipedia () is the Russian language, Russian-language edition of Wikipedia. As of , it has :ru:Special:Statistics, articles. It was started on 11 May 2001. In October 2015, it became the sixth-largest Wikipedia by the number of ar ...

(with 88.0% of all

page views In web analytics and website management, a pageview or page view, abbreviated in business to PV and occasionally called page impression, is a request to load a single HTML file (web page) of an Internet site. On the World Wide Web, a page reques ...

) followed by the

English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition. English Wikipedia is hosted alongside o ...

(9.1%). The Belarusian Wikipedia has much fewer page views in comparison, making up 1.2% of Wikipedia requests from Belarus. There are currently articles on the official Narkamaŭka orthography and articles on the classical Taraškievica orthography.

History

The first Belarusian Wikipedia was started on 12 August 2004. One of its creators and first administrators was Uładzimir Katkoŭski (user name: rydel)."To stand for the Belarusian – in Belarusian!" (“Калі адстойваць беларускае, то па-беларуску!”)
, an interview with the parents of Uladzimir Katkouski by ''

Radio Liberty Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...

'', May 19, 2008 Katkouski/rydel (who died in 2007) created over 1,300 articles in the Belarusian Wikipedia alone. Articles in the Belarusian Wikipedia were inconsistently written in both variants of the orthography, leading to conflicts between the adherents of the two."Belarusian Language Encyclopedia amid of Scandal"
, March 27, 2007 A "clean" version in the official orthography was initiated in the Wikipedia's "

incubator An incubator is anything that performs or facilitates various forms of incubation, and may refer to: Biology and medicine * Incubator (culture), a device used to grow and maintain microbiological cultures or cell cultures * Incubator (egg), a dev ...

" at Wikimedia's

Meta-Wiki The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, the eighth most visited website ...

. The application for a new Wikipedia was approved in March 2007. Upon approval, in the evening of the same day, over 6,000 articles written in the pre-reform orthography were transferred from the "be.wikipedia.org" domain to "be-x-old.wikipedia.org", while the 3,500 pages from "Incubator" were moved to "be.wikipedia.org". However, due to a software bug, the move did not go smoothly: in the morning the articles seemed to have disappeared, and users could not log in. This led to a number of news reports that articles in old Belarusian orthography were deleted from Wikipedia. In September 2015, the domain name of the classical orthography Belarusian Wikipedias was changed from be-x-old.wikipedia.org to be-tarask.wikipedia.org, reflecting the official language subtag assigned by the

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, Autonomous system (Internet), autonomous system number allocation, DNS root zone, root zone management in the Domain Name Syste ...

in 2007. Including the time in the "incubator", the current variant of be-Wikipedia has existed since August 2006."Belarusian Encyclopedia Crossed the 10,000 Article threshold"
According to the Belarusian Wikipedian Volha Sitnik, the separation of the two Wikipedias was not very calm at first. However, as of 2023, the communities of the two Wikipedias in Belarusian language are having good relations and cooperate with each other. In 2024, the

Lithuanian Army The Lithuanian Armed Forces () are the military of Lithuania. The Lithuanian Armed Forces consist of the Lithuanian Land Forces, the Lithuanian Navy, the Lithuanian Air Force and the Lithuanian Special Operations Force. In wartime, the Lithuan ...

magazine ''

Karys ''Karys'' (literary: ''soldier'') is a Lithuanian-language military magazine published since 1919. It is a magazine about the Lithuanian Army and is geared towards the soldiers and the general public. During the interwar period (1919–1940) it was ...

'' dubbed the Belarusian Taraškievica Wikipedia as the " Litvinist Wikipedia" due to the abundance of pseudohistorical content in its pages.

Rates of contributions

Initially the official Belarusian Wikipedia overtook the classical one, but in about a year, it slowed down, and in fall 2008, the classical one was ahead. Today, the official Belarusian Wikipedia has again surpassed the one in the classical orthography. On 15 March 2008, the official Belarusian encyclopedia reached 10,000 articles. On 17 June 2009, the classical Belarusian encyclopedia reached 20,000 articles, holding the 65th place among other Wikipedias. At that time, the official Belarusian Wikipedia had about 16,000 articles, holding the 71st place."20,000th article in the Belarusian Wikipedia in Classical Orthography"
, ''

Nasha Niva ''Nasha Niva'' (, lit. "Our field") is one of the oldest Belarusian weekly newspapers, founded in 1906 and re-established in 1991. ''Nasha Niva'' became a cultural symbol, due to the newspaper's importance as a publisher of Belarusian literature ...

Online'', 17 June 2009 On 16 November 2010, the official Belarusian encyclopedia reached 25,000 articles. On 28 August 2015, the official Belarusian Wikipedia reached 100,000 articles.

References

External links

* *
Belarusian Wikipedia in the official orthography
* (Belarusian (Taraškievica orthography)
Belarusian Wikipedia in Taraškievica orthography
*
Belarusian Wikipedia in the official orthography mobile version
(homepage not yet configured) * (Belarusian (Taraškievica orthography)
Belarusian Wikipedia in Taraškievica orthography mobile version
(not fully supported) * Statistics for the normative Belarusian Wikipedia * Statistics for the classical Belarusian Wikipedia {{Wikipedias in Slavic languages Wikipedias in Slavic languages

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

Internet properties established in 2004

History

Rates of contributions

See also

References

External links