Trasianka

From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.

Trasianka (be: трасянка) is a unique feature of Belarusian language, the Belarusian-Russian patois. Trasianka (or, alternatively spelled, trasyanka) is the kind of language that villagers in Belarus typically speak. It's used by the villagers who natively spoke Belarusian, but abandoned it in favor of Russian (as more "urban" and "fashionable" language), and ended up speaking this mixture. Trasianka speakers use mostly Russian vocabulary, but preserve the phonetical features of Belarusian. In Belarusian language the word itself "trasianka" literally means low quality hay, when indigent farmers mix (shake - трасуць) fresh grass with the yesteryear's dried hay. There are certain social problems with speaking in trasianka, especially the issue of generation gap that trasianka and literary Belarusian create between parents and children, and the rejection and alienation that has been experienced by some nationalistic activists who insist on using correct literary Belarusian. There is a similar sociolinguistic phenomenon in Ukraine, an Ukrainian-Russian pidgin that is called surzhik. Overall, trasianka has been ignored by the mainstream linguists and sociologists in Belarus and abroad. There are several comedians in Belarus (for example Sasha and Sirozha) who use trasianka in their comic skits.