„Naša Niva” na skrzyżowaniu kultur: dowody na różnych płaszczyznach języka gazety
“Naša Niva” on the crossroads of cultures: evidence from various levels of language based on the newspaper

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines certain peculiarities of the Belarussian language in Naša Niva, the first official weekly newspaper, issued between November 1906 and August 1915. Interference phenomena, which are the result of repeated language contact between Belarussian on the one hand and Polish as well as Russian on the other hand, can be found on various levels of language. First the graphematics will be in focus, as a special case of language contact is represented in the simultaneous appearence of the newspaper in cyrillic and latin script (łacińka) between November 1906 and October 1912. In contrast to many other papers on Naša Niva, the editions issued in latin alphabet constitute the central interest of the present paper. Second, the graphematics will be addressed, since the graphematic system of the initial phase of the newspaper was characterized by strong similarity to Polish one. Thias was expressed in the use of digraphs (sz, cz) and diacritics (ć, ń, ł, ś, ż, ż). In the later phase the diagraphs and the diacritic ż were replaced by typical czech characters, č, š and ž while diacritics denoting palatalization persisted. Third, the plurality of orthographics, independent of the used alphabet, will be illustrated on the four phonetic phenomena that are characteristic for the Belarussian language, namely, akan’e, jakan’e, cekan’e and dzekan’e. The paper proviedes an analysis of the doublets in graphematics, phonology, morphonology, morphology and lexics.

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