Customer Reviews

Byelorussian-English/English Byelorussian Dictionary (Concise Dictionary)

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

because i was told by several native belarussians that they could not understand a word i was saying, if not for my enlgish translation with it? so must be wrong somehow who knows ????! i am giving it away paranoid to use it now

For what it is, and knowing how hard it is to obtain a Byelorussian (Belarusian) dictionary, this is a great book. It has 2 main sections: The Byelorussian-English and the English-Byelorussian. In the back, there's also the English alphabet, as well as the Byelorussian one (the Cyrillic one, not the original Lacinka). It's kind of hard to read it (the dictionary) at first, because it seems like it was originally written on a typewriter, but you get used to it and find it convenient. There's also a phoentic section for the ones who are too lazy to learn the Byelorussian alphabet, which is helpful if you're one of those kind of people. Overall, a pretty good book for what it is.

For what it is -- and knowing how hard it is to obtain a Byelorussian (Belarusian)-English dictionary, this one is pretty good. It seems that it was originally written on a typewriter and then printed on "dictionary-like paper," but you get used to it after a while. It includes two main sections: a Byelorussian-English and an English-Byelorussian one. Then, in the back, there are the Byelorussian as well as the English alphabets, followed by a "code" to what each letter in Byelorussian and English sounds like, with examples. Alongside every word in the dictionary, there are phoenitics, too; so those who are too lazy to learn the actual Byelorussian alphabet (which is actually very useful, because learning it will also mean you're learning the Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and current Mongolian alphabets, albeit some minor differences). This dictionary defines and uses the post-1933 Byelorussian (Narkomovka), which is similar to the Byelorussian before that (Taskarevitza), with the exception of some minor spelling differenences (most notably the "soft sign" (miakki znak) is used a lot less in the Narkomovka version). The reason the language was "updated" in 1933 is because Stalin wanted to Russify the Byelorussian language to make it more like Russian, although it already is (and was) close enough to Russian that both were, for the most part, mutually intelligable. Overall, knowing how hard it's to find a Byelorussian dictionary of any kind here, I'll give this a 4 out of 5.

While visiting friends in Belarus, they informed me that the examples for pronouncing some Byelorussian words is incorrect.

Hard as it is to find Belarusian-English dictionaries, this volume does a disservice to the Belarusian language and hardly fills the void. It is grossly inaccurate in some respects -- for example, substituting "g" (a sound not native to Belarusian) for "h" in its "pronunciation" guides. The vocabulary is limited, and in some cases marred by Russianisms rather than genuine Belarusian words. It also provides only imperfective versions of verbs, rather than their perfective versions too -- a very important distinction in any Slavic language. Plus, sloppy editing results in poor cross-referencing -- some words appear in the Belarusian section, others only in the English section. Unless one is familiar with Belarusian already, this book can be extremely misleading, more a hindrance than a help. Hippocrene Books needs to maintain better standards of scholarship before publishing.

This dictionary might be fine for tourists, but I bought it to try to read entries from a Belarusian archaeological encyclopedia. None of the words I need help with are in the dictionary. The dictionary doesn't give any information on figuring out the Russian equivalents of Belarusian spelling, either, so there's no way for me to use it to look the Belarusian words up in a Russian dictionary. I wish someone would publish a Belarusian dictionary suitable for English-speakers who are trying to read old Belarusian documents and books about Belarusian history.