Łacinka alphabet
The Łacinka alphabet (Cyrillic: лацінка) is the variant of the Latin alphabet which was used for writing the Belarusian language. Texts using Łacinka first appeared during the sixteenth century. Official use ceased after Belarus joined the Soviet Union in 1921 in favour of the Cyrillic alphabet; by the end of the Second World War its use was practically non-existent.
The Łacinka alphabet developed from similar Latin alphabets in use in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which included current-day Belarus, and as such is related to the Polish alphabet. Some of its letters were modelled after Czech alphabet, designed by Jan Hus. However, it has unique features, most notably the letter ŭ, which is found in neither of those alphabets (though it is used in Esperanto).
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of Belarus some groups have advocated reviving the Łacinka alphabet, but as of 2004 very few people use it.
The Łacinka alphabet is thus:
| A | B | C | Ć | Č | D | Dz | Dź | Dž | E | F | G | H | Ch | I | J | K | L | Ł | M | N | Ń | O | P | R | S | Ś | Š | T | U | Ŭ | V | Y | Z | Ź | Ž |
| a | b | c | ć | č | d | dz | dź | dž | e | f | g | h | ch | i | j | k | l | ł | m | n | ń | o | p | r | s | ś | š | t | u | ŭ | v | y | z | ź | ž |
Official acceptance of the Łacinka
An official transliteration system for Cyrillic Belarusian, which was very similar to Łacinka, was introduced by the Belarus State Land Resources, Geodesy, and Cartography Committee on November 23, 2000. Its main difference from Łacinka is the use of the softening rule with the letters Ńń - Nn , Ćć – Cc, Ĺĺ – Ll . The letter Ł ł is absent.
