Belarusian is an East Slavic language that descends from the Old East Slavic spoken in Kievan Rus. It developed its distinct character during the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in which Belarusian (then called Ruthenian) served as the official chancery language. After centuries of Russification under the Russian Empire and Soviet rule, Russian displaced Belarusian as the dominant everyday language of most Belarusians. Today Belarus is officially bilingual — both Russian and Belarusian hold co-official status — yet Russian is spoken at home by the majority of the population. Belarusian has a distinctive feature among East Slavic languages: the letter 'ŭ' (short u), used where Russian and Ukrainian have 'v' or 'l' in certain positions, giving it a softer rhythmic quality. The Latin-script version of Belarusian, called Łacinka, has seen a revival among cultural activists.
