When school started this year for Mikalay in Belarus, the 15-year-old discovered that his teachers and administrators no longer called him by that name. Instead, they referred to him as Nikolai, its Russian equivalent.
What’s more, classes at his school — one of the country’s best — are now taught in Russian, not Belarusian, which he has spoken for most of his life.
Belarusians like Mikalay are experiencing a new wave of Russification as Moscow expands its economic, political and cultural dominance to overtake the identity of its neighbor.
It’s not the first time. Russia under the czars and in the era of the Soviet Union imposed its language, symbols and cultural institutions on Belarus. But with the demise of the USSR in 1991, the country began to assert its identity, and Belarusian briefly became the official language, with the white-red-white national flag replacing a version of the red hammer and sickle.
Unfortunately, I don’t speak much other than Portuguese and English. I’m trying to learn Latin, though.
Try Toki Pona or Esperanto. They are languages designed to be universal, with minimal words. Toki Pona only has around 130 words.
https://tokitrainer.com/
Those are in my list, too. I’m really interested in learning these. Unfortunately, I’m a distracted individual with terrible time management.
Esperanto does have some criticisms, most notably the fact that it’s too Eurocentric. A Chinese person is gonna have a FAR harder time learning it than, let’s say a Chilean.
Toki Pona on the other hand is basically an amalgamation of many unrelated languages, with simplified phonotactic rules to make it easier for… well, everyone. Also, they do have a logographic writing system like Chinese, but at least it looks like the exact thing it’s describing.
I like it, because everyone can use it. 130 words could easily be learned. Especially people with learning disabilities