The Journal of Byelorussian Studies

Vol. VI, No. 1

CHRISTIAN, JEWISH AND MUSLIM TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE AND KORAN IN BYELORUSSIA: 16TH-19TH CENTURIES 
by P. Wexler 

The period of the 16th and 17th centuries was an exiting time in the cultural history of the Byelorussian lands. The early 16th century saw the publication in Prague of Francis Skarynaís translation of the Bible into a Byelorussian recension of Church Slavonic and the translation of the Old Testament into an even more colloquial <Eastern Slavonic> by a Jewish translator at the close of the 15th century or early 16th century. The small Tatar community in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania also translated Muslim liturgical works into a form of colloquial Byelorussian...

...A comparison of the three liturgical translations By Christian, Jewish and Muslim speakers of Byelorussian would undoubtedly contribute much to our understanding of colloquial Byelorussian and Byelorussian communal dialectology in the Byelorussian lands in the 16th-17th centuries...

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