There are some give aways - local words that only people from Belarus use. "Байка" is the one that I can remember, it means a hoodie, but only in Belarusian Russian, people wouldn't understand it anywhere else.
Speaking about the accent, I wouldn't be as categorical as others. I think Belarusians who grew up in big cities usually have little to no accent or a touch of an accent.
Personally, as a Russian speaker from outside of Belarus who has friends all over CIS region, I would have a hard time distinguishing a student from Minsk from a student from Voronezh. However, many belarusians tend to pronounce "ч" differently. They pronounce it hard (the same way as in Belarusian language), whereas in Russian it can only be soft. Learning polish I've struggled with this sound so much, because in polish "cz" is also pronounced the same way as Belarusian "ч".
My experience is that Belarusians who have accent in Russian (such as hard ч) would generally be older people (generally over 60), especially those who grew up in rural areas or smaller towns. People younger than that would pronounce everything exactly as it suppose to sound in standard Russian. You are right about usage of certain words (шуфлядка, байка, калыханка, болька, шкарлупка, etc.), that's the main giveaway for Belarusians.
I agree, I personally really adore Lukashenko's accent, he sounds as Belarusian as can be. Funnily enough I've almost never heard him speaking Belarusian (except for a couple of sentences).
3
u/preparing4exams 11d ago
There are some give aways - local words that only people from Belarus use. "Байка" is the one that I can remember, it means a hoodie, but only in Belarusian Russian, people wouldn't understand it anywhere else.
Speaking about the accent, I wouldn't be as categorical as others. I think Belarusians who grew up in big cities usually have little to no accent or a touch of an accent.
Personally, as a Russian speaker from outside of Belarus who has friends all over CIS region, I would have a hard time distinguishing a student from Minsk from a student from Voronezh. However, many belarusians tend to pronounce "ч" differently. They pronounce it hard (the same way as in Belarusian language), whereas in Russian it can only be soft. Learning polish I've struggled with this sound so much, because in polish "cz" is also pronounced the same way as Belarusian "ч".