ABSTRACT
The population at the end of 1998 was 10.2 million. Almost 80 per cent of the population are Belarussians and only 13 per cent are Russians (The Banker, March 1993, p. 47). In 1992 13 per cent of the population were ethnic Russians (The Economist, 10 July 1993, p. 33), while about 96 per cent of Belarussians speak Russian as their main tongue (The Economist, 20 May 1995, p. 37). There are 600,000 Poles (The Economist, Survey, 13 March 1993, p. 18). ‘Only 3 per cent of the people speak Belarussian at home. Russian predominates not only at the official level, but also in everyday life’ (CDSP, 2001, vol. 53, no. 52, p. 17).
