FRANCISK SKORINA'S ROLE IN DEVELOPING THE VOCABULARY OF THE OLD BELARUSIAN LITERARY AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

The article is devoted to determining Francisk Skaryna’s role in developing the vocabulary of the Old Belarusian literary and written language. It examines the Bible editions issued by the first Belarusian book printer in Prague for lexical units of the Proto-Slavic, Old Russian, Church Slavonic, West Slavic, and West European origin and determines their impact on the Old Belarusian lexicon. The proper Belarusian word-formation system receives the most detailed account. The main focus is made on the lexical units which can be considered a product of the first Belarusian printer’s word-formation activity.