{"id":12558,"date":"2026-08-25T01:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T22:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/?p=12558"},"modified":"2026-09-13T19:51:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T16:51:52","slug":"gem-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/rheme-catcher\/gem-04\/","title":{"rendered":"What mystery lies hidden in half-forgotten Belarusian words, and what did witches use?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"podcastplayer\"><figure class=\"wp-block-audio podcastplayer\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/anchor.fm\/s\/1152054d4\/podcast\/play\/124681706\/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-7-24%2F430466456-44100-2-35cfe1e2fcfce.m4a\" preload=\"none\"><\/audio><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"mks_dropcap_letter\" style=\"font-size: 72px; color: #dd3c7a; \">S<\/span>ome words gradually disappear from everyday speech. This can happen for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes the generation for whom those words were ordinary and natural passes away, and younger people simply do not pick them up. Or prolonged russification can affect the language, gradually leading us to abandon some of our own words. At other times, social or historical factors may be at work. So it is not always possible to point to a single reason why a word stopped being heard. But if it still survives in people\u2019s memories or in dictionaries, we can try to catch it and bring it back into the language.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the fourth episode of the podcast \u201cThe Rheme Catcher,\u201d Zhenya and Uladzik (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.harbacki.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Uladzislau Harbacki<\/a> \u2013 a sociolinguist and gender studies scholar) set off down the trail of half-forgotten words. This time, they catch one. For Uladzislau, the word had remained a personal mystery for many years, and the search for its meaning turned into a real linguistic detective story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uladzislau had often heard his grandmother use the word <em>kilchyba<\/em>. From the context, he could of course tell that it referred to something bad, but he did not know exactly what the word meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One conversation between his grandmother and a doctor stuck with him in particular. When the doctor asked his grandmother what she could prescribe for her, she replied, \u201cJust prescribe me some kind of <em>kilchyba<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The doctor did not understand the word. Perhaps she thought, \u201cThe old lady isn\u2019t speaking clearly, or she\u2019s simply making something up.\u201d Later, his grandmother passed away, but <em>kilchyba<\/em> remained a mystery to Uladzislau. For years, he was convinced it was a word used only in the Vitebsk region. That seemed all the more likely because even his fellow linguists could not explain it. The answer came much later \u2013 in the archives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While working with a dictionary compiled by linguist Yazep Tsikhinski, Uladzislau finally came across the familiar word. Tsikhinski spent several decades compiling a large Belarusian-russian-Polish dictionary with definitions. Correspondents from different parts of Belarus helped him by sending in local words and expressions. The dictionary was never published and is preserved in Vilnius. It helped establish one important fact: in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, <em>kilchyba<\/em> was not confined to the Vitebsk region \u2013 it was known much more widely. Now it has simply disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And at last it became clear what his grandmother had meant. <em>Kilchyba<\/em> had several meanings, all of them related in one way or another to poison.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to one definition, it was a poisonous plant similar to herb Paris. In folk tales and legends, it was sometimes associated with witches, who were said to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there was another meaning as well. <em>Kilchyba<\/em> could also refer to poison, including strychnine. It was in this broader sense that Uladzislau\u2019s grandmother used the word. She once explained that <em>kilchyba<\/em> was used to poison mice or rats. And when his grandmother asked the doctor to prescribe her \u201cat least some <em>kilchyba<\/em>,\u201d she was joking. Everything hurt, and she felt terrible. It was her way of emphasizing just how bad she felt. \u201cSo it\u2019s a good thing the doctor didn\u2019t know the word and didn\u2019t prescribe any <em>kilchyba<\/em>,\u201d Uladzislau adds with a touch of humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Kilchyba<\/em> is unlikely to become a word we use every day. But that does not mean it should remain forgotten. Especially since bringing old words back does not mean they have to replace the ones we use now. They can exist alongside them as synonyms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Uladzislau, <em>kilchyba<\/em> has a personal significance. It is a genuine Belarusian word that was known in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it also reminds him of Vitebsk and his grandmother. And when he finally found the explanation, Uladzislau said, \u201cIt felt as though my grandmother were speaking to me again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Send us your words in the comments or by email at Belarus FM. Remember that you can delete the message from your Sent folder after sending it.<br>Our e-mail address is: <a href=\"mailto:help@belarus.fm\">help@belarus.fm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourth episode of the podcast \u201cThe Rheme Catcher,\u201d Zhenya and Uladzik (Uladzislau Harbacki \u2013 a sociolinguist and gender studies scholar) set off down the trail of half-forgotten words. This time, they catch one. For Uladzislau, the word had remained a personal mystery for many years, and the search for its meaning turned into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[418],"tags":[347],"class_list":["post-12558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rheme-catcher","tag-audio-in-belarusian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}