«If you quoted the price for an apartment not in dollars.» Belarusians are posting memes about what small things give away fake Belarusians.
It seems to many that impersonating a Belarusian is not difficult: they grew up in a post-Soviet country, mainly speak Russian, and watched the same Russian TV channels. But cultural markers will say more than the incorrect gesture of the agent in Tarantino's legendary scene.
A meme has become popular on social media about how easy it is to spot a person who is pretending to be Belarusian but is not.
In recent years, it has become common to hear from Russians and even Ukrainians who end up in Europe that they recommend introducing themselves as Belarusians because no one has any complaints about Belarusians, and everyone generally has a positive attitude toward them.
For foreigners, East Slavic peoples often look alike, including due to significant Russification. But for a Belarusian, it is much easier to recognize a fake compatriot—and not only by language.
Context of the meme
The meme is accompanied by a shot from Quentin Tarantino's «Inglourious Basterds.» In the famous scene, a British agent (played by Michael Fassbender) working undercover in Nazi Germany accidentally exposes himself in a bar.
Gestapo Sturmbannführer (August Diehl) finds the guest's accent suspicious, and he sits down at the table to find out the truth. The critical moment comes when the agent orders whiskey: with the words «drei Gläser» («three glasses»), he shows the waiter three fingers in the English manner—without the thumb. For the German, this gesture becomes the detail that confirms the correctness of his assumptions. It all ends in a brutal Tarantino-style shootout in the bar, in which almost everyone present dies.
It is the moment of recognizing the stranger's mistake that became the basis for a new meme about how a Belarusian will always notice in a fake Belarusian what is hidden from the eyes of another.
What gives away a non-Belarusian
According to Belarusians, first of all, a non-Belarusian is betrayed by the absence of marker Belarusian words that distinguish the Russian language of Belarusians. These are «шуфлядка» (shuflyadka — drawer), which has already become a meme in itself, «дзюбка» (dzyubka — beak), «буська» (buska — kiss), «байка» (bayka — sweatshirt), «жменя» (zhmenya — handful), «ссобойка» (ssoboyka — packed lunch), and also «вазон» (vazon — flowerpot) in the sense of a houseplant. Instead, in the language of a non-Belarusian, you can hear cumbersome constructions that grate on the Belarusian ear. Of course, using the word «Белоруссия» (Belorussiya — Byelorussia) can also give away a non-Belarusian, but it seems that many have already remembered that Belarusians never say that.
However, the episode from the Tarantino film illustrates more cultural and non-verbal differences than linguistic ones. Among such cultural markers, Belarusians mention ignorance of what the «three turtles» are doing, which are still pulling the Earth, ignorance of «Калыханка» (Kalykhanka — Lullaby), on which more than one generation of Belarusians was raised, or the character Pats-Vats from «Мультиклуб» (Multiklub — Cartoon Club), one of the most popular children's programs that was shown on the BT channel.
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